Interview wtih london pro Michael Piper (Wazz)

[RED-DOG]

I don't understand why decent, reasonable people, who happen to have differing opinions, have to call each other names.

I wouldn't have put dumb if I wasn't mortal when I posted but no excuse and I agree not neccesary.

Well said. Thank you. 

[redarmi]

Met mike and played in that 2/2 PLO game with him at DTD. He always seemed ok to me, pretty quirky guy but fun to play with. A couple of friends know him very well and would certainly vouch for him being an honest guy (for what thats worth, some of you have made up your minds already) so I'd do the same.

He has obviously handled this badly but I think its important that people know how difficult it actually is to get these sort of sums overseas through high street banks. It really is ridiculous what they charge you for this sort of service. I agree that its unacceptable that its taken this long to get it sorted but nobody will be out of pocket after EPT london.

A hypothetical question.

I owe someone in America 50k from a stake where I happened to cop.

He wants a CHAPS/SWIFT transfer or whatever it's called.

My bank charges my 1k for it.

Who should pay the 1k?

Depends.  Using all reasonable methods I normally use the rule that the sending party pays any fees/charges but if he wants it in another way that is going to cost more then he should pay.

[GreekStein]

Was in a cash game last night at the International and I asked if he played here. People said yeah and the conversation turned to him. After that all people said was what a tight person he was. One guy said, 'He's definitely got the money, he's probably just playing it himself'.

[jackinbeat]

I don't understand why decent, reasonable people, who happen to have differing opinions, have to call each other names.

I wouldn't have put dumb if I wasn't mortal when I posted but no excuse and I agree not neccesary.

Well said. Thank you. 

Apologies to all on blonde for the name calling, I think I can say that I was only defending a mate, and the some of the allegations and comparisons were clearly unfair. I'll  be more respectful to the forum in future though.

Mike has now replied on other forums and I think it's safe to say, that although he acted in a way I wouldn't want any friend to act, he clearly is not out to scam anyone and is far from the shady character some would like to make him out to be.

If anyone would like the links I can post them, or PM me.

[RED-DOG]

Thanks 

[George2Loose]

Posted on 2+2 thread from Michael:

I don't know where to start, so I'll just start typing.

The first thing I'd like to do is to say sorry, sorry to all the investors, my friends, 2p2ers in general, and the mods.

Over the last 4 months, I've made quite a few mistakes. I am aware that I can't prove this, so all I can do is explain what's happened and my intentions with as much transparency as possible, and work on getting everyone their money asap.

Apart from those who wanted money live in vegas, my intention was to pay everyone out online, as that's how they'd invested. My initial plan was to wire ~ $200k over to vegas when I got there, so that I could pay people out in cash, and sell it for online money so that I could pay everyone out.

As explained earlier in this thread, that turned out to be impossible due to my bank, who made me jump through some quite difficult hoops. After 3 weeks (I arrived in vegas on the 8th of july), I was finally able to wire money over, but only £25k/day. After hearing many horror stories about wiring to the Rio cage, I decided to wire it to a friends bank account at wells fargo. When the money hit, which took 4 days, the staff at wells fargo had to order the money, which took another 3 days. The result was that I only saw the first £25k (~$37k at the time iirc) in the first week of july, by which point many of my investors had left town.

I actually had to borrow ~$2k from john eames, $5k from gavz101 (paid back), $5k from rsmig (paid back), $5k from michael binger (paid back) and $10k from kevin macphee (arranged to be paid back in london), in order to play the events I'd agreed to play with other investors and pay out the investors who I'd promised money to.

When vegas ended and I hadn't been able to pay everyone out, I had to come up with a new plan. At this point I did not consider my options, which I now see was a big mistake. I wanted to stick to the same plan of paying people out online, and for the benefits of my investors, I wanted to make them some money to make up for the lateness.

This was the same plan as I had in Vegas. When considering this plan, I looked at it from the angles of convenience - being able to pay my investors out online - and profitability - make both myself and my investors some money. I did not look at it from the point of view of potential shadiness. Why? It just didn't occur to me. I can't explain it much better than that, and I'm aware I can't prove it, but my intention was never to scam anyone or to have anything I did look like I was scamming. I realize now that not telling my investors of my plan makes it look like I was trying to scam them, and can only put it down to a lack of foresight and failing to consider what it would look like. Again, I can't prove this at all, but it's the truth of the situation.

This is the list of investors I currently owe money to, and how much:

zedd: $18k
achen: $21k
allinlife: $23k
blopp: $91k
martoncz: $23.3k

I also owe $10k to kevin macphee, $5.65k to vanessa selbst, and $2.3k to cmyr.

