Fraud at Pokerroom.com

[mvzander]

Greetings everyone.

On the 16th of December Pokerroom.com held a $20+2 Christmas tournament. When I went to the lobby of this tournament, it was listed as a 19k guarantee. As there were slightly over 200 players registered a few minutes before start, I, along with several other players, decided this overlay was much too good to pass up. The tournament also offered an HDTV for first and pokerroom goods for the rest of the final table.

I won the tournament, which paid out $3,829.06 plus a $2000 HDTV. I then proceeded to run around the internet and my family telling everyone about my biggest score to this point. Two days later, I woke up.

Monday morning I received an email from Pokerroom informing me that they had overpaid me for the tournament and were taking $3,400 out of my account. I logged in to find out that, while I slept, a major online poker site had indeed simply swiped several thousand dollars from my account.

Regardless of intent, this tournament was advertised in its lobby as a 19k guarantee, and at no time during the 5 hours of the tournament was this information changed. In fact, if you go look at the results now, 5 days later, it still has me listed as making $3,800. However, PokerRoom has decided that guarantees only apply when they want them to. Further, the "extra prizes" for Christmas tournaments are not in fact extra; the money for them comes out of tournament entry fees. There is no way that the winner of a 265 man $20+2 tournament receives only $400. Not a chance. In their email to me, they did tell me to keep the TV, however. Very nice.

I posted in the (already jumping) forums regarding this matter, and the moderator's response was that, factoring in the TV, i made $2400 in a day and thus shouldn't be too disappointed. They then attempted to liken their wrongful access to our accounts to a bank accidentally putting money in the wrong accounts. Not so. I posted that I didn't feel $400 cash was commensurate with winning such a large tournament, and a few minutes later I received a private text from a moderator apologizing for the misunderstanding and telling me that $2000 would be deposited back into my account. It was, and I cashed it out immediately. I then proceeded to inform the other members of the final table (and in fact, all 40 players whose accounts were accessed in this manner) that they gave me money, which they then vehemently denied. In the past 48 hours they have repeatedly tried to unsticky this thread in the pokerroom forums and have moved it back and forth between the main lounge and the social lounge, even going so far as to fire moderators who spoke out in support of the players.

Yesterday I contacted support regarding the status of my account and the television. He told me promotions would be in touch with me regarding the TV and told me that $2100 had been put back into my account "because we withdrew too much." Then I got disconnected countless times.

Today I got back in touch with support to ask about the TV again and was disconnected again. Shortly afterwards I received an email from pokerroom claiming that the $2000 they had given me 3 days ago was for the TV, and not for any sort of apology or for the fact that they basically stole money from my account.

In short, things stand as follows: Pokerroom.com does not feel compelled to honor the posted prize pools listed on their tournament pages despite guaranteeing in their own site rules that tournament payouts will be those specified on said pages. Second, they can access players' accounts at any time and remove money from their accounts without justification and without reason. Third, they are willing to repeatedly lie in the faces of their customers and do everything that they can in order to make a few bucks, regardless of the long term cost. Fourth, they advertise "extra prizes" and pay for them using entry fees into the tournaments. Last, they will do whatever necessary, including moving forum posts, banning posters, and firing moderators (they gave a 10-year ban to a guy with over 28,000 forum posts) to hide what they are doing from as many people as possible.

The online poker world is currently under attack from many sides. It cannot, absolutely must not, act in the manner of Pokerroom.com if it wants legitimacy and the trust of its customers and their governments. I ask you all to go read the forums at Pokerroom, make sure that everyone you know who is involved in online poker knows what these people are willing to do to their customers to make a dollar, and think long and hard before you ever play there or allow your money to sit in their "secure" accounts for another second. Thank you for your time.

zander

[SlapPappy]

Cant play there anyway.

[Jim14Qc]

I've been playing on hollywood poker (PR skin) for the past week or so to whore their bonus. Good thing I finished it tonight and cashed out a few hours ago.

If your story is true, this is very low coming from an established site.

[nohuggles4u]

the story is true.

[jfk]

Very well written and clearly explained. It is sad when companies make these shortsighted decisions. I hope your efforts cost them many times what they've stolen from you in lost revenue.

[NotFadeAway]

Screw this site. I know that I'll never play there if that's how they operate, and I hope that no one else here will either.

[KurtSF]

Wow, what [censored] [censored] monkeys.

[ QUOTE ]
The online poker world is currently under attack from many sides. It cannot, absolutely must not, act in the manner of Pokerroom.com if it wants legitimacy and the trust of its customers and their governments.

[/ QUOTE ]

Indeed.

[cz606]

Hope all works out for you. Please keep us posted on new developments

[mvzander]

I will certainly keep everyone posted. In the meantime the best way to make anything happen in this industry is mass email. They don't really like that. So if any of you who have problems with this situation feel like sending a shout-out to the lovely people at support@pokerroom.com, nothing is holding you back. Even better if you tell other members of the online poker community to reflect their displeasure in the same manner.

Thanks for your continuing support. And emails.

zander

[WLVRYN]

If you havent already, I would post this at Casinomeister. CasinoRoom is listed there, so I would send a PM to the CasinoRoom rep and see if he can help (CasinoRoom and PokerRoom are related entities). I would also post this in the poker forum there, and if you dont get anywhere, Pitch-a-Bitch with the Meister.