More poker pros such as Chance Kornuth or Kathy Liebert have gone public about the payment processor security leak that has seen several players fleeced for up to $10,000 each – Chance Kornuth, Kathy Liebert and Melissa Burr the latest targets of the thief or thieves…
Someone just tried to UNSUCCESSFULLY deposit to my betmgm account minutes after I closed that checking account.
You can choose to take this seriously or deal with the consequences later. Idk wtf is happening but it ain’t good.
Educate and protect yourself. pic.twitter.com/kJFSt6USuZ
— Melissa Burr (@burrrrrberry) November 16, 2022
The story broke last week when Joseph Cheong revealed on Twitter that he’d been stung for $9,800, the money disappearing via eCheck through @BetMGMPoker @BetMGMCasino somehow.”
Cheong added: “I don’t even have an account. Seems other poker players have also been hit by this scam (?).”
Todd Witteles then confessed he’d also been hit for a similar amount: “Okay. I guess it’s time to go public with this. I was also a victim for $10k, and I have been working hard for the past week investigating this.”
This week it was the turn of Burr and others to publicise some lucky near misses, a thread on how the scam works providing useful information to worried players…
⚠️Thread re: legal online gambling compromise ⚠️
– attacker is able to open new accounts with legal online sites and deposit using eChecks via Global Payments and withdraw to sites like betmgm w/bad WD processes
– attacker can access draftkings and betmgm accounts bypassing 2fa— Melissa Burr (@burrrrrberry) November 21, 2022
Women in Poker Hall of Famer, Kathy Liebert, was also targeted, revealing: “Apparently a bank account in my name was opened to collect winnings from BetMGM and was also added to my WSOP.com account.”
Next up was Chance Kornuth, the highstakes pro sharing: “ I got a call yesterday from @BetMGM that two accts had been opened it my name. Took major security precautions yesterday…”
Witteles shared the welcome news that the story going viral – an ESPN story helping – has forced the affected sites to do something about the security breaches:
“BetMGM and Global Payments are finally taking the matter seriously and working to resolve the situation. When I called them 2 weeks ago, I was dismissed and mostly ignored. This is what publicity does for us.”
Witteles also put in an appearance on the Joe Ingram show to share the bad news and what poker players can do about it…
In a twist on the poker-based scam, Witteles also revealed that the bad guys, not content with hitting poker pros via online poker and casinos sites, have moved on, or at least branched out into hitting people via fantasy sports accounts…
*** IMPORTANT ***
The fraudsters who stole from poker pro bank accounts over the past 7 weeks are now breaching Draftkings accounts. They’re hitting other accounts based out of New Jersey, as well.
Full story here: https://t.co/T3MIHYwQql
RT for awareness
— Todd Witteles (@ToddWitteles) November 21, 2022
DraftKings quickly admitted that $300,000 of funds were affected, compromised passwords from other sites being the official line.
Witteles described how this version of the hack – known as a “credential stuffing attack” – works: “This is very simple. The fraudsters buy a huge list of name/e-mail address/password combos on the dark web, which were obtained by past breaches of other sites (perhaps not even gambling sites).
“They then set up a program to automatically attempt to log in to other sites using that info. If people used the same e-mail/password combo on multiple sites, it is very easy to breach their accounts that way.”
Have you been targeted by scammers? If so, let us know on our social media channels. Worried about your online security? Check out what VIP-Grinders.com is doing to protect your sensitive information here.
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