Chuck their are ways to purge the info from the physical terminal.
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I'm confused as to how someone could reach this conclusion for the reasons already stated by other posters. My password was 4 random letters, followed by 2 random numbers, followed by 3 random letters. There is no way anyone could guess it. Yes, I did use that same exact password at multiple sites, but none of those other sites was affected.
Are we just supposed to believe that it is a coincidence that these hackings have been happening to players at BetPhoenix and nowhere else???
1. BP has terrible security. They used to show the users password in the URL. All of their CS employees can see every customers password in the database.
2. At least 4 people have reported having their accounts hacked at BP. Two of these people have received full refunds.
3. I haven't seen any reports of hacks elsewhere. BP is basically my smallest sportsbetting account, and we're not even talking about my bank/brokerage accounts. Why would BP be the only account affected if my password had been compromised elsewhere?
4. How did they know my BP account number?
Shouldn't the simplest explanation, even if the most inconvenient for BP, be considered the most likely? Why resort to conjecturing about crazy, totally unlikely coonicidences?
Here are the facts:
1. people's accounts are being hacked at BP
2. these people don't know each other
3. these people have relatively large account balances
4. these people have not experienced hacking anywhere else
5. BP has such poor software security that they used to show your password in the URL when you logged in
6. every employee, or anyone else with access to their database/system, can see each and every customers password (no encryption, no nothing)
And from this we conclude that the users are at fault for using the same password at other random sites???
Another thing I want to mention... I am pretty sure that each of the victims we know about has the following in common:
1. taken max or close to max withdrawal at least once prior to hacking
2. had limits cut by BP, or discount lines taken away (undesirable customers)
3. thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in the account
There are a lot of clues here, but none of them point to passwords being compromised at some other site.Comment -
Also, BP has claimed to me that they can only see my IP address as having logged in. Where does this fit into the current theory?
And a question for anyone who might know...
I asked BP if they could see the MAC ID of the computer which logged in. They said no. Does this sound right?Comment -
Many sites aren't terribly secure with account numbers, and a lot of them mention the account number in the emails they send. I've gotten plenty of promotional emails from BP with my account number in the email. And as I recall, when they were transmitting the password in the URL they were also transmitting the account number.Comment -
If you have the same password to your e-mail account that you do five other sportsbooks, including a bank account, and poker account - you're really not being very secure no matter how you slice it.
From working complaints on a daily basis for nearly two years, I've personally fielded at least a dozen similar complaints against a range of sportsbooks. Often a player will have busted his account via casino play or other high-risk wagers. It can be a tactic used for someone attempting a freeroll on a sportsbook, or used as a lead in to a credit card charge-back. This isn't to discredit your story, because the data examined so far has corroborated your time-line.
Employees wouldn't need to take advantage of poor programming technique to access your password. The only person that would take advantage of this is a hacker who has already entered your network and ran a network traffic sniffer. That's assuming your network was configured securely, which may or may not be accurate based on your password tendencies.
We haven't reached a conclusion yet, but hope to receive a final set of information from BetPhoenix soon that hopefully help spot how this occurred, and if there was in fact a common denominator (unbeknownst to the players) to the accounts.Comment -
There is no way for me to make my accounts or network "un-hackable". It is not possible. Google gets hacked. NASA gets hacked. The CIA gets hacked. If a skilled hacker had the resources and the time, and decided to target me, they would eventually be successful.
Even if I had 15 strong, random passwords for my 15 different online accounts, and changed them weekly, I could still not claim to be 100% secure. And what if I had to write these passwords down in order to remember them? BP could seize on that red herring instead.
This whole line of discussion misses the main points though. All of the evidence points to there being a problem over at BP. The relative strength of my security is barely relevant compared to all of the other facts. It just doesn't fit that random people (on different continents) are being hacked, and that the hacker only focuses on screwing with their BP accounts. That doesn't make any sense. It's like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.
This has happened to AT LEAST four BP customers in the last few months. How many more customers has this happened to without our hearing about it? When it happened to Chantech, he was refunded the VERY SAME DAY. It sure sounds like they had an idea of what had happened to his account.
