About the PokerRoom X-mas tourney

[PokerRoom.com]

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

[1p0kerboy]

Glad to see there are still problems at Pokerroom after ditching the U.S. players.

[[Phill]]

It was your glitch, so it was your obligation to honour it.

If i went on your site having not seen the promotional material, i only see 19K gtd - the fact that you dont mention it in your promo material doesnt negate this.

In fact im pretty sure under ANY court of law you were obligated to honour the 19K guarantee.

For you to think it acceptable after the tournament is over to turn around and hold up your hands blaming a software glitch and take away the money that you clearly offered, THEN weeks later reverse your decision after there is huge uproar AND think people will just bend over and continue playing with you, i hope you will be shocked.

[Flopz]

Props to you for doing the right thing but the fact that you did this only AFTER a public outcry leads me to think that you weren't sorry about what you did, you were sorry about getting caught (so to speak)

I'm still not going back though

[darom03]

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I'm still not going back though

[/ QUOTE ]

[Antti]

This was the right thing to do, but the attitude in the post isn't going to win your lost players back.

[Jim Kuhn]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why did it take three weeks to resolve this matter? Why did it take three weeks to post about it here? Is it because you felt that all of the negative publicity was costing you more than the few thousand dollars or because you appreciated your loyal player base? It seems to me the only reason you paid the players as advertised in the lobby was due ONLY to
[ QUOTE ]
so many being eager to jump on the bandwagon of hate

[/ QUOTE ]

This was a nice Christmas overlay. However, other sites have larger overlays than this every week. Instead of ripping on the players and posters here you need to ensure your employees are double checking the lobbies and promotional material for accuracy. It is very nice that the payments were made right. It is a shame that it took so long and so much efforts from the player base and the media. I am sure you have lost many customers from this and deservedly so.

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4u
[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

[darom03]

[ QUOTE ]
Over the almost 8 years that we have run PokerRoom.com we have made mistakes, a lot of mistakes even.

Sincerely,
Oskar Hornell
Founder of PokerRoom.com

[/ QUOTE ]

And it seems that you don't learn from them...

Oh btw, who got fired for costing the company 1000's of customers, millions in rake and the loss of any credibility you guys had left in the business?

[Abramovic]

Whose decision was it to take money directly from the players accounts without even informing them?

[faded]

pokerroom is a joke and your post does nothing to change that.