Ah, OK.

+1

I have been reading this site for 6 years now and have never seen TT off his game.


I'm almost expecting there to be a somewhat logical explanation for why Stox had faith in his abilities.

He's obv. a scammer, but if he was once an elite winner, then it's a non-story. Coaching sites are full of many who once were big winners only to have the game pass them by.

i bet a dime

Wtf? On top of everything else, his idea of a fair prop bet to prove his skill is getting 50+ to 1 odds, where he just has to play 1 hand? Even the biggest fish can be up over a small number of hands. Wow. Scammer to the end.

Wow i just finished reading this thread...

Jason, you really are scum. I can't wait until one of your victims tracks you down and you get what's coming to you.

Can one of the mods change his title from "grinder" to "low-life scamming peice of sh*t"??

p.s. - i just LOVE the pics. you have obviously solved modelling as well

i have been wondering this myself.

it's my understanding (as a DC coach) that all DC coaches are vetted/chosen by DC before they can be on there, and it's not just random people advertising. i will link them to this thread for confirmation.

Heres jason ho living in his delusion. I got this from the forum that someone posted here.I guess it's not cool to say "I like to scam people for a living" so he came up with these things.I admit they do sound better then "I'm a scammer".



Quote:
Originally Posted by oriental_express
Theres a market on the internet called the "make money online" niche, these guys will happily pay you money to teach them to make money online. We deliver so theres no problems. People make money by teaching people to make money. END Quote

Jason ho said

I would say its coming over to 1 year now since I've been doing this so I give you my experience.

Income streams

1) Coaching people how to play poker. I get paid anywhere from $250 to $1000 an hour to do this. So yes I agree with above that you can make money by teaching people to make money.

2) poker affiliates. I get a decent income from this.

3) Taking % of profits from other poker players. I have alot of people who I teach and win at poker which I take a % from them each month so I generate alot of passive income here.

I think the bottom line to all of this is that anything you want to generate passive income with there is work involved. Sometimes alot of work. I still believe and hold to this statement if something is too easy then usually its not as good as it makes it out to be. I do know of people which make alot of money in network marketing and them sort of techniques but yeah I have relative laziness and them sort of schemes require alot more social networking and bsing than I'm really into it.
__________________

people basing stoxpoker for video content..rask, j baller, bryce, moshman are very good right there. obv jason ho asucks

since when do you care about fairness :/

wow just read jim's post on stox forums.

stox poker WILL reimburse victims of jason ho's scam coaching.

way to go stox. this is a big step in the right direction to restoring your reputation. i applaud you.

stox - you just got yourself a new member for that. i'm signing up now

Over the last few days, I have talked personally to several of the people making allegations against Jason Ho and to Jason Ho directly. We promised a direct and transparent report to the StoxPoker community on this and this post is our fulfillment of that pledge.

I think the best starting point is a broad timeline of events surrounding Jason Ho as a Stoxpoker coach.


May 2008 – Jason contacted Stoxpoker via email about the possibility of being a Stox coach. In all other situations that I recall, we have either contacted the prospective coaches directly or the coach has been referred to us by one of our other coaches. A few days later, I set-up a conference call with Jason. I don’t recall the exact conversation from that long ago but a decision was made to allow Jason to do a guest NL video at small stakes. This video was the first video in a small stakes series that he had proposed.


July 2008 Jason releases his first video on StoxPoker and it was met with very high praise by the StoxPoker community (as were most of his videos). This was not a substitute for our lack of adequate vetting, but the reality of it had a natural tendency to lower our antennas slightly.


August 2008 Based largely on the popularity of his videos, Jason became an official coach on StoxPoker. Below is how Jason was introduced:

Jason "code 7654321" Ho

Jason "code7654321" Ho takes a game-theory-based approach to no-limit hold'em. He is a 6-max specialist who has played everything from $.50-1 to $25-50. Recently, he has also started developing his PLO game at the $5-10 and $10-20 level, and has done so successfully.

Jason's videos will focus on smaller-stakes 6-max games and will strongly emphasize using Hold'em Manager to develop your game. Jason plays poker full-time, and his excellent results largely derive from his strong work ethic, his previous experience in high-pressure working environments, and his background in professional gaming. His best skills include his keen hand-reading ability and his ability to manipulate his opponents psychologically.

Jason was never promoted by StoxPoker as a $1M winner. However, there were comments that he later made personally in forum posts, blogs and private email correspondence about his winnings in the past that referred to being a $1M winner, graphs of large winning days, and references to winning a large % of his sessions.