I have enough money to pay everyone out, but unfortunately I cannot prove that today. I moved house about 3 weeks ago, during the move some papers got lost, some of those papers were the bank statements for my foreign currency accounts. I can't access those foreign currency accounts through online banking. Today is a bank holiday in the UK, and the foreign currency department is currently closed. I am told that they will be open from 9AM uk time (4AM est i believe), at which point my plan is either to go to the bank (literally downstairs from new place) and provide bank statements that I can take a photo of and upload, and/or to call them and have my respected roommate gavz101 listen in to the conversation. If this is not enough for anyone, I am entirely happy to invite anyone in london to come to my new place and listen in.

I am looking into how to pay out all my debtors asap. I am in the process of getting my stars deposit and transfer limits increased, blopp has asked that I give the money to a friend of his in london, and one other investor previously wanted to be paid out when he came to london next month - fyi that is still an option for you, but I will work out a way to pay you online in any case.

I did not expect any of this to happen. I'm extremely disappointed in myself. I've worked hard for the last 4 years at building and maintaining a reputation on 2p2, and to see it crashing and burning right now kills me. I'm ashamed of my idiocy and irresponsibility. I'm sorry again to all of my investors, especially those who I've taken this long to pay out, who have showed enough faith in me to invest only to see their faith misplaced.

[Skgv]

Posted on 2+2 thread from Michael:

I don't know where to start, so I'll just start typing.

The first thing I'd like to do is to say sorry, sorry to all the investors, my friends, 2p2ers in general, and the mods.

Over the last 4 months, I've made quite a few mistakes. I am aware that I can't prove this, so all I can do is explain what's happened and my intentions with as much transparency as possible, and work on getting everyone their money asap.

Apart from those who wanted money live in vegas, my intention was to pay everyone out online, as that's how they'd invested. My initial plan was to wire ~ $200k over to vegas when I got there, so that I could pay people out in cash, and sell it for online money so that I could pay everyone out.

As explained earlier in this thread, that turned out to be impossible due to my bank, who made me jump through some quite difficult hoops. After 3 weeks (I arrived in vegas on the 8th of july), I was finally able to wire money over, but only £25k/day. After hearing many horror stories about wiring to the Rio cage, I decided to wire it to a friends bank account at wells fargo. When the money hit, which took 4 days, the staff at wells fargo had to order the money, which took another 3 days. The result was that I only saw the first £25k (~$37k at the time iirc) in the first week of july, by which point many of my investors had left town.

I actually had to borrow ~$2k from john eames, $5k from gavz101 (paid back), $5k from rsmig (paid back), $5k from michael binger (paid back) and $10k from kevin macphee (arranged to be paid back in london), in order to play the events I'd agreed to play with other investors and pay out the investors who I'd promised money to.

When vegas ended and I hadn't been able to pay everyone out, I had to come up with a new plan. At this point I did not consider my options, which I now see was a big mistake. I wanted to stick to the same plan of paying people out online, and for the benefits of my investors, I wanted to make them some money to make up for the lateness.

This was the same plan as I had in Vegas. When considering this plan, I looked at it from the angles of convenience - being able to pay my investors out online - and profitability - make both myself and my investors some money. I did not look at it from the point of view of potential shadiness. Why? It just didn't occur to me. I can't explain it much better than that, and I'm aware I can't prove it, but my intention was never to scam anyone or to have anything I did look like I was scamming. I realize now that not telling my investors of my plan makes it look like I was trying to scam them, and can only put it down to a lack of foresight and failing to consider what it would look like. Again, I can't prove this at all, but it's the truth of the situation.

This is the list of investors I currently owe money to, and how much:

zedd: $18k
achen: $21k
allinlife: $23k
blopp: $91k
martoncz: $23.3k

I also owe $10k to kevin macphee, $5.65k to vanessa selbst, and $2.3k to cmyr.

I have enough money to pay everyone out, but unfortunately I cannot prove that today. I moved house about 3 weeks ago, during the move some papers got lost, some of those papers were the bank statements for my foreign currency accounts. I can't access those foreign currency accounts through online banking. Today is a bank holiday in the UK, and the foreign currency department is currently closed. I am told that they will be open from 9AM uk time (4AM est i believe), at which point my plan is either to go to the bank (literally downstairs from new place) and provide bank statements that I can take a photo of and upload, and/or to call them and have my respected roommate gavz101 listen in to the conversation. If this is not enough for anyone, I am entirely happy to invite anyone in london to come to my new place and listen in.

I am looking into how to pay out all my debtors asap. I am in the process of getting my stars deposit and transfer limits increased, blopp has asked that I give the money to a friend of his in london, and one other investor previously wanted to be paid out when he came to london next month - fyi that is still an option for you, but I will work out a way to pay you online in any case.

I did not expect any of this to happen. I'm extremely disappointed in myself. I've worked hard for the last 4 years at building and maintaining a reputation on 2p2, and to see it crashing and burning right now kills me. I'm ashamed of my idiocy and irresponsibility. I'm sorry again to all of my investors, especially those who I've taken this long to pay out, who have showed enough faith in me to invest only to see their faith misplaced.

