But a legitimate fraud investigation involves communication: questions, requests for information, updates. It does not involve 120 days of silence that is only broken by public pressure, only to then ask for basic documents. The problem isn't that they are investigating; the problem is how they are doing it: unprofessionally, without communication, and, as their latest requests show, without logic.
Most likely they just have a backlog of cases and did not begin looking at your case until recently. If you apply for something, like a building permit or residence permit, it is also completely normal, that there is "120 days of silence", before someone have time to look at your case. If a murder is committed, the police begin their investigation right away. But if they receive a report of something less serious, it might take a while, before they start an investigation.
I personally know a case, where it took the police more than 3 years to begin an investigation. This is of course not ideal, but its not unprofessional or illegitimate, nor does it mean, that the person under investigation was being scammed by the police. It just mean, the Fraud Team (which is likely only a few people) were busy working on other cases, that either came in before yours, or were more serious and needed more urgent attention.
The other half is a void: zero emails, zero responses, and zero explanations for four months. I cannot show you what does not exist. That is their half of the story: negligence.
If the police did not yet have time to begin an investigation, they also dont spend time sending responses or explanations to the person being investigated every week. They only contact him, when they want to interrogate him or something similar. But perhaps PokerStars could have have a done a better job of explaining you, that it might take a while, when your case was forwarded to the Fraud Team.
Maybe you should ask yourself why there's a growing number of complaints just like mine on every poker forum.
No there is not. There is pretty much only your complaint in this forum for the past several month if not years.
Maybe that's why the tables aren't as full as they used to be.
I think, there are many other reasons for that beginning with Black Friday in 2011, the fact poker is largely a solved game etc. Also how do you know, how full the tables used to be, if you only played there for a few days, until your account was frozen? Of course you might have read about the declining volume on PokerStars and other sites, but when you frame it this way, it sounds more like personal experience.
A company's reputation is truly seen in how it treats customers when there are problems, not when everything is going well.
This is true. But to be honest with you, most people likely care a lot more about things like rake, promotions, game selection and software quality, than how long it takes for a fraud team to begin an investigation. This is, because most people sign up to poker sites to play rather than to commit fraud. I am not saying, you committed fraud. But I also cant say, you did
not commit fraud, because I simply dont know.
Its entirely possible, you did commit some kind of fraud like for instance multiaccounting, and now you are using this thread to put pressure on PokerStars to lay down their investigation and return your $500. You might think, that their reputation is worth more to them than $500, and that you can use a smearing campaign as a weapon to get your money back.
