Chris Moneymaker Lawyers Up to Sue PayPal for Seized Funds

2 years ago
Chris Moneymaker Lawyers Up to Sue PayPal for Seized Funds
07:44
01 Jun

Chris Moneymaker has enlisted the services of Bensamochan Law Firm to go after Paypal following the company’s decision to “steal” more than $12k from the ACR ambassador, whose boss joined in with a clear message for the payment processors...

As we revealed last week, the 2003 WSOP Main Event champ was less than impressed by PayPal taking a $12,228.55 deduction from his account, having frozen it the previous year.

That, say PayPal, was for “damages caused by Acceptable Use Policy violation” but they have refused to disclose what exactly big Chris did wrong, and now Moneymaker is on the legal warpath.

This week saw a press release from the Beverley Hills law firm, fronted by the same lawyer, Eric Bensamochan, who recently represented Todd Witteles against Mike Postle in his anti-SLAPP hearings.

The press release, subtitled “Poker Hall of Famer invites others to join him in class action suit to stand up to the 'payments bully'", states that:

“Moneymaker...has retained Bensamochan Law Firm to file an action against PayPal Holdings Inc. in Federal Court for breach of contract, unjust enrichment and bad faith, among other causes of action.”

It quotes Moneymaker as saying:

“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.”

The man widely credited with sparking the online poker boom following his satellite-to-Main Event champion run in 2003 added:

“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.”

The reason for the confiscation of funds is still rather unclear, but relates to a Fantasy Sports league that Moneymaker and 11 friends devised for the 2020 NFL season

Moneymaker held the $1,000 from each player in his PayPal account, says Bensamochan, and later found his account “limited”, apparently because it violated his PayPal User Agreement – “a 62-page document that refers to a separate Acceptable Use Policy.”

The release states what happened next:

“In May 2021, Moneymaker says that rather than unwind the transactions by returning the funds to each of the individuals, PayPal informed him that it was confiscating the entire $12,000. In an email to Moneymaker, PayPal offered no justification for its confiscation of his funds.”

In what looks set to be a class action filing, the law firm ends its presser by stating they “would like to hear from any other individual who have had money confiscated by PayPal for an alleged violation of its User Agreement or Acceptable Use Policy.”

That might include Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow, whose own lawyer had apparently dismissed the idea of going after the payment processing giants...

Moneymaker, however, isn’t taking it lying down, tweeting: “sent lawyers and email, doesn’t hurt to try and jump on,” and advising his Twitter fans to “hit up my attorney” if they have also been wronged by PayPal.


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Andrew from Edinburgh, Scotland, is a professional journalist, international-titled chess master, and avid poker player.Read more

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