Is that proof then this is not another scam just a mistake by somebody who never got round to paying up an so this thread has been a waste of time an everyone owes him an apology now ?

[gatso]

the massage thing is just lolcom

[byronkincaid]

Posted on 2+2 thread from Michael:

I don't know where to start, so I'll just start typing.

The first thing I'd like to do is to say sorry, sorry to all the investors, my friends, 2p2ers in general, and the mods.

Over the last 4 months, I've made quite a few mistakes. I am aware that I can't prove this, so all I can do is explain what's happened and my intentions with as much transparency as possible, and work on getting everyone their money asap.

Apart from those who wanted money live in vegas, my intention was to pay everyone out online, as that's how they'd invested. My initial plan was to wire ~ $200k over to vegas when I got there, so that I could pay people out in cash, and sell it for online money so that I could pay everyone out.

As explained earlier in this thread, that turned out to be impossible due to my bank, who made me jump through some quite difficult hoops. After 3 weeks (I arrived in vegas on the 8th of july), I was finally able to wire money over, but only £25k/day. After hearing many horror stories about wiring to the Rio cage, I decided to wire it to a friends bank account at wells fargo. When the money hit, which took 4 days, the staff at wells fargo had to order the money, which took another 3 days. The result was that I only saw the first £25k (~$37k at the time iirc) in the first week of july, by which point many of my investors had left town.

I actually had to borrow ~$2k from john eames, $5k from gavz101 (paid back), $5k from rsmig (paid back), $5k from michael binger (paid back) and $10k from kevin macphee (arranged to be paid back in london), in order to play the events I'd agreed to play with other investors and pay out the investors who I'd promised money to.

When vegas ended and I hadn't been able to pay everyone out, I had to come up with a new plan. At this point I did not consider my options, which I now see was a big mistake. I wanted to stick to the same plan of paying people out online, and for the benefits of my investors, I wanted to make them some money to make up for the lateness.

This was the same plan as I had in Vegas. When considering this plan, I looked at it from the angles of convenience - being able to pay my investors out online - and profitability - make both myself and my investors some money. I did not look at it from the point of view of potential shadiness. Why? It just didn't occur to me. I can't explain it much better than that, and I'm aware I can't prove it, but my intention was never to scam anyone or to have anything I did look like I was scamming. I realize now that not telling my investors of my plan makes it look like I was trying to scam them, and can only put it down to a lack of foresight and failing to consider what it would look like. Again, I can't prove this at all, but it's the truth of the situation.

This is the list of investors I currently owe money to, and how much:

zedd: $18k
achen: $21k
allinlife: $23k
blopp: $91k
martoncz: $23.3k

I also owe $10k to kevin macphee, $5.65k to vanessa selbst, and $2.3k to cmyr.

I have enough money to pay everyone out, but unfortunately I cannot prove that today. I moved house about 3 weeks ago, during the move some papers got lost, some of those papers were the bank statements for my foreign currency accounts. I can't access those foreign currency accounts through online banking. Today is a bank holiday in the UK, and the foreign currency department is currently closed. I am told that they will be open from 9AM uk time (4AM est i believe), at which point my plan is either to go to the bank (literally downstairs from new place) and provide bank statements that I can take a photo of and upload, and/or to call them and have my respected roommate gavz101 listen in to the conversation. If this is not enough for anyone, I am entirely happy to invite anyone in london to come to my new place and listen in.

I am looking into how to pay out all my debtors asap. I am in the process of getting my stars deposit and transfer limits increased, blopp has asked that I give the money to a friend of his in london, and one other investor previously wanted to be paid out when he came to london next month - fyi that is still an option for you, but I will work out a way to pay you online in any case.

I did not expect any of this to happen. I'm extremely disappointed in myself. I've worked hard for the last 4 years at building and maintaining a reputation on 2p2, and to see it crashing and burning right now kills me. I'm ashamed of my idiocy and irresponsibility. I'm sorry again to all of my investors, especially those who I've taken this long to pay out, who have showed enough faith in me to invest only to see their faith misplaced.

Is that proof then this is not another scam just a mistake by somebody who never got round to paying up an so this thread has been a waste of time an everyone owes him an apology now ?

huh? shit shoulda been sorted in 4 days, at best this is a complete joke. would still be no surprise if the money has gone, this foreign bank accounts stuff smells a bit fishy to me.

[Skgv]

Posted on 2+2 thread from Michael:

I don't know where to start, so I'll just start typing.

The first thing I'd like to do is to say sorry, sorry to all the investors, my friends, 2p2ers in general, and the mods.

Over the last 4 months, I've made quite a few mistakes. I am aware that I can't prove this, so all I can do is explain what's happened and my intentions with as much transparency as possible, and work on getting everyone their money asap.

