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January 2, 2006
Boycott
Well after a lot of searching I did manage to find a phone number for absolute's customer support. It's nowhere to be found on their contact or support pages, but a Google site search found it for me. Guess where. On the deposit page. That's right, the only time they want you to have their phone number is when you're having trouble depositing. They're more than happy to help you then.
So I called the number and after being put on hold for so long I thought I was hung up on (haven't you guys ever heard of music?) they told me I had to talk to security, which required me hanging up and calling another number. Security told me that "accounts are reviewed periodically". He said that they haven't yet had time to "review" my account, whatever the hell that means. I signed up there three weeks ago. I can't understand how a site that has fewer than 100 real money players could have such a backlog.
He also told me that this process was slowed by the holidays. Umm, I cashed out at 3 a.m. (which is 1 a.m. in their time zone) on the 28th. That gave them three non-holidays in a row (four if you count New Year's eve, and I know they had people working then) to "review" my account and give me my damn money, a process which, according to their website, should take "up to 48 hours".
He said he would leave a note for his manager in the morning. If I wake up and haven't received my cash out yet (and there's pretty much no shot of that happening) I'll be calling the manager and giving him an earful. That should be fun. Maybe I'll use Skype-out so I can record it and post it here. When he answers I'll tell him "this call may be monitored for proving to my readers that your site is a jopke".
The Google site search also turned up this gem:
A key area that people tend to underestimate until it's too late is customer service. Virtually every site will offer an email address or phone number, often even a picture of a 'real' person that will be there for you. However, the reality is when you need support or assistance, you need it right then. A good poker site will have a state of the art contact center attached to it with 24-7 multilingual support both for email and telephone. You should be able to contact them when you need to, not when they tell you that you can. In addition to that, the site you choose should have an escalation process in place, with supervisors readily available to assist you immediately and make sure that you receive the assistance that you need to keep you a happy and satisfied customer. Feel free to give the customer service folks a try before you invest into a company. You'll thank yourself for doing this if you ever need them.After reviewing hundreds of poker rooms and determining which ones met the above criteria best, one poker room emerged clearly above the rest - AbsolutePoker.com.
All I can say is WOW. I wonder if whoever wrote this article has ever played at Absolute before. It was obviously just some P.R. guy, but I just wonder if he has any idea how full of shit he is.
His article is actually pretty good up until that last sentence. It does a good job of telling a new online player what to look for when choosing a site, but then it tells them to play at the one site that fails the most on all every point. Let's look at his criteria:
Fully Licensed and Regulated! Absolute is licensed, by the Six Nations Internet Gaming Regulatory Body, which is made up of a bunch of Native American tribes in Canada. Does that make you feel any better than if they were just some non-regulated company running out of Antigua and Barbuda? Me neither. Pretty much every site out there is "regulated" by some Canadian Indians.
Fun, Simple, and Secure! I guess if your conception of fun is getting dealt 30 hands per hour at a heads up table, having one of your three tables crash on you every 20 minutes, playing on software that came out of a crackerjack box, and then spending a week wondering if you are ever going to get your money then Absolute is the place for you.
Tables, Players, and That Thing Called Critical Mass!Absolute, at peak times, does get about 5 $3/$6 games and a few $5/$10s. Critical mass, if by "critical" you mean "non-existent".
'Worry Free' Deposits!They're certainly worry free as long as you don't ever plan on cashing them out. They'll take your money gladly.
Express Payouts! Nothing could be faster than just not paying you at all. That's even faster than instantaneous. They are so fast that they don’t pay you before you even cash out!
And, of course, the last: Unparalleled Customer Support!Bahahahaha. I just hope I find an easy way to tape tomorrow's phone call.
So I'm now calling for a boycott of this crappy site. Who's with me? That's right, I'm the Rosa Parks of online poker, staying in my seat so we can all get cash outs in a reasonable amount of time. Please email them and let them know that you aren't going to play on their crappy site until they resolve this issue.
If any of my readers are good with Photoshop (and I know of at least one who is) and bored please feel free to whip up a "Boycott Absolute Poker" logo for me to display here and pass out. I may even make a website devoted entirely to it. Together we will fight cash-out oppression. We will overcome non-payment. And I'll get my money back.
Posted by themaroon at January 2, 2006 4:35 AM
Comments
Issues with payment are rampant in the industry and are a prime reason why I play less online poker. I understand the need for identity verification, but the absurd lengths of time for cashouts after initial documents have been filed persist. Poor information (or no information in AP's case) from support is common.
On one site, I had cashed out for $1500. For two weeks, they said they had no record of it. Needless to say, I was infuriated. Finally, they were able to "fix the glitch," and I received my cash-out. Not before literally 25 calls to customer service. Until cashouts can be done swiftly and accurately, online poker will remain a risky play in my book.