That sounds about right to me, and if you say this is your experience, I totally believe it. All I can say is that I logged into my account to see a bunch of bets that I didn't place! Most of these bets contained games which had NOT started when I contacted BP, so it would be tough for me to expect much profit out of such a hare-brained scheme.From working complaints on a daily basis for nearly two years, I've personally fielded at least a dozen similar complaints against a range of sportsbooks. Often a player will have busted his account via casino play or other high-risk wagers. It can be a tactic used for someone attempting a freeroll on a sportsbook, or used as a lead in to a credit card charge-back. This isn't to discredit your story, because the data examined so far has corroborated your time-line, but let's not ignore the fact that most of these complaints are akin to the boy who cried wolf in this industry.
I have done some gambling and funds transferring with people in the poker community. People will send me money on Full Tilt, and I will then transfer the same amount to their 5Dimes account. I will place no-vig wagers with them, and pay off on FTP after the game (if I lose). We are talking amounts larger than the amount stolen from my BP account. As a gambler, I would always be concerned about my reputation as being dependable when it comes to transfers, wagers, staking, etc.
I can put you in contact with various random people (whom I don't know "in real life") who can vouch for me.
I do have a secure network (as I understand the term anyway). It is password protected. To do what you describe, would the hacker have to be in my general vicinity? I don't know much about hacking. If so, did the same guy travel to Europe just to **** with pjesnick's BP account?Employees wouldn't need to take advantage of poor programming technique to access your password. The only person that would take advantage of this is a hacker who has already entered your network and ran a network traffic sniffer. That's assuming your network was configured securely, which may or may not be accurate based on your password tendencies.
Also, it's not like my password tendencies are the worst imagineable or something. It did have 9 random numbers and letters. It is easy to talk about the theory behind optimal selection/management of passwords, but entirely impossible to put it into practice. Do you have strong (numbers, letters, random caps) passwords for each and every seperate account? Do you change these passwords weekly? Do you make sure not to write them down anywhere? Do you see how ridiculous this is?
If BP needs any info from me, they can feel free to contact me. I haven't heard anything from them, and they tend to ignore my emails.We haven't reached a conclusion yet, but hope to receive a final set of information from BetPhoenix soon that hopefully help spot how this occurred, and if there was in fact a common denominator (unbeknownst to the players) to the accounts.Comment -
KGambler, sorry for not getting back to your pm... don't have 25 posts yet so the pm feature is disabled. You can read my story here: http://forum.sbrforum.com/sportsbook...-payments.htmlComment -
The hacker strikes shortly after a payout request is made.Comment -
On the 16th of March I made a $4K withdrawal via live chat. For those wondering, you MUST use live chat to withdraw there (probably you can call on the phone too).
They DON'T have a functioning cashier on their webpage, so everyone who initially tries to cash out goes to live chat to report the broken cashier page, only to be told cashouts are via live chat.
On March 24th I logged into my account to see that it had been broken into. The earliest hack bets had been placed around 2 A.M. of March 23rd.Comment -
wheres richard?Comment -
Did BP fix their cashier's page for withdrawals? I now am able to choose from a few options today. First time I have been able to since I played there I think.
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They let you choose withdrawal options now.Comment -
I'm close to completing my rollover on a bonus so I thought that might have had something to do with it. Guess not.Comment -
Did KGambler have this resolved yet?Any updates?Comment -
Any Update?
BP sucks hardComment -
Still under investigationComment -
Whats the latest on this Bet Phoenix fiasco?Comment -
Hmmm Kgambler hasnt logged in since April 20th. Was he a fraud? Maybe BP had him whacked??Comment -
There's not much new. BP has not contacted me a single time, or told me anything. I received an email from SBR which said that BP had found that Marauders and I have the same "third party" and that they are looking into this as a possible source of the problem. I am 99% sure that I cleared my cookies and then clicked on a BP banner here on SBR, so SBR should be my affiliate! BP has my affiliate listed as some guy with an Asian name who I have never heard of. BP can not/will not tell me who this guy is or how he became my affiliate.
I PM'ed Marauders and asked him who he expected his affiliate should be. He said that he also expected SBR to be his affiliate. Probably BP is cheating SBR, but SBR clearly is extremely happy with their business relationship, so there must be other, significant revenue streams.
Here's my last chat with BP (from April 27th):
info: Please wait for a site operator to respond.
info: You are now chatting with 'Wendy'
Wendy: Hello. How may I assist you?
Mike: Hi. My account was hacked and your management has supposedly been looking into it. I have not heard anything for weeks though. Can I talk with someone about this?
