About the PokerRoom X-mas tourney

[PokerRoom.com]

Please allow me to speak openly and from the heart here. I don't usually handle support or communication issues, but I felt that I had to speak up for PokerRoom.com now.

The way we have handled this issue up until today has been just plain bad, especially the lack of communication, no one is disputing that. (For what it's worth, we are going to greatly improve communication with our customers.)

But what bothers me a little is when people who weren't in the tourney in question, people who don't know the details behind the situation, people who may not even have visited our site, are very quick to voice an opinion about exactly what happened and what they think our motives were. One guy first says something like "They probably did it all on purpose to cheat us!". Then another guy joins in: "Yeah, that's right, they're crooks!" and a third guy says "Let's lynch 'em!".

We did a mistake and we made up for it (like we ought to). We messed up earlier and we'll do what we can to improve for the future. We're not asking for a medal or anything, just a fair shake.

Sincerely,
Oskar Hornell
Founder of PokerRoom.com

[bb88]

You'll get a fair shake when you don't act like you did the players a favor when you *stole* funds from them, then took an unacceptable amount of time to return it to them.

Did you pay them the interest you made off of the money?

[mjm]

[ QUOTE ]

On December 16th, PokerRoom.com held a tournament advertising a flat screen HDTV valued at $2,000 and other prizes including PokerRoom.com merchandise. All promotional information given out to players stated the above information; players were able to view this in the promo section, through e-mails, and on the registration page.

Surely we would have mentioned it in our marketing if we had planned for the tourney to have a $19,000 added cash bonus? If we deliberately wanted to "lure" people in with that cash, as some posters have suggested, shouldn't we at least have mentioned that sum in our ads?

The fact is that on the day of the tournament, a software glitch caused the information in our game client to change to read that this tournament was a $19,000 guaranteed tournament, though all other promotional and tournament info pages still stated that the tournament’s first prize was a flat screen HDTV valued at $2,000.

Personally speaking, however, I must say that I'm a little disappointed to see so many being eager to jump on the bandwagon of hate, without first investigating the facts or background of the situation. It seems that some people just want to read the things that support their already formed picture of "the big, bad corporation ripping off the little guy". But things aren't always that black and white in reality.



[/ QUOTE ]

Your actions were pathetic, this post is pathetic. But I won't just jump on the bandwagon I will investigate the facts. It took me 2 mins to find numerous players confirm that you sent out a promotional email on the 15th December advertising the tournament as $19,000 guaranteed, plus the additional prizes.

So your apology/explanation is also bs.

You are a joke, your site is a joke. GG pokerRoom

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
apologized profusely for the delay in publicly addressing the situation and promised to work harder next time to avoid such things from happening again,


[/ QUOTE ]


Yup.
This is pretty much what FTP was doing at the end of that ordeal with the EricStone guy (or whatever his name was).
And, in that case, most people were pretty sure that the guy was full of it anyway and that FTP had probably taken the correct action (except for taking too long to do it and not listening to the guy).

treating your customers with some amount of respect on these forums as I believe FT, PS and WSEX reps ROUTINELY do does indeed win fans.


[ QUOTE ]
he should have been more professional and at least pretended to be contrite.

[/ QUOTE ]


I agree.

More along the lines of, "We understand that many of you have lost faith in us over our terrible mishandling of this incident.
You voluntarily put your money onto our site and you trust that when you see a tournament that says $19k it actually is going to pay out $19k.
You also trust that when you win the tourney and that money is paid into your account that it is there to stay and won't be yanked-out.
These are completely reasonable expectations of course. But we somehow messed up these very basic aspects of why one should put their trust in a room.

We have learned a lot from our mistakes here and from the feedback we have received about it.
We have admittedly taken a bad publicity hit here but we are determined to make things right. And perhaps our efforts will be good to earning your business and loyalty again in the future."


Anything like this of a "suck-up to the customers because we REALLY screwed-up" type attitude would have been far more appropriate imo.

Instead of the attitude of, "You guys all hate on us and you didn't even know what you were talking about."

[PokerRoom.com]

[ QUOTE ]
It took me 2 mins to find numerous players confirm that you sent out a promotional email on the 15th December advertising the tournament as $19,000 guaranteed, plus the additional prizes.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would very much like to see that promotional e-mail you speak of (mentioning the $19,000). But somehow I doubt that it exists. This is exactly what I meant about rumours being spread, instead of facts. Should I be wrong about this, I'll gladly eat crow.

Sincerely,
Oskar Hornell
Founder of PokerRoom.com

[Crix]

[ QUOTE ]
Ladies and gentlemen, please put down your pitchforks and torches for a moment and hear me out.

Looking back at the response we have had since running the Christmas Tournament, we felt it was necessary to provide our players with a resolution and an explanation to the situation we have encountered.

On December 16th, PokerRoom.com held a tournament advertising a flat screen HDTV valued at $2,000 and other prizes including PokerRoom.com merchandise. All promotional information given out to players stated the above information; players were able to view this in the promo section, through e-mails, and on the registration page.

