I buried this comment in a thread regarding a private tournament on UB by Rico Rich and decided I should post as a separate thread. In Rico's post he received the following response from UB in regards to setting up a private tournament.

Dear Eric,

We'd be happy to set up a private tourney. We need a few days notice
and some information from you. Tell us the tournament name you would
like to use, the date and time, the buy-in amount, and the usernames of
the players.
We will set up the event and add the users. We will deduct the buy-in
from their accounts.
It is your responsibility to keep the players informed that they are
registered and that we are taking the buy-ins. We will not be sending
them any confirmation emails.

Please let us know how we can help you with this event.

Best regards,

Daria
Customer Service

I am a little disturbed by UB's response. What is stopping someone from setting up a $100 buyin private tournament, submitting a long list of UB players (obtained from your fine rankings), then cashing out after they "win" the private tournament? Just seems very strange that UB would deduct a buyin from a player's account based on an email from a potentially unauthorized third party, with no confirmation email to boot. Am I misreading or misinterpretting their response?

TJ

No mistake...thats how it works

Bottom line: Don't use UB! That's just absurd.

tommy,

i don't see what you're saying.

Tourney Director sets up a Private tourney with a $100 buy in and enrolls the top 10 players from pocketfives rankings as well as himself (call him TD01).

Then, TD01 is the only player that shows up to play. He bleeds the stacks of those not in attendance until, 1 by 1, they are blinded out. He leaves with $1000 in his pocket and these guys are wondering why they are short $100.

Please tell me how this is right?

<SPAN>Perfect example!!</SPAN>

<SPAN> </SPAN>

<SPAN>As I am sure I would be hearing from Poker HO and <SPAN>NSXT2 (example) right out of the gates that $100 had been taken out of their accounts, I would be able to put a stop to this right away. <SPAN> </SPAN>Not only would the Tourney Director have his account closed, he would forfeit the winnings of the tourney and the money would be credited back to the accounts of the victims of his spoiled plan. <SPAN> </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>

<SPAN> </SPAN>

<SPAN>Tommy</SPAN>

Thank you for the response to my concerns. Could I ask, does this VERY strict policy include refunding an unwilling participant of a private tournament setup by a crooked tournament director? I'm sure that the VERY strict policy includes closing the TD's account and seizing his funds, but what if he has already successfully withdrawn the funds? With no confirmation sent to the unwilling participants, it could take a day or two or longer to notice those funds missing from their account. Based on the size of a person's bankroll held at your site, a transaction for $10, $50, or even $100 could easily go unnoticed.

Perhaps I am being overly sensitive about this, but I guess I am just confused why you don't adopt a traditional password protection to the private tournaments. Let the TD setup the tournament and be responsible for distributing the password to the participants. That way the participants are the ones authorizing the withdrawal of funds from their account, not the TD.

TJ

My reply above took to long to write, so a couple of folks beat me to the punch. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that you can setup private tournaments on UB. It just seems that a password protected tournament model would eliminate the possibility of fraudulent behavior.

I think Cal hit it on the nose. Seems like a really quirky system and hopefully UB can make it more user friendly, but we don't really know all of the logistics and programming that would be involved. I assume this is one of the reasons the P5 open hasn't been scheduled on UB.

Regarding an unscrupulous player trying to withdraw your money, it wouldn't work because withdrawals are not instantaneous and I'm sure UB would intercept and stop any withdrawal of illegal funds.

f meatloaf

the singer or the food?

either way, I'm right there with you.

f quiche

Tommy, I'm very glad to see someone from UB coming to our site to respond to situations such as these.

Hopefully we'll have representatives from other sites chiming in soon. Andy Bloch is on occassionally from Full Tilt and I've been talking with a couple people at Paradise and Stars.

Thanks again, Cal

Wow, what a crappy system to say the least. Would an email to each person registered for the tourney with a link to verify the deduction really be that difficult?

Is jsup who has at least $967,045 in his account going to notice that $50 is missing? He's probably just gonna think he entered another tourney in a drunken stupor.

hmmmmmm

Forget everything I just wrote.

Hi Jim, nice to see you on our message boards.

I think UB has clearly shown that they are not allowing people to take advantage of this system. Thanks for the responses, guys.

Adam

I agree, it would be very easy to miss a $50 deduction from a account with several thousand in it.

Would it not be easier and more secure to either subtract the fee once the player sits at the table... or have the players transfer the money to the tournament creator and the tournament creator covers the cost.

I think this policy that fees can be removed from your account without an email should be posted on the UB website.

lets not forget that the private tourneys show up on the tourney board. and if your logged on at the time im sure the table pops up when the tourney starts. i think it would be very hard to take any money that way.

Wrong, Adam. Susie Q's Ecrew $10 Hollar is NOT a free roll. As the name implies, it costs $10 + $1.