blonde & Poker Trillion

[tikay]

An awkward Post, to put it mildly, so I choose my words with some care, & I'd ask you to read them with the same care.

I take full personal responsibility for this Post.

As you know, Poker Trillion Sponsored our Internet Board for 2008. That arrangement has now concluded, & we did not seek to renew it, because Poker Trillion have failed to pay us some of the monies due. Their Debt to us now is just over £7,000.

They have never disputed any of the Invoices, or amounts due. The Contract was fulfilled enthuistically & wholeheartedly by blonde. The Invoices were sent monthly, on time, & correctly constructed, and a Statement was sent regularly.

We chased them for this money relentlessly. They explained that things were tough, they hoped to have additional financial backing soon, & would pay us as soon as they did. Scores of e-Mails to that effect are on record.

Recently, I got involved, as Rich (our CEO) & Curtis (our Accountant) could make no progress.

I spoke to the Staff at Poker Trillion, on numerous occasions, & started an almightly long e-Mail string with them. They sympathised - they are in the same boat as us, I think - so it's all a bit awkward. They continued to tell us that they were hopeful of an injection of funds, which would enable our Debt, & others, to be satisfied.

As I understand it, blonde are not alone in having this problem with Poker Trillion, not by any means. It's suggested there are a whole bunch of Trade Creditors.  These include - allegedly - Poker Magazines, Websites, Staff, Forums, and their Cardroom Network.

Eventually, I rang Achilleas Kalakkis, an old friend, who has always treated me well, & has been a gracioius & generous Host to me in the past. It was always rumoured that Achilleas was behind Poker Trillion. He told me, unequivically, that he severed ties with Poker Trrllion "many months ago". (September, I think). I have no reason to doubt this. Asked who was responsible for Poker Trillion now, Achilleas did not know. I asked him what advice he could give me, as to how we move this forward. He gave me helpful advice, but it's not worked.

I went back to Poker Trillion & asked point blank who was responsible for the Company. They said they did not know. I repeated the question, adding "but you must know who you work for, who you report to?".  Same reply. This is not tenable, & I said so. The suggestion was that they were under instruction not to divulge who was behind the Company.

The Staff at Poker Trillion are, (or, perhaps, were, as the situation is developing rapidly), Colin Hawker, & Andy Pyrah. Andy has been a good friend of many years standing, right back to his days at Matchroom. I have no personal issues with him, we get along fine, but this is business. I have always seen him as an honest, straight, guy.

We, & I, tried to contact Andy repeatedly, he never replied, or took our Calls. Eventually, we got him, he explained the cash-flow problems, & said he was doing his best to sort it. Then, overnight, Andy's regular Mobile Number became unavailable, "no longer in use". We have never heard from him since, but Colin informed me that Andy Pyrah remains CEO at Poker Trillion.

This is all pretty galling, especially when I see, even now, full page advertisements in the Poker media promoting Poker Trillion, $100,000 of guaranteed Tourneys every month, huge Deposit & Reload Bonuses, etc. I said this. They replied that the advertisements were pre-booked in 6 month "blocks", but had not been paid for yet.

blonde need that £7,000, to help pay our wage bill, & we are struggling without it. The money in question is not disputed by Poker Trillion, & never has been. They just cannot pay it. So, seeing those advertisements sort of strikes a bit of a nerve with Rich & myself.

Poker Trillion are registered in Malta, & we are evaluating our legal options. Legally, it's a nightmare, but I can't say more about that right now, as you'll understand.

We told them recently that this has to be resolved by today, failing which we would review our options. These include legal redress, & our Duty of Care to our Members who we actively & enthusiastically co-erced into Depositing with Poker Trillion. They did not reply.

We repeated it, & asked for their Registered Company Details. I also said, please ensure your backers are aware, we mean it, please resolve it now. They simply passed on their Registered Address in Malta, & left it at that. I tried again yesterday. No joy.

