Online Poker Pro Scammed for $140K

September 18, 2012

A recent online poker scam left high stakes poker pro “MicahJ” victimized after having his bank account and Lock Poker account infiltrated by a hacker. Unfortunately he lost about $140,000 in the two-fold scam.

Like most online poker stories and scandals, this one hit the popular online poker forum TwoPlusTwo, where player “FWHITNEYDOH,” a regular Lock Poker player, and recipient of an $80,000 loss by MicahJ from an Omaha 8 or better game, denied knowing anything about the scam. Whoever lost the $80,000 though wasn’t MicahJ. It was the hacker playing under his account. Not only did he lose the cash playing online poker, but he also transferred around $54,000 from MicahJ’s bank account into his own.

The hacker, “highgrind22” had contacted MicahJ with a proposition to buy some of his funds on Lock Poker. He also sent a screenshot of his bank statement to verify that he in fact had the cash to buy the funds. Unfortunately though, it was an .exe file that likely included a keylogger program that made it possible for the scammer to access sensitive data on MicahJ’s computer.

MicahJ explained what happened next in writing:

“The hacker had access to my account for 3 days. The first couple days he made small transfers out of my account, and played and lost small amounts (no more than 10-15k)..However, on the third night, he transferred significantly more (a majority of the 54k) and also lost ~80-90k playing 25/50 plo8 on the same night.”

By the third day when MicahJ finally noticed that something wasn’t right, it was too late.

TwoPlusTwo member “TyTy” has reported that the scammer texted him admitting to stealing the cash and losing the $80,000 in eight hours at Lock Poker Omaha tables.

It has been recommended that MicahJ begin using a different computer, change all his passwords, and wipe out his computer. Lock Poker is looking into the incident.

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