Wendy: one sec please
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to XXXXX at the end of your chat.
info: Please wait while I transfer the chat to 'Jason'.
info: You are now chatting with 'Jason'
Jason: hello
Mike: Hi Jason. I am still waiting for some answers, or at least for an update, or a final decision
Jason: Hey Mike...
Jason: just got back in town..
Jason: have not heard anything
Mike: Can you tell me who my affiliate is/third party is?
Jason: someone by the name of XXXXXX
Mike: Who the hell is that?
Mike: And how did he become my affiliate?
Jason: to be honest...i just got back in to town..so let me find richard and see what is going on
Mike: I would really like to talk to Richard. On the phone or here on chat is fine. I can call him tomorrow if that is better
Jason: that would be better
Jason: i will let him know you will call him tomorrow...when i see him
Mike: OK, thanks. Please do that. What is his extension?
Jason: XXXX
Mike: Thanks. What is AFFILIATE NAME's referral code?
Jason: XXXXX
Mike: OK, thanks for the help. I will call Richard tomorrow afternoon. I hope we can bring this investigation to a conclusion sometime in the near future.
Jason: me too
Mike: goodbye
Jason: have a good night
Jason: bye
I called BP the next day and asked to be transferred to the given extension code. The CS said "You want to talk to (not sure of name but definitely not Richard)???" I said, "No, I want to talk to Richard". She then asked who I was and what I wanted to talk about. She said, "OK, let me see if he is here" and came back on the line a few minutes later to tell me that Richard is not there. In other words, he didn't want to talk to me.
I am going to make one more try and then write the money off as lost and start my anti-BP campaign.
Marauders, any updates? I know BP has claimed to be investigating your case for months now.Last edited by KGambler; 05-06-10, 11:11 AM.Comment -
this thing is getting out of handComment -
I am done with Skybook & Betphoenix.Comment -
I just pulled out nearly 10k from those two companies so I feel real fortunate nothing funny went on with my accts.Comment -
I have not heard back anything from BP at all. I am relying on Lou to help me sort this fiasco out. I last emailed Lou for an update on Apr28 and he replied saying that, 'We are analyzing a weird piece of data recently provided by BetPhoenix, and hope to know more by the weekend.' The weekend have long pass but I still haven't heard back from him.
Lou, if you are reading this, can you give us an update of the situation?
Thanks!
Marauders
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SBR needs to get an answer from Bet Phoenix. This "ongoing investigation" BS is not cutting it. Just like their slow pay excuses.Comment -
Bet Phoenix
Any updates on the latest money disappearing hack job?Comment -
^^ what are you, a shill for a diff book?? why do i always see u bringing up these threads...the op hasnt even mentioned anything on it, so why dont you wait to hear from him instead. i dislike BP personally of bad exp w/ payouts, but seeing you keep reviving a dead thread is annoyingComment -
I don't know, I kind of appreciate it, as I expect you would if you were in my position. BP clearly wants this to go away. I am not holding my breath to get any real help from SBR... Is it just me, or is it pretty clear that they are acting as apologists for BP?
I still have not received any of the info I requested from BP (IP logs, my chat logs, who the hell the guy is that they list as my affiliate, etc.) As far as I know, they haven't told Marauders jack shit either, and they have been dicking him around for MONTHS now.
When a customer has his money stolen from a disreputable book, sports bettors need to stick together and demand action. Otherwise, we will always get ****ed. There are too many scumbags in this industry, and no real enforcement of regulations.
Who can I go to? Who can help me?Comment -
kgambler, as youve mentioned, this industry is full of assholes and scammers.... which is why the U.S. doesnt want to get involved with any of it and rather ban it....meaning they dont give a shit unless someone opens a book here in the states.... so when books steal money, theres absolutely nothing that can be done....the books make their own rules and we bettors have to go with whatever they say whether we like it or not....
at this point i wouldve personally gave up on getting my money back...its impossible to win an argument with a wall... as far as your affiliates whatsoever, you may have went to another website before visiting this forum..although youve mentioend you cleared your cookies...there are always popups etc... its hard to say online....
bottomline, it doesnt matter who your affiliates are, they dont work in the bp office... if i was in your shoes, i would tell bp or sbr not to push the blame around and just give your money back if they screwed up. and hey, if they dont, then eat it as a lost and make sure others dont do the same... theres nothing we can do..... sportsbook are illegal anyways if you are in the states, cant get authorities involved obviously ... gl to you. dont let it stress you out and just goto another bookComment
