This is a long, complicated, story. I am going to be as brief as possible and then fill in any details in later posts if need be or answer any relevant questions as they come up.

Background: Summer 2012 I had a big balance at Merge and the cashouts were too slow for my taste. I also had a great relationship with their then management team, including both the CEO and the guy right under him. I contacted them about this and was offered the following solution: there was a skin on the network called PokerOne; one of the if not the oldest skin on the network. They ran an independent cashier and owed the network a significant amount of money that they weren't able to pay directly. They gave me the contact of the owner who said that he had nothing but losing players who kept playing high and running up his debt to the network. At this time Merge spread games as high as 300-600 if I recall correctly. Anyway, the owner asked if I could bring some winning players to his skin to offset his losers and make the fund reconciliation process for him easier.

I shot the idea over to Blewjob as we had previously talked about getting a skin together but never went through with it. After some deliberation, we came to the conclusion that using this established skin with their convenient agent system would be beneficial to everyone.

Over the next month or two, not yet being involved with PokerOne, their ability to cash people out was tested. Their performance was quick and efficient, despite relatively large numbers. I also reached out to merge management about PokerOne's reliability and was told that the owner was a bit eccentric but otherwise trustworthy.

And so the plan went ahead to begin inviting players to Play on Merge through PokerOne and their independent cashier system. It was kept limited to people I knew.

I met Doug through TCfromUB and some other people as we all played HUNL. We occasionally butted heads in the same ring games and became friendly. He had a stable on merge at the time and so he was invited to play for PokerOne.

From what I recall, he initially deposited roughly 20-30k, lost it and then it was decided to put him on credit since the games were big and he would be depositing and withdrawing large numbers, and this would make things easier. I want to say that at peak he was credited roughly 90k. He would then go on to return the money and be cashed out over 100k in profit.

Things went smoothly the first few months then we began hitting hiccups. The PokerOne owner slowed down his cashouts, began complaining that his losing players weren't playing or losing as much but things were still manageable and superior to the regular merge cashout times.

Then things began to fall apart. First my contact at Merge quit but said all was good since the CEO was staying and there would just be someone promoted to replace him.

Then issues began with Lock disrupting the network and then finally leaving.

Then it got worse:

Sandy happened and I wasn't able to be around for a while dealing with the Aftermath. During this time the CEO left/was let go and the entire department was scrapped. I now had no way of contacting the managing merge personnel. Merge then went on to buy out / consolidate their existing skin pool. They eventually made it impossible for pokerone to operate - more on that below. On top of all that, the guys went on a tear and beat the site up for a very large amount to be added to all the outstanding cashouts. Then merge shut off all high stakes tables, effectively killing the games...or killing the games most of the guys had any interest in playing.

Then, merge completely blocked off PokerOne's cashier and made it impossible to operate the site from the back end. They basically wanted PokerOne to "voluntarily" leave the network.

So the scenario is a bunch of players with huge balances all want to be completely cashed out as there are no games and I have no contact with any Merge personnel. The PokerOne owner is panicking, saying that he doesn't know what to do, that he can't pay and basically going off the deep end.

Being out of options, I contact the owners assistant. A far more competent and honorable gentleman who I will forever be grateful to. He basically agrees with me that Merge is trying to get rid of PokerOne and says that the owner is a scumbag. He also says that the owner had Merge send some funds from Merge to the assistants account in HK. He says that doesn't have access to the account but is willing to do everything possible to gain access and send us the money that is in there. There is roughly 148K in that account.

I contact everyone with a big balance and explain to them the situation. It is agreed that the wire is to be sent to Doug and I ask everyone if they are comfortable with that. They say they are. I also tell Doug that he should get the lion's share since he is receiving the money and then distributing it. So 70K was to go to Doug, 50K to Blewjob and 28k to other players.

The assistant was able to gain access to the account and successfully wired 148k to Doug.

At this time Blewjob owed me some money and said I could take the 50k Doug had to send to him and knock it off his debt. I agreed since it was convenient for Doug to hold $ for me in his moneybookers, as I had no moneybookers of my own and would sometimes need to send MB transfers.

Some time later BJ would ask me if I thought he should get the money from Doug. Mistakenly I told him, that there was no need since Doug was absolutely trustworthy.

I also arranged for the other 28k to be repaid so Doug effectively had 78k of my money in his MoneyBookers. He has sent about 31k whenever I asked him and offered to send the rest of it several times - but we never got it done. There wasn't any problem until last December.

Meanwhile, I was doing everything I could think of to get our money from PokerOne. First I obtained the personnel e-mail of the former CEO and explained the situation to him. I asked him to reach out to the owner of PokerOne on our behalf. We spent many months exchanging countless emails while trying everything we could to get the money.. Unfortunately, it didn't go as planned. We were fed a steady diet of soon, tomorrow, next week, and so on. At one point he told us that he would be sending two wires for the entire balance. As I expected, that was a lie and only a small wire of about 30k was sent. Eventually we would receive an email from the owner saying that he was done.