Through Aug of 2008 the following are obvious in hindsight and, more importantly, should have been obvious at the time:

• An unsolicited request to coach should have generated a significant amount of due diligence on our part. The approach of limiting Jason to a guest video at a small limit and letting the members vote Jason up or down was not adequate. Since late 2008, new coaches have been part of a Quality Assurance (“QA”) process where a team of reviewers independently evaluate the first video submission and a formal QA report is submitted to the management team. These reports are reviewed and evaluated before the first video is posted. As mentioned, Jason is an exception to the fact that all other coaches we have recruited have been personally referred by other coaches or we have known of personally and actively recruited them.

• The self-promotional language in the introduction should have been reserved until proven in his videos and teaching. Our direct knowledge or 3rd party references within StoxPoker have allowed us evaluate such introductions in coaches before and after but in this case it simply should have been removed.

Jason Ho Allegations Become Public I was approached privately about 10 days ago about a potential situation involving Jason Ho and parties that wanted to remain anonymous. The general nature of the claims was asserted by a 3rd party but there were no details, and even the 3rd party initially wanted to remain anonymous.

Even though I was unable to substantiate the claims, Jason’s two most recent videos had received much lower than normal ratings, so I preemptively told Jason that we would not be requesting any more videos from him.

After a few days of continued rumors as to a major issue and still no person to step forward and publicly acknowledge the situation, I created a thread on StoxPoker and was forthright in saying that I have heard certain rumors about matters involving Jason and please come forward to post the allegations publicly if doing so privately is not going to happen. Over the next 2 days, none of the crew came forward and the thread turned into one where Jason Ho was the apparent victim. I eventually decided to lock the thread since it appeared that reliable information was not forthcoming.

A few hours after locking the thread, the members of the crew made their individual posts in a newly created thread. At that point I began the process of talking to some of the members of the crew directly, and I also talked to Jason Ho directly.

On the evening of Jan 27th, after he used the StoxPoker forums to threaten some of the people making allegations against him, I banned Jason permanently from StoxPoker and had his videos and blogs removed from the site.


Below is a summary of the findings from my interviews with some of the members that originally posted allegations against Jason and my interviews with Jason himself.

The “Investment Fund” in early 2009 In early 2009, Jason convinced a group of his students to form a “crew” and contribute 33% of their winnings into a “crew fund”. That fund grew to around $11K by mid-2009. The fund was to be eventually used as an investment pool.

The "Staking Fund" in mid-2009, Jason told the crew that the fund was not performing as he had hoped and that the current plan was not worth his time and effort. He offered that he might be interested in allowing the crew to stake him. After raising a little less than $100,000 from the crew, an Omaha staking fund document was distributed to the crew on October 11th.

At some point in early January 2010, the crew confronted Jason about the status of the staking fund and Jason informed them that the fund was down 60% and that he has borrowed the other 40% for living expenses. A dispute arose as to whether Jason was authorized to play on the staking fund at that time, and there are also disputes as to how much Jason was authorized to borrow from the fund for living expenses. With the possible exception of a few thousand dollars, no money invested in the staking fund has been returned to the members of the crew.

As to whether Jason was authorized to play on the fund, the following is excerpted from the fund document of Oct 11th:

“(The fund currently has been passively started from Sept 2009 however the option to buy out Jason’s 50k of the fund will enable new shareholders to participate up until Jan 2010)

Fund Official Start Date: Jan 2010
Fund Maturity Date: Jan 2011”

Some of the crew members have acknowledged receipt of this email but have said they did not question the contents of the email at that time. Jason has taken the position that the words "passively started from Sept 2009" authorized him to play using fund money before Jan 1, 2010 and that he was not accountable to telling them when began playing. I would have personally interpreted matters just as the crew did but without regard to the internal settlement of this issue between Jason and the members of the crew, I have outlined in the Conclusion the reasons why StoxPoker is not responsible for the losses incurred by the crew in this staking arrangement.

It was also alleged that Jason at times made unauthorized transfers from the personal poker accounts of some crew members (he had access to these accounts). That total of claims that I am aware of for unreimbursed transfers out of a crew member’s poker account is approximately $7,500. Jason did not have access to the private poker accounts of all of the crew members.

The documentation provided to me by the crew members that I talked to was consistent with their discussions with me. I had the sense that each crew member that I talked to was very forthright and honest with me in their accounts of the evolution of events. Some of the crew members were interviewed by other representatives of StoxPoker and interviews are still ongoing.

