I know I've seen this idea posted around, but thought it should be it's own thread and have it's own attention.

If Lock is selling at such an extremely low value in the marketplace, being roughly around $.30-$.35 on the dollar these days, then why couldn't Lock buy up the funds themselves here and slowly, but surely, become more financially "on track". Heck, even if Lock claims to be just fine financially, wouldn't they STILL want to do this? Anyone think they ARE doing this already and still not gaining ground?

I mean, from speculation standpoint, wouldn't the only reason for NOT doing this be if they didn't value their own money at that rate? Even if Lock has to take a loan in order to buy up the money, it would be extremely profitable and logical in the long run to do so now. That is, if they do plan on sticking around for the long run, which seems to be their intention.

If Lock were to get their sh*t together, including payout times and all, then everyone who would have sold their funds at a discount would go back to withdrawing their funds at 1:1 straight from Lock. So to sum it up, Lock would rather NOT be a little tighter on money in buying their way out right now, and instead focus on getting on track for better payout times and therefore having to payout 3X the amount themselves for all the current and future marketplace money?

I'm all about people getting their money, and I hate the idea of people having to get their funds at a discount, but that's ALREADY HAPPENING. Honestly, Lock might very well have an account or two through which they've BEEN buying funds and obviously that wouldn't be leaked anyways. But it just seems like a no-brainer if they aren't. If you can't buy your way out of debt at 30-35%, then yikes. And I know it's only a fraction of the debt, but it's a growing fraction, and there would even be a significant amount of more sellers at around 45-50% these days if you run out of sellers at the lower rates.

Edit: And obviously if Lock (a "mysterious" buyer) buys up a lot of funds in the marketplace, they win, AND the sellers win in receiving their money, AND future sellers should win because with less supply and a nonstop buyer at .35, the price for Lock funds should slowly climb regardless of the lack of change in payout times.

I think Shane said before that this is not a road they're willing to go down ethically (LOL).

This is a truly ridiculous suggestion, and would effectively be theft by Lock poker. I'm actually not even sure what exactly you are suggesting. They currently can't pay out what they owe, so somehow they are going to be able to pay people in the marketplace? Are you suggesting they utilize payments that otherwise would have gone towards standard cashouts towards marketplace purchases at vig? Lock has no magical source of payment that is available for marketplace purchases at VIG that isn't available to simply payout what they owe normally.

I had this thought a few times, and wondered if it did occur. Problem is, though - how would they buy up the funds themselves?

Take all of the current accepted methods in the P2P thread, for instance. You have BoA/WF, GDMP, WU, Netspend, bank transfers, Skrill/MB, Neteller, Chase QP (which is generally frowned upon but still used), Amazon, and gift cards. Unless Lock is going to set up a US rep to pay out for their own skin funds, you can cross BoA/WF, Netspend, Chase, and bank xfers right off that list. Any massive trading done with WU (as we've seen), Amazon, or gift cards would be a violation of their TOS (though it's probably a violation to do one trade...lol). Skrill/MB and Neteller aren't available for US players either.

That leaves GDMP - and I'm not sure that's done all over like it is here in the US. So, unless you're talking about excluding US traders, just right off the jump, it would be impossible to pull off on those merits alone (to say nothing about legality/ethics). There's just no reasonable way for Lock to get money to a US trader for the skin funds. That's why they use shady processors to take deposits in the first place.

So - let's go ROW, then. Let's say Lock decides to buy up all traded Lock funds from ROW players. First off, that isn't going to help much insofar as its P2P value, since ROW players generally have much better options than Lock to play online anyway. How much could they buy up? Are there enough ROW traders to make a difference? Could they set up "Juan Pablo Maurice Vengassa Roberto Gargantuan" with a Skrill/Neteller account for the sole purpose of funding other players for their skin money? I live in the US and have no clue on whether they could or not, or in what location.

This is just my opinion, but I don't think it's the ethics of it that would stop Lock from doing this. There's just no way they could do it, since I'm pretty sure the majority of the trading pool they'd draw from is US-based. They don't have a way to get money from them to the trader. If they did somehow, they'd be in an even bigger potential mess with US authorities if they caught wind of it. I would think that could end Lock a heck of a lot quicker than their inept policies might.

So as interesting a scenario as it might be, and as much as, in the end, it might help Lock to do it, I just don't see how it's actually possible. Unless I'm missing something...and hey, if I am, nobody's perfect.