I was also able to obtain the email of the new management personnel at Merge. They were not very helpful. And after chasing them about PokerOne, they eventually expressed that their business with PokerOne was concluded and they would not be replying further on the issue.

While this was going on, apparently PokerOne migrated to the Cake Network. Once this was brought to my attention we decided to contact cake and alert them to our situation. With the help of another player who was owed by PokerOne, we were able to get the emails of cake management. Cake tried to help and thanks to them we were able to get another 50K before eventually being told that there was nothing more that they could do.

That was all the money we would receive.

Throughout all this, everyone was up to date on what was going on and what steps were being taken. I expressed several times that I thought we were being jerked around and we should plan ahead. The address of the owner was obtained and Doug, being closest to him, was asked to pay him a visit.

He eventually did but nothing came of it.

Then in December when I asked Doug to send the remainder of the balance, he refused. And so began a long and frustrating battle with him that has lasted until now. Doug has demanded that I speak to his attorney. I declined. So Doug has decided that he is going to use my money to repay everyone who was owed by PokerOne based on what their balance owed is...including me.

Attempting to reason with him has yielded no results. And he is set on holding my money hostage until I speak to his attorney and or until he decides what he is going to do with it, if anything.

He has since told me that he will be paying me "my portion" (and blewjobs who has asked him to send his share to me) if I sign some paperwork from his attorney.

Again, for the sake of clarity: The money Doug is holding has nothing to do with any outstanding PokerOne balances. It is the money that was supposed to go to blewjob as his portion of the wire and only did not because we agreed I would knock it off his debt to me and collect it from Doug later. Doug has simply refused to send me the money for his own reasons. Doug is fully aware of the above as the split was discussed with him prior to the wire being sent and re-explained to him several times by both myself and blewjob due to all of this. From what I can tell, he simply just does not care.

As of 6/19 he has refused to engage in any dialogue with me.

I have requested that he return the money to either myself or blewjob, in full, and as soon as possible.

Why don't you at least open a dialogue with his attorney and see what he has to say about the entire matter? What bad can come of that?

I agree it seems somewhat shady that Doug doesn't want to send out the rest of the money as it sounds was promised, but how are you ( and we ) supposed to know the full story until you create a dialogue with his attorney?

also you say "The money Doug is holding has nothing to do with any outstanding PokerOne balances". Isn't that exactly what the original 148k wire was for? to cover some of the outstanding balanced of the players you helped recruit to the site?

I understand being extremely frustrated with the situation as it's presented from your point of view, but it doesn't seem like you are helping yourself in this matter...talk to his attorney. As long as you don't sign any contracts, no bad can come from just talking. And potentially much good can come from it.

I agree that no contact from Doug seems fishy, and would love to hear his side of the story as well as I am sure there are some inconsistencies.

Agree with above. What happened to Doug's 70k portion of the wire? Is he also distributing that among the people who were owed by PokerOne? If not, that obviously seems wrong as I have understood the situation. If so, I think it would probably be a good idea to talk to his attorney and at least see what he has to say.

Also title is far too harsh, he clearly hasn't "stolen 47k" from the information you posted.

I can confirm that I owed Jay $50k from a favor I did for him. When Merge was getting ready to stop P2P transfers he sent $ over to my account because I had Moneybookers and would be able to cash it out quickly for him. When Doug got the wire approx $50k was suppose to be sent to me, so I just told Jay to take that in exchange for the Carbon money he sent me and $50k will be taken off what Poker One owes me.

Poker One still owes huge balances and I think that should be brought to light a little more so they can never operate again.

Sounds like you got bumhunted.

This. What line of reasoning did you use decide that a portion of that money was now 100% yours (or BLEWJOBS, to pay you)? Why does everyone else you recruited to the site get cents on the dollar but you get a portion covered 1-1?

I'm sure there's more to this story, but even as you describe it it would seem like that 148k you got is the site's attempt at paying back your stable of players (including you) and should be proportioned accordingly.

If you call Doug Polk aka WCGrider a thief under his full name, I think I think you or him need to identify the other parties involved including yourself and BLEWJOB.

But should also out real names of the PokerOne scumbags.

Why would I talk to Doug's lawyer? I don't know or care about Doug's lawyer. He's not my lawyer. Doug's lawyer doesn't owe me any money. Doug does. Maybe Doug can talk to his lawyer and return the money he has stolen. Yes stolen. He has kept money that does not belong to him for over 6 months and showed no intention of returning it. That's stealing as far as I am concerned.

Doug's 70k went to Doug. That's his money and he did whatever he wanted with it.

I didn't get bumhunted, I got rolled.