Posted by: Corvallis at January 2, 2006 3:48 PM
That most annoying thing about this is that cashouts CAN be done swiftly and accurately and are at many poker rooms. Poker Stars, Paradise Poker, and Party Poker have always sent me my money quickly and without hassle. I bonus abused a number of online casinos a few years back and they all did too, once I verified my address, which consisted of them mailing me a pin code (which I always received within 3 days of my deposit) and me entering it in the casino software somewhere. That is a very simple form of verification that can be used to avoid all of this.
Posted by: Matt at January 2, 2006 4:43 PM
The problem isn't so much the pain in the ass verification procedures.... it's that they let you deposit without doing anything, and only care about verification once you want to cash out. Once FCP opened I put $ there, but watched their absurd rake structure and decided not to play there. It was a real hassle to get my funds out, and they only let me get past the verification because I didn't play a hand there. Overall it took about 2 weeks (1 week of me just waiting, then finally contacting them)
The real funny thing is when I gave the guy my reasons for not playing there (the rake structure) he said that rake shouldn't be taken out at that rate, and it was a mistake. He said he'd look into it and get back to me. Obviously if he did realize they were taking rake out too quickly, someone would have told him to ignore me, and he never got back to me.
Posted by: andy at January 2, 2006 6:03 PM
ive played on pacific awhile before playing full tilt but they have a great customer service center i would always deposit my money that way no extra charge like netteller and they always had a live body on the phone that was very polite.
Posted by: cauwel3 at January 2, 2006 6:04 PM
So far I have nothing but positive things to say about Full Tilt. They seem to be one of the best run organizations, on par with Stars.
Posted by: Matt at January 2, 2006 8:31 PM
I play on several sites and move money around frequently. Pokerstars will credit my neteller account instantly when I cash out, so we know it can be done. The question is, why can't or why don't others do it the same way?
Posted by: Dan at January 2, 2006 9:08 PM
It definitely can be done and should by all sites. Honestly a short waiting period is acceptable. In cases involving a new member attempts to verify their identity are OK too as long as they are upfront about what will be required when the member first deposits and they start the verification process immediately, rather than when you cash out.
Also I have no problem with a site manually approving cash outs (though I have no idea why they would want to do that) but they need to act on ones that aren't approved immediately.
Posted by: Matt at January 2, 2006 10:27 PM
Absolute computers screwed up and payed the wrong people on Jun 16/06. I won the Sit&Go, but it said I finished 8th, which is incorrect. It's been 10 days, and they still haven't paid me the money owing. They rarely respond to E-Mail, certainly no phone support.
Also, to withdraw money, they charge $8.00 and it takes 20 days to get to you, they say. AWFUL site, avoid it, at all costs.
Posted by: Roger at June 27, 2006 3:06 PM
I was playing in absolute poker that same night. I won the sit n go but it said I placed 3rd and only got 3rd place payout. I sent them 2 emails and they still havent responded. I dont even know if they fixed the money in my account and gave me the 1st place winnings. I dont think they did cause im sure I would have noticed it. However I do like the site a lot. Other than that one night I haven't had any other real problems. Absolute is one of my favorite sites this far.
Posted by: jenn at July 7, 2006 1:52 AM
I am currently waiting for a neteller cashout at AP. This was my first time playing there and my first time attempting a cashout.
After reading this I am scared, even though it has been just slightly less the 24 hrs , that i put my cashout request in.
I have played at these sites and received cashouts very quickly: PokerStars (best), Paradise, PartyPoker
What bothers me is when I check my Account History
it says "Neteller withdrawal request in process".
WTF does that suppose to mean. That's when I did a google and found this blog. Cuz it sounds very fishy!!!
Almost 24 hours and the request is in process might mean somebody knows about it, or somebody might take a look at it, or that it might actually arrive in my account.
I need the money for my reload at another site.
Anyway, like already mentioned above somewhere, it take 2 seconds to deposit and alot longer to withdrawal from Absolute Poker.
Speeding things up would really help the industry.
Overall I found the software to be good, without too many glitches, other than a lot of duplicate cards. No, not on the same table, but when multitabling I might get Q5 clubs on one table and then Q5clubs on the other table. WTF is the odds of that. Or very similar flops, people going AI with an inside st8 draw on the river (for a full stack) and catches. !?!?!??
Beware of this site. One hand a maniac goes AI with (nothing) I go AI with QQ, the person to my left goes AI with AA, and the person to his left goes AI with KK. Yes this is the same hand, and i don't think I will ever forget that one. And the AA caught an ace on the flop and took down a huge pot.
Well.... enough ranting.
Posted by: JCS at August 26, 2006 10:46 AM
I tried cashing out a $1000.00 on Absolute poker on November 12 2006 . After numerous e-mails and phone calls they told me that the cheque was cancelled and I had a choice of re-crediting my account or getting a cheque. I choise to recredit the account. I have now waited a week to be re-credit and still nothing. I am writing this while I am on hold with Absolute for the last 15 minutes. Players be WARE
Posted by: Craig at January 8, 2007 9:35 PM