Private coaching Jason had several private students from StoxPoker that were not part of the crew. They were charged in various ways and under various programs that Jason offered. This ranges from hourly coaching to charges for strategy charts and spreadsheets.

Some of the students expressed frustration with Jason’s private coaching, and others have recently written me privately or posted publicly that they were generally satisfied with the coaching. I am aware of more that were unsatisfied with the quality of the coaching and/or Jason’s commitment to them as a student than those that were satisfied.

The same can be stated about the training that some paid for in Macau. There was a combination of those that felt generally satisfied with the training and others that had requested that Jason refund the Macau training costs because they were not satisfied.

I am not aware of any complaint that StoxPoker management received from one of Jason’s private students until this week. However, I believe that is mostly attributable to a sense that the failed results were their fault and/or they were embarrassed to come forward. There was at least one forum posts in the coaching forum where an ex-student was dissatisfied but that isn’t uncommon when you are dealing with something like private poker coaching. There were also students that posted about very favorable experiences. (Noted that with all else that has come to light, the alarm bells now go off about shill positive endorsements in the forums).


Conclusion

We believe that StoxPoker has a responsibility to reimburse coaching fees for those that were introduced to Jason through StoxPoker and had a bad experience using him as a private coach.

I have been forthright in saying that:

• Jason was not vetted as other StoxPoker coaches have been. I let down the StoxPoker community and our other coaches in that regard. Coaches since Q4 of 2008 have all been subject to our formal QA process previously described before their first video is posted.

• StoxPoker could have acted as a 3rd party escrow agent for all funds involving coaching arrangements. That is already being implemented.

For the reasons previously mentioned in this statement, members that were introduced to Jason through StoxPoker and had a bad experience with private coaching from him will be reimbursed. However, there is shared accountability for those that continued to make payments to Jason for coaching. Therefore, we have taken this into consideration in policy.

We will reimburse for 100% of the first two payments for any coaching services with Jason and 50% of a 3rd. We will not reimburse for any payments after the 3rd.

We realize the proposed restitution could be debated endlessly, but we feel that as a person continues to pay for more services, they share more, and ultimately all, of the responsibility for their actions.


We have also determined that the staking fund issue is a separate matter that cannot be resolved by Stoxpoker, the conclusion for this issue must be found separately between Jason Ho and the investors. The reasons are:

(i) The staking fund was something that was not disclosed to StoxPoker by either the investors or Jason (we were aware that Jason was privately arranging coaching services). There is no implied acceptance on the part of StoxPoker to such an arrangement that was ever given.

(ii) The “crew” had been working with Jason directly for several months on various private coaching and failed joint crew bankroll schemes before they ever invested in the staking fund. A reasonable person exercising some reasonable level of caution would have at least mentioned the staking fund to us in advance of investing or would have simply passed on the investment based on the cumulative experiences with Jason over the previous several months.

(iii) StoxPoker has NEVER promoted staking as something that should be entered into by the StoxPoker community. This is the reason there is not a staking forum. Staking is a very high risk activity in the best of circumstances.


Stoxpoker will not reimburse members for money transferred out of their personal accounts by a 3rd party. It is an egregious lack of personal responsibility to give anyone else access to your personal accounts and that is not something that we feel responsible for.


In closing, I am sorry for the pain this entire situation has caused for those directly involved and the course of action we are undertaking is a demonstration of StoxPoker’s willingness to address this head-on and take financial responsibility where appropriate. We estimate that the reimbursements to members on the private coaching could be as high as $100,000.

To the StoxPoker community and all of our coaches, the actions we are taking will hopefully serve as a statement to our commitment to be open, honest and accountable to you.

The policies that have been in place since Q4 of 2008 on the Quality Assurance team reviews for new coaches and the new process for 3rd party administration for all private coaching are in place to protect our member and coaches from anything even remotely like this ever happening again.

Regards,

Jim

Ive been following this thread now for a couple of days and im amazed and how much dirt keeps being found/brouught up on this guy... I dont think theres a doubt in my mind that he has lied and cheated his way through this, and its a shame people fell for it.

