stevesbets

My buddy Luke (http://lukekim.blogspot.com) has recently had quite an ordeal with UB which  he wrote up on his blog. I of course think it’s outrageous how they evaded his emails, calls and questions, but you can read his blog and draw your own conclusions. I think it is insane that one of the mega poker companies out there (absolute poker/ultimatebet) are as shady as they are. They avoid answering emails, they have no phone number that average players can use to contact them, and give players no recourse when they decide to confiscate funds for shady reasons. It is pretty much beyond me how someone can play regularly on these sites as opposed to more reputable sites like pokerstars and full tilt.

I recently had tried to log into UB for the first time in years and I discovered that my account was banned for unspecified “scamming”. Additionally, two of my good friends’ accounts were banned for being associated with my account. Needless to say, I hadn’t touched the account in years and I have never been involved with fraud or scamming of any sort. All three of us tried emailing UB. They responded to one of my friends offering a phone number he could call to clear up the issue. The phone number was out of service. How can a site that makes more money than most of us could ever dream of offer up a customer service number that is inoperable. After a couple weeks of run around, I got my friend Nat involved, and since he has connections with the higher ups he was able to clear it up and get our accounts clear. Without Nat I think it is safe to say that we would have never been able to fix the issue due to UB’s policy of either ignoring emails or offering up unhelpful responses.

Thinking about the issues that Luke and I have had with Ultimatebet gets me angry at the fact that some well known and allegedly reputable people are spokespeople for this site as well as absolute. I think the “celebrity” faces of Ultimatebet (Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Annie Duke and many others), Absolutepoker (Mark Seif) and other large sites need to be held responsible for the outrageous business practices of the sites they represent.  I know I personally could never be the face of a site that steals, scams and generally offers a poor experience to players and if I ever do get offered a deal from a site, I would be personally willing to attempt to rectify any legitimate issues that players have.

Mark Seif in particular did something even more outrageous in the face of the now infamous potripper superuser scandal. This player was an Absolute insider who won a tournament, his play made it blatantly obvious to everyone that he was able to see everyone’s hole cards. It was fortunate that the mastermind behind this scam did not have a masterful mind because otherwise he could have stolen money for years and never been caught. However, just before this scandal was officially proven, Mark Seif made a video in which he stated that he watched the video of the tournament and saw no proof or even strong evidence that the player could see the other hole cards. His statement was certainly disingenuous, he compromised his integrity for the money Absolute threw at him.

I have met Mark and outside of a bit of a temper, he seemed to be a good guy, and he is certainly a well known member of the poker tournament circuit. It amazes me that he can both go out in public and look at himself in the mirror after making those absurd statements. If online poker is to survive and thrive, the celebrity spokespeople need to have honor that is beyond reproach. Additionally they need to hold the sites they work for accountable for terrible service or worse. After hearing what Mark Seif said, I would never trust him again and I hope other players also do not.

On a personal note, if it isn’t clear here I have trouble containing my outrage at these sites and their spokesmen. I love online poker and it is under attack by our country and by lots of live poker players who claim they don’t trust it. I would argue tirelessly in it’s defense but it becomes impossible when those in power are unethical or downright criminal. The poker community needs to be less forgiving and truly make it impossible for those who lie, cheat or steal to be around the big tournaments without constant complaints, questions, and harsh criticism.