Poker Discussion
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Full Tilt · Bodog · PokerStars · Ultimate Bet · Players Only
Greetings everyone, longtime reader first-time poster.
Last Saturday, the 16th, Pokerroom.com ran their Christmas tournament, which was advertised to every player on the site as a $20+2 NL MTT with additional prizes of an HDTV for first and Pokerroom merchandise for 2nd-10th. Cruising around the site, I thought about playing in said tournament, and when I popped into the lobby for said tournament, it advertised a $19000 guarantee. As there were only about 200 players registered at the time, the overlay was rather large so I decided that I would definitely play.
I won. $3,829.81 and a $2000 HDTV. For my first big score in an MTT. That's not why I am here today, however.
Yesterday morning I received an email from Pokerroom informing me that there had been a mistake in the payouts. They claimed that I was only due $404.75 and would thus have $3,425.06 removed from my account immediately. And oh, by the way, they were letting me keep my $22 buyin and, if I finished in the top 10, whatever bonus prize I earned. They didn't even have the decency to look into matters closely enough to realize that I was not only in the top 10, but the winner.
For a 265 person tourney with no guarantee at the $20+2 level, first place pays $1590 on Pokerroom. I looked it up. That, however, is not the point here. Pokerroom has decided that they can arbitrarily enter people's accounts and remove large portions of their bankrolls on a whim. They have also decided that, not only can they renege on claims of a guarantee, but they can also advertise "extra" prizes but actually use people's tourney buyins to cover the costs of said "extras" whilst systematically reducing the cash payouts for everyone in their tournaments.
Pokerroom's support team has handled this in a laughably unprofessional manner, ignoring all arguments about the meaning of the word "extra" and attempting to liken the situation to a bank accidentally putting extra money in your account and claiming that the money never belonged to us in the first place. This tournament ran for 5 hours and 15 minutes. Those payout levels were posted the entire time, and pretty much everyone who made the final table has screenshots of their payouts. A large number of players in the tournament likely only played in said event because of the overlay, and a large number of previously happy players who cashed in this tournament are now receiving either merely their buyin back or a one-of-a-kind, super valuable PokerRoom travel kit in lieu of any cash prizes. Not as extra prizes as advertised, mind you, but in lieu of actual prizes.
Scams like this cannot be allowed to continue. There are always concerns about legitimacy and legality in the online poker world (generally voiced by all our friends and family who don't play), but the poker world would not have advanced to the point it has if every major poker website was allowed to treat its customers in this manner. I have removed all remaining cash from my Pokerroom account, and I urge all of you to strongly consider how confident you are in the security of your accounts before doing business with Pokerroom.com ever again. I hope that you will all spread knowledge of this incident throughout the online poker community in the hopes that awareness leads to a positive resolution for all online poker players.
Thank you for your time.
Zander
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LOL.. JOKERROOM IS AT IT AGAIN.
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there are pokeroom reps that frequent these boards....perhaps if you changed your subject line and asked them for their help, you may actually get some help
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By
dams
on
12-19-2006 9:41 AM
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I won't ever join that site.
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By
zander
on
12-19-2006 9:45 AM
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The pokerroom reps on pokerroom's own site tried to convince me that, including the tv, i earned over 2 grand in that tourney so i should be pretty happy with myself.
You really think they're going to be more helpful than that here?
I don't want a resolution on this forum. I just want everyone here to know what is going on and be cautious about which sites they trust with their money. If this thing is getting resolved it will be at Pokerroom.
zander
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By
Cowy
on
12-19-2006 9:46 AM
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pokes poker, which was affiliated with ongame(pokerroom) stole 6K from me.
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Pokerroom sure sounds like it's running itself into the ground. Don't they know bad publicity like this is worth about $100,000 in negative revenue? Just pay the man his money. Is $3,600 worth potentiallly losing all this business over?
Man Up
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Seriously, if that was me, I would tweek and make my own pokerroom.com bashing website.... That's really a joke that they did that.... I for one, will never ever ever join any pokerroom site just because of this story, so thank you for posting this.
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ALSO, FOR THOSE THAT DONT KNOW, THIS IS JUST ANOTHER OF A LONG LIST OF CUSTOMERS THAT THAT SITE HAS "STOLEN" MONEY FROM.
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I will never join this site, thanks for the heads up.
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JUST SUCKS THAT THEY RUN THE COMPANY SO BAD, CAUSE THEY HAVE THE BEST INTERFACE OF ANY SITE EVER... AND SOME OF THE SOFTEST TOURNEYS ONLINE. THEY DONT TAKE U.S CUSTOMERS NOW ANYWAY, BUT IF THEY DID, EVEN WITH ALL THE HORROR STORIES IT WOULD BE HARD TO NOT PLAY THERE.
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By
cmitch
on
12-19-2006 10:51 AM
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When I read this I couldn't believe it was true. I don't understand how a company can have such poor customer relations.
The tourney had a guarantee - NOT HONORED.
The tourney had prizes added to the pool - NOT HONORED.
They allowed the entire tourney to be played and the prize pool advertised paid to each player and then took the guarantee and added prize money back. Who are the morons that made that decision?
I am guessing that a large majority of the players that finished ITM won't be playing on their site any more. I wonder how much their daily/monthly/yearly lost revenue is for each of the players. I guess they really thought taking the money back was worth the risk of losing some of these players - Good choice, Kudos. huh?
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Wow, if what zander wrote is true, I will never consider signing up at this site.
Do any pokerroom.com reps have anything to say about this?
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By
zander
on
12-19-2006 10:59 AM
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There is a brilliant 20-plus page forum post on PokerRoom's forums discussing this.
They just caved, admitted a mistake, and offered everyone who moneyed a free entry to a $10+1 tourney and said they would be depositing $100 into my account.
Are they kidding? They just publicly admitted to their mistake and are trying to tuck their tails between their collective legs and get off paying less than they owe! I won the tourney and have been one of the two players leading the charge to get our money back, and I get the same as everyone? $3,300 to go...
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PocketFives.com, 2008
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