Surely we would have mentioned it in our marketing if we had planned for the tourney to have a $19,000 added cash bonus? If we deliberately wanted to "lure" people in with that cash, as some posters have suggested, shouldn't we at least have mentioned that sum in our ads?

The fact is that on the day of the tournament, a software glitch caused the information in our game client to change to read that this tournament was a $19,000 guaranteed tournament, though all other promotional and tournament info pages still stated that the tournament’s first prize was a flat screen HDTV valued at $2,000.

After the tournament, our staff discovered the error and attempted to correct it by removing the sum that wasn’t supposed to be there. At the time it must have seemed like the natural thing to do, just like they would have added the same sum if it instead had been missing from the prize pool.

We do realize that there are downsides to this solution, and have since reconsidered. We have paid these players in full as of today January 3 and have taken the necessary steps to prevent a situation like this from happening in the future. We would like to sincerely apologize to our affected players for the inconvenience this has caused them.

Personally speaking, however, I must say that I'm a little disappointed to see so many being eager to jump on the bandwagon of hate, without first investigating the facts or background of the situation. It seems that some people just want to read the things that support their already formed picture of "the big, bad corporation ripping off the little guy". But things aren't always that black and white in reality.

Over the almost 8 years that we have run PokerRoom.com we have made mistakes, a lot of mistakes even. But I can honestly say that we have never deliberately ripped off any of our customers.

Sincerely,
Oskar Hornell
Founder of PokerRoom.com

[/ QUOTE ]

The only words I can find are "too little ,too late"

The damage has been done and you handled it like a bunch of amateurs who don't understand the business they are in. Maybe you don't understand it because this business has perhaps left you behind. Today's players are much more sophisticated than they were a few years ago and won't put up with shoddy practices from a business that they fork over 10's of thousands of dollars a year to.
Just my 2 cent's.

[Hopey]

If the email exists, please post it in this thread.

[Hopey]

[ QUOTE ]
"We understand that many of you have lost faith in us over our terrible mishandling of this incident.
You voluntarily put your money onto our site and you trust that when you see a tournament that says $19k it actually is going to pay out $19k.
You also trust that when you win the tourney and that money is paid into your account that it is there to stay and won't be yanked-out.
These are completely reasonable expectations of course. But we somehow messed up these very basic aspects of why one should put their trust in a room.

We have learned a lot from our mistakes here and from the feedback we have received about it.
We have admittedly taken a bad publicity hit here but we are determined to make things right. And perhaps our efforts will be good to earning your business and loyalty again in the future."


[/ QUOTE ]

Had this been their response, I would have given them credit for acknowledging and attempting to learn from their mistakes.

They should consider hiring you as their PR man, Bob. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[mjm]

[ QUOTE ]
Please allow me to speak openly and from the heart here. I don't usually handle support or communication issues, but I felt that I had to speak up for PokerRoom.com now.

The way we have handled this issue up until today has been just plain bad, especially the lack of communication, no one is disputing that. (For what it's worth, we are going to greatly improve communication with our customers.)

But what bothers me a little is when people who weren't in the tourney in question, people who don't know the details behind the situation, people who may not even have visited our site, are very quick to voice an opinion about exactly what happened and what they think our motives were. One guy first says something like "They probably did it all on purpose to cheat us!". Then another guy joins in: "Yeah, that's right, they're crooks!" and a third guy says "Let's lynch 'em!".

We did a mistake and we made up for it (like we ought to). We messed up earlier and we'll do what we can to improve for the future. We're not asking for a medal or anything, just a fair shake.

Sincerely,
Oskar Hornell
Founder of PokerRoom.com

[/ QUOTE ]

As an unregulated industry it is important that the players share information about the companies. You are correct I have never played on PokerRoom.

I can't believe you are criticising the poker community for offering an opinion on this.

But please tell me which of these facts are incorrect:

1) The tournament lobby stated the tournament was $19k guaranteed.

2) The players in the tournament had a reasonable expectation this was correct. (i.e. it wasn't an obvious typo like $19,000,000)

3) At the end of the tournament you paid the players the amounts as advertised in the tournament lobby.

4) You then took this money out of their accounts without informing them.

5) You did not fully rectify this disgraceful behaviour for a number weeks - until after it was a major story on all poker forums, some poker websites had pulled your advertising and numerous players closed their accounts with you.

I for one am very pleased that the poker community has been very vocal on this subject. And I hope that anyone who is asked an opinion on pokerRoom gets this story relayed to them.

At least you don't want a medal!!!

A fair shake?? yep sure, on-line poker is a competitive industry and virtually unregulated. So with that in mind why should anyone choose to play on a site which now has a history of not paying its players the amounts advertised in their tournament lobby and going into a players account and taking funds without even informing the player, when the player has clearly done nothing wrong.

[RayPowers]

I don't have anything to add, I was just looking to see if Brandi was posting in here after seeing the number of views....

Ray