It's well documented that Poker Trillion moved from Boss, to Everleaf, amid much acrimony. Poker Trillion are a very significant proportion of the liquidity on Everleaf. I believe - & I dont hold that belief lightly, without some evidence - that there has been massive overlay on the $100k a month of Guaranteed Tourneys, & this overlay becomes a debt from Poker Trillion to Everleaf, which grows monthly. This allegedly owed sum is well into 6 figures. In short, Everleaf cannot allow Poker Trillion to disappear, & could, if they so wished, I would think, seize the Poker Trillion Database by way of guarantee. So Eveleaf hold all the aces.

So, thats where we are.

Next, our Duty of Care to blondes who, encouraged by us, Deposited cash with Poker Trillion.....

[tikay]

So, how safe is your money, in Poker Trillion?

Rich & I discuss & debate this endlessly, because we need to consider our Duty of Care to the blondes. We have, literally, agonized over it, time after time. If we went public, say, 3 months back, any chance of blonde getting paid went down the swanee - it's true, we were aware & considered that. But we genuinely, & honestly, believed that the Ring-Fenced arrangement is as good a guarantee as you can get.

It's always been the case, without exception, that the money on Deposit at Poker Trillion is actually held in an Everleaf "Cage", & is, as such, completely ring-fenced from Poker Trillion. That's what they told us, & tell us, & we accept it at face value, 100%. So far as I know, this is an industry-wide standard practice for almost all Skins.

So the money held on Deposit is not at risk from Poker Trillion's fate. It's as sound & secure, presumably, as Everleaf.

So should we advise you to withdraw, or not, given the problems we & others have had?

I am not going to advise you either way, but I have presented you with the facts as I understand them, You can work these things out as well as I can.

"Be aware", that's all.

For most small "rooms", blonde included, life is tough right now.

My own view is that I do not believe there is a risk to Depositors money, as it's held by Everleaf, not Poker Trillion. (Or so I'm told, & I assume this is correct).

So as to our Duty of Care, I don't believe we've let anyone down.

But now you know as much as we do, so there you go, decide for yourselves.

I make no recommedation to withdraw.

We (blonde) have been turned over by Poker Trillion, big time. To be honest, we think our chances of recovering this Debt are slim.

I'm entirely sympathetic to failed business ventures, they happen, especially in this climate. But I'm not overly pleased with being dicked around like this.

Would I Deposit money in Poker Trillion? I don't think I really need to answer that.

I've had a heavy conscience over this Duty of Care thing a good while now. Well, I've discharged my Duty of Care now, And blonde are still owed that £7,000+.

I guess it will all kick off now, & I'm in for a heap of grief. So be it. Folks should pay their bills, or if they cannot, at least be open & honest. There's no excuse.

[GreekStein]

Good luck with this Tikay.

Its pretty disgraceful for a company to behave the way they are though!

Their behaviour is similar to that of a degenerate gambler who owes money and wants to constantly fob you off or not answer calls and hope the problem will just solve itself.

[Longy]

Maybe they should arrange another forum challenge, so we all can help blonde out, oh wait.......................................


No, seriously this sucks Tikay and is pretty bad form the way they have dealt with this.

[DaveShoelace]

A big website I write for booted PT off their affiliate partners list for this very reason, I understand for a sum even bigger than this. I didn't say anything at all on Blonde simply because I wasn't (and still am not) aware of all the facts on that one and didnt want to stir anything incorrectly and scare people off if I was wrong.

But they have always seemed very dodgy to me, any poker room that blatantly violates a networks rakeback policy then tries to sue the network for booting them off is probably, as Greekstein rightly put it, degenerate.

I hope it all works out as best as possible, I myself am owed a similar amount of money from a supposedly reputable gambling institution that I know I will never get back, I know how frustrating it is and how powerless you feel.

[Eck]

Just want to congratulate Punters Lounge again on winning the Forum Challenge and hope they enjoy the Freeroll.....

[Robert HM]

Just want to congratulate Punters Lounge again on winning the Forum Challenge and hope they enjoy the Freeroll.....

Now there's a point!!

[TightEnd]

Just want to congratulate Punters Lounge again on winning the Forum Challenge and hope they enjoy the Freeroll.....

Now there's a point!!

I am not sure of the specific arrangmeents, but I would imagine Everleaf will fund it and add it to the slate.

[tikay]

Just want to congratulate Punters Lounge again on winning the Forum Challenge and hope they enjoy the Freeroll.....

We sought assurances on this, months ago. We were assured, 100%, that the Freeroll would be honoured, & go ahead, & I'm sure it will, & as it's "cage money", everything will be fine.

I had very mixed feelings about that Forum Challenge, like you would not belueve. I was lambasted by many for not playing it, but I had my reasons.

In truth, when we narrowly lost it, I was almost relieved, as it was a worry out of the way. A horrible thing to say, but true.

It'll be OK, I'm quite certain, & I wish the Punters Lounge guys the very best, well done to them.

[Robert HM]

Laughing here, gone off to Punters Lounge Website and see a browser called "Eck"... great minds huh?

[AndrewT]

In my experience, Malta are much stricter with regards to regulation of internet gaming companies than other jurisdictions *cough*Kahnawake*cough*.

Part VIII, 40 (1) of the Remote Gaming Regulations 2004 requires licensees to keep player funds separately from the licensee's own funds with a financial institution approved by the authority.

[tikay]

A big website I write for booted PT off their affiliate partners list for this very reason, I understand for a sum even bigger than this. I didn't say anything at all on Blonde simply because I wasn't (and still am not) aware of all the facts on that one and didnt want to stir anything incorrectly and scare people off if I was wrong.

But they have always seemed very dodgy to me, any poker room that blatantly violates a networks rakeback policy then tries to sue the network for booting them off is probably, as Greekstein rightly put it, degenerate.

I hope it all works out as best as possible, I myself am owed a similar amount of money from a supposedly reputable gambling institution that I know I will never get back, I know how frustrating it is and how powerless you feel.

Thanks Barry - that's EXACTLY confirms what I was told. I know the Company, & I know the amount owed. Staggering. They were not alone, though.

You should not have a guilt trip about not mentioning it on blonde - it's a very awkward situation.

I'm still a bit wobbly that I've gone public, but sometimes, there comes a time when you just have to draw a line.

[TightEnd]

Just want to congratulate Punters Lounge again on winning the Forum Challenge and hope they enjoy the Freeroll.....

We sought assurances on this, months ago. We were assured, 100%, that the Freeroll would be honoured, & go ahead, & I'm sure it will, & as it's "cage money", everything will be fine.

I had very mixed feelings about that Forum Challenge, like you would not belueve. I was lambasted by many for not playing it, but I had my reasons.

In truth, when we narrowly lost it, I was almost relieved, as it was a worry out of the way. A horrible thing to say, but true.

It'll be OK, I'm quite certain, & I wish the Punters Lounge guys the very best, well done to them.

this applies to me too. By November, I was promoting the challenge the minimum I could, almost afraid to win it. Not that it happened!

I am not sure I made totally correct decisions (albeit those I made were in good faith) at times over this matter, with respect to continuing the challenge/or not and balancing blonde's need to recover its debt and a duty of care to our members.

Its been a strain for all of us involved at this end, and still we're no closer to recovering our money with ongoing consequences 

[Eck]

Laughing here, gone off to Punters Lounge Website and see a browser called "Eck"... great minds huh?

yeah see it is scheduled for Sunday so hopefully they don't have any issues, met a load of them last year and there a good bunch.


Except Morlspin obv...

[tikay]

In my experience, Malta are much stricter with regards to regulation of internet gaming companies than other jurisdictions *cough*Kahnawake*cough*.

Part VIII, 40 (1) of the Remote Gaming Regulations 2004 requires licensees to keep player funds separately from the licensee's own funds with a financial institution approved by the authority.

I can honestly say, hand on heart, I don't think Depositors have a worry. I'm not sure, but I think it's OK. We're not, but they are!