Chris Moneymaker to sue PayPal
The Main Event champion is taking on the payment processor after $12k from a Fantasy Sports League was seized from him.
Over the years we have seen poker players go after other poker players, poker rooms, training sites and more. This might be the first time a high profile poker player has taken on a payment processor.
Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker has announced his intention to sue PayPal, whom he calls a 'payments bully' after $12,228.55 was taken from his account.
He has been charting his problems with them on social media after they made the 'deduction' on April 14 for “PayPal’s damages caused by Acceptable Use Policy violation.”
So @PayPal @AskPayPal froze my account last year and said i could access my money in 180 days. Well they straight up stole the money!!!! Money out of my account pic.twitter.com/fnQtkPw7s9
— Chris Moneymaker (@CMONEYMAKER) May 18, 2021
"It's about the principle"
In 2020 Moneymaker and 11 friends entered into a Fantasy Sports League and he agreed to escrow the $1,000 from each player in his PayPal account. He was emailed by PayPal to say this was a violation of the user agreement and his account had been 'limited'. This month they confiscated the funds rather than returned them to each player.
Many other US poker players have since contacted Moneymaker to say similar things have happened to them.
He has enlisted the help of The Bensamochan Law Firm who sent a press releases announcing their intention to sue PayPal. Moneymaker commented:
I’ll leave to my lawyers to determine what the law says, but I think this is straight-up theft and Paypal is a payments bully. This is less about the money – though $12,0000 is a lot of money – it’s about the principle of stealing other people’s money and hiding behind thousands of words of legal mumbo jumbo that no one reads.
It has been a busy and stressful week for Moneymaker after his new sponsor ACR was forced to cancel three big guaranteed tournaments when their Day 2s could not start, costing them a lot in compensation.
Does Moneymaker have a solid case against PayPal? Let us know in the comments:
