"Bawanga," a poker player in Oslo, Norway, posted yesterday on twoplustwo.com's forum that Pacific Poker has reduced his player account from $5603 to $2241 simply because it has lain dormant for a year. His account, he told Twoplustwo readers, had had $5,603 in it in January 2007, which was the date he last logged in until February of this year. Pacific Poker customer support informed him that the poker room had begun taking an administration fee of 10% of the original amount after 6 months of inactivity had elapsed, and each month thereafter, they'd deducted an equal amount -- all in line with and according to the Terms & Conditions of the Pacific Poker player agreement.

Within hours Bawanga's post received 17 pages of replies on Twoplustwo. It had also spurred readers to post about the problem on Pacific Poker's own forum on 888.com, theHendonMob forum, and therxforum, which is largely for sportsbetting. Readers also urged Bawanga to post his problem on CasinoMeister.com, whose administrators are seen as extremely proactive in support of gamblers, online gamblers, and affiliates.

It is written clearly in the Terms and Conditions of Pacific Poker that they will do as they have in this instance -- namely, if a player fails to log in for six months, Pacific will start emptying out the sleeping account by taking one-tenth of it, then another tenth (of the original amount) the next month, and another the following month, until the money is gone. There is no mention or promise in the agreement of any warning email to the player.

Only a single forum poster (other than 888.com's forum moderator) defended the practice, saying that dormant accounts cause difficulties in case the poker room is sold.

The amount held in the Bawanga account was unusual; many players have temporarily forgotten poker accounts on different sites containing small amounts less than $20 or $25, but rarely do so when the account holds thousands of dollars.

Nearly every other comment online concerning Bawanga's case has included a condemnation of Pacific Poker's actions. Sympathetic poker players managed to bring the issue to the attention of the 888.com forum moderator, who promised to follow up on the issue and contact the player directly.

The response of other players to the incident may well have a significant influence on Pacific's response. Thus far, they have encouraged Bawanga to provide a form letter (now on the Twoplus two thread) which anyone may copy, sign and email to Pacific to show their support for Bawanga.

Already stunned by the AbsolutePoker "superuser" scandal revealed last year which caused the loss of perhaps millions of dollars to players, online poker players have quickened their response to spread the news of player problems -- even if they do not entirely stop playing at the very rooms accused of dubious practices. The Absolute scandal, which involved fraud by an apparent site owner, is rather in the past for many, and AbsolutePoker and UltimateBet are launching their new & improved melded poker room brand under the new name Cereus.

But it must be remembered that AbsolutePoker did quite a bit of repaying of money to affected players, and the losses were not something planned by the organization. Certainly not written into the Terms & Conditions of play.

This is: After six months of inactivity, Pacific Poker declares it will deduct an administration fee equal to 10% of the balance. The following month an equal amount will be deducted if there has been no activity, and so on each month until the account is drained -- which will happen in 10 months. An 888.com forum moderator has claimed this rule is to help "defend against money laundering," but has not responded to a query from a poster who wanted to know in what way the rule helps end money laundering.

Other poker rooms have a written rule that says they will charge fees on inactive accounts, such as PartyPoker does; Party also usually emails a warning to the player and includes an offer of a reload bonus at the same time. The fee tends to be a small one. One poker room, CakePoker, according to its Terms, closes dormant accounts after a full year that the player fails to login -- and takes all funds. It considers such accounts abandoned. To prevent Cakepoker from classifying the account abandoned, a player simply has to sign into his account within the year -- he doesn't have to play. Meanwhile, upset players are mentioning rooms on which they have held very small amounts which have not been confiscated although months or years have passed. PokerStars, Ladbrokes, Bet365, and others were mentioned as not acting against inactive accounts.