Apart from those who wanted money live in vegas, my intention was to pay everyone out online, as that's how they'd invested. My initial plan was to wire ~ $200k over to vegas when I got there, so that I could pay people out in cash, and sell it for online money so that I could pay everyone out.

As explained earlier in this thread, that turned out to be impossible due to my bank, who made me jump through some quite difficult hoops. After 3 weeks (I arrived in vegas on the 8th of july), I was finally able to wire money over, but only £25k/day. After hearing many horror stories about wiring to the Rio cage, I decided to wire it to a friends bank account at wells fargo. When the money hit, which took 4 days, the staff at wells fargo had to order the money, which took another 3 days. The result was that I only saw the first £25k (~$37k at the time iirc) in the first week of july, by which point many of my investors had left town.

I actually had to borrow ~$2k from john eames, $5k from gavz101 (paid back), $5k from rsmig (paid back), $5k from michael binger (paid back) and $10k from kevin macphee (arranged to be paid back in london), in order to play the events I'd agreed to play with other investors and pay out the investors who I'd promised money to.

When vegas ended and I hadn't been able to pay everyone out, I had to come up with a new plan. At this point I did not consider my options, which I now see was a big mistake. I wanted to stick to the same plan of paying people out online, and for the benefits of my investors, I wanted to make them some money to make up for the lateness.

This was the same plan as I had in Vegas. When considering this plan, I looked at it from the angles of convenience - being able to pay my investors out online - and profitability - make both myself and my investors some money. I did not look at it from the point of view of potential shadiness. Why? It just didn't occur to me. I can't explain it much better than that, and I'm aware I can't prove it, but my intention was never to scam anyone or to have anything I did look like I was scamming. I realize now that not telling my investors of my plan makes it look like I was trying to scam them, and can only put it down to a lack of foresight and failing to consider what it would look like. Again, I can't prove this at all, but it's the truth of the situation.

This is the list of investors I currently owe money to, and how much:

zedd: $18k
achen: $21k
allinlife: $23k
blopp: $91k
martoncz: $23.3k

I also owe $10k to kevin macphee, $5.65k to vanessa selbst, and $2.3k to cmyr.

I have enough money to pay everyone out, but unfortunately I cannot prove that today. I moved house about 3 weeks ago, during the move some papers got lost, some of those papers were the bank statements for my foreign currency accounts. I can't access those foreign currency accounts through online banking. Today is a bank holiday in the UK, and the foreign currency department is currently closed. I am told that they will be open from 9AM uk time (4AM est i believe), at which point my plan is either to go to the bank (literally downstairs from new place) and provide bank statements that I can take a photo of and upload, and/or to call them and have my respected roommate gavz101 listen in to the conversation. If this is not enough for anyone, I am entirely happy to invite anyone in london to come to my new place and listen in.

I am looking into how to pay out all my debtors asap. I am in the process of getting my stars deposit and transfer limits increased, blopp has asked that I give the money to a friend of his in london, and one other investor previously wanted to be paid out when he came to london next month - fyi that is still an option for you, but I will work out a way to pay you online in any case.

I did not expect any of this to happen. I'm extremely disappointed in myself. I've worked hard for the last 4 years at building and maintaining a reputation on 2p2, and to see it crashing and burning right now kills me. I'm ashamed of my idiocy and irresponsibility. I'm sorry again to all of my investors, especially those who I've taken this long to pay out, who have showed enough faith in me to invest only to see their faith misplaced.

Is that proof then this is not another scam just a mistake by somebody who never got round to paying up an so this thread has been a waste of time an everyone owes him an apology now ?

huh? shit shoulda been sorted in 4 days, at best this is a complete joke. would still be no surprise if the money has gone, this foreign bank accounts stuff smells a bit fishy to me.

I remember talking to one of his backers in manchester whie he was on final table, he said he was coaching him an may also be backing him an i think he had 20% share wt him im sure when i go to dtd i miight find out more as be interesting to hear if he got paid! But i suppose the usaul rule applies innocent till proven gullty!

[Skgv]

OOPS think he % i gave is wrong but the rest is almost the truth ! probs 5 or 10% spring 2 mind now bt what the heck principle still the same.

[DMorgan]

Theres literally zero chance that mike is trying to scam people. That bandwagon is riding pretty low.

[Acidmouse]

someone owes me 91k and says its diff. to get to me i fly over and get it personally none of this 4 month wait bullshit.

[The Camel]

Theres literally zero chance that mike is trying to scam people. That bandwagon is riding pretty low.

What price will lay me at least some of the money has gone and at least one investor has to wait longer than stated for his cut?

[GreekStein]

guy in my cash game last night who will remain nameless, and knows mike said he was pretty convinced he was using the money to play with.