Also, I was a stoxpoker member for about 9 months last year and i used to watch videos afew times a week. I was fairly new to the game and i distinctly remember when they first brought this guy on. I remember his picture was him holding a sword or something? Anyway, i watched this guys first or second video that was very very basic and i had to turn it off after about 15-20 mins cause it all seemed very common knowledge for a somewhat regular player. I figured, it was his first video and he was probably working into it so afew weeks later I went back and watched another video... It seemed like all he did was reitterate things he had already said in the first video. It was very basic and his "analytical ability" did not go very deep... Again, I ended up turning off the video out of boredom and quite honestly felt like i had wasted my time.

As well, lets not get at TT. All he was trying to do was not (as an "emloyee" of this site) publically admit he believes its a scam. He's just simply doing his job and as stated in the thread, he usually does a bang up job. He's kinda stayed out of it for the past little bit and has let things go on. Lets not get on him though... lets address the real issue.

I think this is a perfect opportuinty for training sites to take notice and learn from Stox's mistakes. Every training site like a real company should have a screening and background check on each employee they have. The part that confuses me is how he proved himself to Stox? Didnt they interview him and look at his DB and such to see his style and see if he is actually a "fit" for there company... Every other company will have a corporate culture and i guess in the poker training industry it would be no different. Take a look at this guys hands, his style, check certain spots... Delve further into his game imo.

Only question i have left is when's the well?

Edit: I think this has been very well addressed by Stoxpoker staff & I am glad a QA department has been established.

Huge respect for stoxpoker for making good on this.

Good stuff.

yeah props to stox for the way they handle this, seems pretty fair

Great job stox!

StoxPoker is amazing for stepping up and handling this the way they did!

so its safe to say there will be no more Jedi Mind Tricks videos released @ stox??

i'm glad Mr. Ho will no longer be scamming members of the poker community...

I'm sure he will find a way. His kind always do.

Props for the quick action you took, Stox.

+1, wp stox

How are people saying "good job Stox" in this thread? They have said that they have a quality control system in place, but didn't apply it to Jason Ho when it came to evaluating videos. In Jims words, Jason was an exception.

Then there is this: • The self-promotional language in the introduction should have been reserved until proven in his videos and teaching. Our direct knowledge or 3rd party references within StoxPoker have allowed us evaluate such introductions in coaches before and after but in this case it simply should have been removed.

So Stox didn't vet the guy according to their own standards, allowed him to post unverified claims (25-50NL winner) and solicit students thru them. I don't see how they aren't liable morally to make good on these guys losses. Legally I have no idea.

I don't think anyone is disputing that they messed up in the first instance, but they have dealt with it as any reputable site should - by giving full disclosure and admitting how they messed up, providing a fair compensation for the victims and providing a justification for it, and stating how they have moved forward since and how they intend to move forward in the future.

I think the compensatory system is ideal because while there is no doubt that Stox bears the burden of responsibility for introducing Jason to people, there comes a point in time where the individual bears responsibilty for not spotting the red flags and cutting off the coaching and/or entering of a staking agreement. Every single one of the stories I've read basically goes along the same lines - guy pays Jason for some coaching, at some point things start to go wrong, guy then proceeds to pay Jason for more coaching and/or enters a staking arrangement (or some other shady deal). Now I've never had a coach and I don't intend to get one at any point in the near future but if I did then I would pay for one or two lessons to start and upon any doubt entering my mind I would sever immediately. Not just because of the obvious (even without hindsight) scam potential, but because I simply wouldn't benefit from a coach with a mindset so drastically different to mine that would cause such doubt to arise. If a student has any doubt at all in his coach, then why should it be surprising if, a few days/weeks/months down the line he realises that the coaching isn't benefitting him much, if at all? Why should it be surprising if a staking fund that someone who claims to have won >$1m recently playing poker suddenly wants to start up is actually a scam?

Don't get me wrong, I feel for the victims in this and working in insolvency I've met all sorts of people who appear to be charming on the outside but when you dig deep you discover that they are in fact ruthless, greedy scumbags who have lured people and companies in and taken them for a ride to the tune of thousands of pounds, but it seems to me from some of the stories (and pictures lol) posted that Jason didn't even do the job of appearing charming particularly well.

Dorkus, I disagree. If they had vetted his videos, he would not have been a coach. If they had vetted his claims, he would not have been a coach.

Legally, they might be in the clear on restitution. If you remember years ago, Tylenol had some crazy ass poison their product and it killed people. They immediatley did a recall of all their product and offered anyone who had brought their product a full refund. They didn't have to do that, and it was a huge hit to their bottom line.
But people buy Tylenol every day without a second thought today because they trust the company. They went beyond what was required to protect their name and give people peace of mind. This was short term thinking on stox part and I think they will regret it.