If you were to take the 148K and split it "accordingly" (I'm assuming you mean based on %'s) then Doug would have to return some of the money from that 70K as his total share of the original outstanding balance was less than 47% or whatever 70k amounts to. However, since he agreed to accept the wire and facilitate the payouts, I felt he should receive a bigger share. And so he did. $50k of that 148 was supposed to go to BLEWJOB. It never did. And that is why this thread exists.

It's public knowledge that Doug Polk is WCGRider and the subject of this thread. Anyone else involved or not involved who wants to chime in can do so freely. It is not my place to identify specific people without their permission.

As for the PokerOne scumbags - I agree but that is a matter for a different thread.

Sounds like an extremely complicated situation because by facilitating the refunds, he can open himself up to legal liability for acting as a payment processor and also from people who feel the money was disbursed incorrectly.

You should describe the percentages, for example if he receives 80% of his funds, you receive 50%, and the rest of the group receives 20% of their deposits, it's relevant as I don't think he can be at fault for suddenly developing a conscience. If he is getting a very high percentage and both of you are getting very little, sounds pretty scummy. What is the premium exactly as percentage of the balance he receives for facilitating the transfer? You can describe it as a dollar amount, for example if an equal distribution to all debtholders would be 61k for him but he got 70k, then he gets 9k for processing.

Also, what percentage of your balance are you getting back, and what percentage are the rest of the people getting back? Legal fees can eat up a huge chunk of his premium, especially if he got very nervous that he may open himself up to prosecution by facilitating the refunds.

In the United States when people conduct business they often have attorneys represent them. It assures things are done aboveboard in delicate situations like this where a disagreement exists.

A) I will never understand how poker sites cannot afford to pay our players in full, if they are not embezzling. People deposit x% , People cashout x% and they take a decent amount of rake off. It seems very simple. Obviously a site dipping in to player funds for "advertising purposes" or "operational purposes" is creating a black money hole that will eventually be an issue.

B) So basically, doug is holding you responsible for bringing his stable of players to this pokerskin, so he is saying that your $ should be used to pay everyone back since you lured them there? Is that correct? It sounds like the pokerone skin had more effective payouts than other skins.. but we need clarification on this.. not that I think it'd be a checkmate type situation if they did not.

C) It does sound like you did a decent amount of work to attempt to get everyone paid in full. Probably more than 95% of poker players would do. If this is true, I think it should weigh heavily.

D) So Doug basically offered to pay you back for a while, and now flipped the switch and is saying your money should be distributed to everyone evenly?

E) Doug saying "talk to my lawyer" in this situation is imo a pretty big duochebag thing to say. I've been in a situation like this and it's extremely frustrating when someone makes you talk to a lawyer.

F) Doug needs to chime in here asap. If not, I would assume you are basically 100% right, and should be paid back immediately.

Shocking

its not Doug's place to decide how that money is distributed if it wasn't agreed to be4 the wire went though. if OP is telling the truth Doug received the wire knowing $XXk belonged to OP. that means Doug is keeping OP's money. that is called stealing.

if that was agreed to nothing gives him the right to decide where that $$ should go.

WCGRider saying, 'speak to my lawyer' and cutting off all discussion on the topic seems like a fairly scummy thing to do from my perspective. He might feel he needs to protect himself legally but he should be at least willing to talk and negotiate if he feels something is wrong with the deal he supposedly made with the bank wire.

Jay is a spectacular douche posting this two days before Doug plays a 1 million dollar tourney. **** you *******.

What seems most interesting to me here is that you got 148k back, which to my understanding, should be used to pay off players you brought to the site in the first place. And instead of paying them off with bigger portion (because, lets be honest, if you brought them there, its partially your fault) you are talking about keeping majority of the payout to yourself (three of you) and willing to give only 28k to other players involved. It seems your only concern is to pay off your own debts fully let others have the change. ...at least thats what I get from your post.
Plus since Doug is facilitating the refunds, he has to be protected, bcs if he gives you all the money and other get the rest. Whats protecting him for being sued for giving you bigger share, especially since youre responsible for bringing players there? Its easy to say "oh well, its managements fault, not mine" ...as I recall everybody seemed pissed when FTP payed off somebody fully and evereybody else got nothing...
However not responding at all is a first class dick move.

Doug owes me money, refuses to talk to me and despite this I text him informing him of my intention to make the situation public, ask him if we can work this out like gentlemen instead, give him a reasonable amount of time to respond and get completely ignored...and I'm a spectacular douche because I didn't take his tournament schedule into consideration?

Can you ask him to make an appearance in this thread so that I can apologize for disturbing his tournament preparations?

Timing of this being brought to light is irrelevant. If he owe money he owes money.

Well said. In my former line of work, if I were caught using client's funds, I would go to jail. Why is it any different for these guys? Because the US government needs to protect us? Some protection, huh?

get real

Like this makes a difference

just ignore him, fees has always been like that

i wonder how fees feels about all this tho

Isn't fees a well known bumhunter? Or am I mistaken?

+1