Party transaction rates and my (likely) useless protest

[Wires]

This is basically a cross post from a message I created in a thread in the bonus section. I'm a bit slow coming to this realization but I did not realize the awful exchange rate and transaction fees being charged by Party Poker.

At the beginning to June I lost my rakeback at Party so I made the decision to move to Full Tilt. I play 100NL 6 max. In the daytime hours there is no comparison. Party is far better than FT. Because of the lack of Americans and the time zone difference with the Europeans you can find great games at 10 in the morning EST.

In the evening (EST) Party isn't all that great. There are a lot of regulars at 100NL and the table averages take a large dip with it being too late for many of the casual European players. And after 11 PM on a weeknight? Forget it. I'm not saying that the games can't be good at night but they are not nearly as good as the daytime games.

Full Tilt is the opposite with games being tighter during the day with great games in the evening.

I played a Party pretty much exclusively for the last 2 years and never had to make a deposit other than to take advantage of the occasional deposit bonus. I withdrew all of my funds at the beginning of June and only yesterday made a deposit to take advantage of the deposit bonus. Maybe I've been living under a rock but I was shocked at the profit they were making off of these transactions. I sent the following letter to Party:

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To whom it may concern,


With the exception of the last month I have been a regular player at your site. Today I saw that it was the last day to take advantage of a bonus offer so I decided I would start playing again. I made a deposit of $700 Canadian to your site and after the exchange my account was credited with $643 US. I was surprised by the terrible exchange rate so I went to your Cash Out page to see what my account would be credited if I withdrew my funds immediately. I was shocked to see I would receive only $656 Canadian. That is $46 in fees for a simple deposit. I'm down $46 and I HAVEN'T EVEN PLAYED A HAND. I addition to giving yourselves a very profitable exchange rate you have the nerve to charge an additional $2.50 fee on the withdrawal. This is shameful.

In the current climate where it is much more difficult to move money in and out of poker sites you should be making every effort to make this process as easy as possible Unfortunately you have opted to make an obscene profit off of these transactions. My intentions are as follows. I am a member of several poker forums and I plan to be very vocal on this matter. I will also discourage other poker players from playing on your site. I will continue to play until I clear this bonus in order to recoup some of the costs of this deposit however this will be the LAST time I play at your site.

Your profit should come from raking pots, not shamefully stealing money from players on transactions. To charge $46 in fees on a $700 deposit is grotesque and greedy. I would hope that this letter makes it beyond the computer screen of some first level customer support representative and into the hands of someone who has the common sense to effect some change in regards to these practices.

Sincerely,

XXX

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I don't expect this letter to make a shred of difference but I was so frustrated that I felt I needed to say something. I also do not believe that it is worth staying at Party because they games are so profitable it outweighs their dickish behaviour. There are plenty of great games on the net. About a billion players are logged on to Stars at any given time and about half of that on FT. It's not like all these players are sharks who are killing the game. Party was my home for several years but there is no way I can stick around with these ludicrous exchange rates. It's a slap in the fact to their players.