blonde poker forum

Like many others, I have always been under the impression that Pokerstars were proud to offer the best customer service of any poker site - until I had cause to engage with them.

The facts:

- At the end of October/start of November 2009 Pokerstars repeated a batch of Switch card deposits that were originally made in October 2008. This affected a number of UK customers.

- In my case they took several hundred pounds from my account. This caused me to be tipped me into an unauthorised overdraft. The card that was used was actually cancelled but the bank deemed the charges valid as they were dated October 2008.

- I contacted Pokerstars as soon I found out it was they who had charged me - it took a couple of days for this information to show up as the transactions were so old. They said they would look into it.

- Pokerstars admitted it was their error and a few days later the money was returned.
- I wrote to Pokerstars to express my frustration at the inconvenience that was caused by them removing this money from my bank account, not to mention the embarrassment and damage to my relationship with my bank.

- Pokerstars offered an apology, but stated they would not make any compensation payments but would consider refunding bank charges if they arose.

- I wrote to them yesterday with a screenshot of charges filed by the bank for the period in November. A clever employee wrote back to me to say that they had noted that the charge filed was not done on the same date as the deductions and also that my overdraft limit was higher than the figure that the balance on my account was when they removed several hundred pounds without permission. They will not make any payment to me as the charges could not be directly attributable to Pokerstars!

- Whilst not the point, this is explained by the fact that I have since increased my overdraft limit to provide a buffer against this sort of incident, the banks method of charging is vaguely arcane and it was not actually the Pokerstars transactions that took me overdrawn but 7 direct debits that came out the day after. Even with the Pokerstars money missing I was only a few pounds in the red but they fail to see cause and effect here...

The upshot of this is that rather than waste any more of my valuable time over a measly 35 quid, I asked them to close my account forthwith. Their response was:

As a gesture of goodwill, I have credited your PokerStars account with 1000FPPs. Obviously, we do not wish to lose you as a player and are more than happy to accept that this is an issue that our players will hold us responsible for.

As previosuly advised, we will be more than happy to refund any charges that have been directly applied due to this issue upon receipt of satisfactory documentation. This offer still stands and I would urge you to contact us again should you receive clarification from your bank as to which payments the charges relate to.

I consider this to be utterly derisory and I have politely confirmed that I would like them to formally close my account. I didn't quite tell them where to stick their FPPs but I was tempted.

I do not want to be a party to any company that can admit liability for removing a large sum of money without permission from a customer and then fail to provide a meaningful apology.

The treatment I have received across a series of emails has been simply reprehensible. I have never really cared about the money or been out to make a profit from this sorry business, but I absolutely despise the way that Pokerstars has abdicated their responsibility to treat their customers with due respect.

To all who use Pokerstars - caveat emptor. My account with them is now closed and I will never use their services again. My one and only regret is that I was quite keen to play a couple of the UKIPT events and will now not be doing so. C'est la vie. End of rant.

try having FTP remove money from your account. you'd never hear from them again.....

Pokerstars support are usually good, seems they could have compensated you in this instance.

1000 FPPs = $16, so if they'd have offered 3-4k might have been a bit fairer.

Imo opinion close your bank account instead. Fucking robbing bastards. (Sorry, overdraft charges piss me right off)

If you think 'Stars are bad....... (insert as appropriate).

Just because others are worse doesn't make the above scenario ok. For one thing banks aren't allowed to charge right away in this country.

Sandy

Does your nose feel naked now youve cut your nose off?
Theres a Greek guy on here who might like it.

meh complaining about getting replies within a day from a multi national company whose competitors take over a week to get back to you whilst not answering any of your queries ever?

I can totally understand being miffed about the transactions being processed again but considering the quick responses and repayment it could have been so so so much worse.

How is that 'Stars fault?

They may not be perefect - who is? - but I've yet to see better.

And with a zillion Clients, they are bound to tread on a toe or two now & then.

Didn't say it was but from the op "A clever employee wrote back to me to say that they had noted that the charge filed was not done on the same date as the deductions"

Sandy

If you're depositing several hundred pounds in a single month I would advise closing the account anyhow

Worst rubdown post of the week?

Poker player in shock "deposited over 100 green queens"  degenerate scandal.

Depends what your bankroll management is like I suppose.

Very much this.

The rubdowns are getting better imo.

:P

Good boy.

See what I did there?

Got some free spam without even mentioning "the other place".

Wow, incrediquick removal of a Flushy post. Kudos.

True..shame as it was one of his more sensible ones.

got to take full advantage of the deposit bonuses

This morning Pokerstars have written to me again to state that they now accept that they have "mishandled" my case, apologised for the original error, the inconvenience caused and their subsequent lack of response and offered to re-instate my account with the princely sum of $66.40 and 1000FPPs. 

Whilst we can argue the relative merits of the compo offered against my time and effort on this, I was never really concerned with the cash.  Given the extent of the apology made I would be both churlish and, as some kindly suggested, cutting off my nose to spite my face if I didn't accept it and post an update here to acknowledge they have eventually done the right thing. 

So I may play those UKIPT events after all.

Gotta accept I think, they are the business. Where else would you get a sustained response culminating in this?

Nice.

It really pains me to see such rare lapses by 'Stars so brutally & one-sidedly exposed, so good to hear it's been sorted. And your nose remained intact.

I'm not they type to complain unecessarily but I do believe in right and wrong and I was pretty fed up with the whole chain of events to get to that point - there were about 10 emails in total to and from 'stars. 

The easy thing to do would have been to accept their cash and not post an update on this thread but that would really have lacked class. 

I'm happy to admit that they did get it right eventually - which is a hell of a lot better than not getting it right at all.  In any buisiness, for me, its not about the mistakes you make, but about how you put them right.

Tbf Tikay I had pretty mediocre response last month from their security team, when it took them a whole week to phone me about a possible account hack. Full tilt managed the same task in 6 hours.

Their cs isn't quite what it used to be but it is still reasonable by industry standards.

You used up all your customer support run good on FTP taking 6 hours to reply longy.


Glad to hear this is sorted at least some what acceptably. :)up

They were extra busy last month I gather, some really weird stuff went down. Not in the UK though.

I think you posting the issue on here was absolutely fine, and glad that you've posted the update and that it was all eventually sorted to an 'acceptable' resolution.

Think it highlights that despite any deficiencies, they're still the best in the market.

FYP.

Pretty sure ladbrokes support > the world.

They had a book for the GPT, i made 3 selections for £100ew on all 3, it turns out 2 of them didnt play so i was expecting to find £400.

Well it turns out the market was run or not, mvls i gg'd £400 in cold blood, i sent 1 email about it then snap got a reply say something alon the lines of 'it appears we may have not been 100% clear so we have refunded your £400 and will make sure in future that people know its not no runner no bet'

vvvg imo

lol, you must do your total bollox at Laddies

First time i have used the account in over a year!!!

Obv i am going to spin the £400 into many thousands on the niffle.