You guys are assuming that Lock has funds to purchase the funds when discussing this plan of action, but clearly they do not have enough/any money to even do this. You do realize that the numbers in your Lock Poker accounts are not real dollars, they are just numbers. If Lock Poker doesn't have real money in their bank accounts, then those numbers in your Lock Poker accounts are essentially monopoly money. So, unless they have outside investors willing to bail them out, or Lock manages to get enough new players to deposit funds so that they can do this, we probably won't be seeing our money for quite a long time. Based on my inside information I think that we will eventually get our money off of Lock, but I'd say it's going to take quite a long time. The only way it's happening anytime soon is if someone with a lot of money comes in to invest/bail them out (similar to what PokerStars did with FullTilt) of the situation they put themselves in. Lock has clearly put themselves into almost the exact situation FTP did, the only good thing is that the DOJ hasn't come knocking, so they haven't had to completely surrender...yet.

Lock would definitely have to send first to me.

LOL @ people who think Lock isn't doing this on some scale at least

haha

I hate to agree, but I do.

^^ I'd like to know how. I mean...it seems obvious, but in practice, wouldn't it be quite difficult, and extremely risky, to pull off?

http://btr.michaelkwan.com/2007/10/0...adian-citizen/

So basically, a Canadian sets up a US bank account, starts buying up Lock funds with a phony player account that drains directly back to Lock's coffers (but played with occasionally to appear legit), and continues funding this bank account with money from Lock?

I don't know - even the idea of this would have to raise the suspicion of the DoJ. Any kind of money being deposited from Canada or a Canadian citizen and subsequently transferred to other users in the states, without any other account activity, would have to appear on someone's radar. Can't believe even to try to balance the books the risk is worth the reward...

+1

where does the DOJ come into this? You have a couple accts that play MS+ every now and then, maybe have someone decent at poker playing in a very nitty style (plenty of such players), and buy up funds on various poker sites like 2p2, CC, FTR, etc

They buy lock $$$ and transfer 33% of the value through skrill/NT/chase/bitcoin etc. And yeah their(lock's) accounts payable are 10k less while their cash or w/e is only 3.33k less, but who do you think checks these guys' books so as to notice this and make a big deal about it?


Hell, if they can just run a cpl poker bots that play micro stakes and BE, they can buy a ton of funds thru those accts

Not ethical, not happening, not now and not ever.

Bc lock gives a f*** about ethics.

Isn't promising a person something, not following through on it, then ignoring the fact, deemed unethical?

C'mon, you can't pick and choose when to sit on your moral high horse.. (Well actually you can - besides the point )

Of course! It is completely logical to just make **** up and believe it wholeheartedly without a shred of evidence. I honestly hope you have not a single finger in any judicial process.

cuz ur broke

ban this joke

Highly doubt they are doing this. Lock is in major trouble right now. Buying money on 2p2 won't even make a dent in their issues.

I've seen nothing recently that makes me think that Lock has any intention of giving any more money back to players.

Imo, it would be much more ethical for them to buy back than to stiff, which is how things are lookin right now.

Keeping on theme with the overall thread topic, couldn't Lock borrow money (and don't tell me they can't find creditors, because I bet they can) to start the continuation of paying out players more regularly/frequently? Enough so that they'd gain more traffic as they once had through players being satisfied with withdrawal times and make their way back "on track"? Their withdrawal times have very little to do with processor delays, especially with the proof of how frequently other sites are paying out. So really, it has to do with cash flow. Well, in order to improve your cash flow, you first need to improve your reputation of current withdrawal times. In order to do that, you need to borrow money and make that happen, plain and simple.

I realize I may be an idiot for playing on this site again casually for my "poker fix", but I bought $80 more Lock for $30 cash in the marketplace a couple weeks ago, built that up over the last couple weeks and requested another withdrawal. I inquired from Lock Support if their WU withdrawal times had improved and they told me 4-5 weeks before confirmation of being processed and then more time to receive the money from there.

Well, even at best wouldn't that be around 6-8 weeks before receiving funds? So given that simple math, considering you can't have multiple withdrawals pending in the processing stage, you can withdraw about 7 or 8 times a year? That sounds awful. What would be the point of me winning large amounts unless you want to wait eternity for a check? Where's my incentive to bink a Sunday Guarantee?

Lock has to eliminate Fair Play Technology, or do something to buy themselves out of this situation. I repeat, it will require an inflow of money to boost reputation through decreased waiting times of withdrawals, and from there, they can make money more quickly.

Just like in Monopoly: if you don't spend the money to buy houses/hotels and just sit with a smaller trickle of income, it's going to get increasingly harder to pay people when you owe them.

Edit: Oh, and as profitable as we can perceive their casino to be, it clearly isn't resulting in faster withdrawal times, so we can only assume that it isn't nearly profitable enough given this situation.

If this situation were happening where Lock was buying their chips at 1/3 value in reality this would not help Lock at all. It is a wash. For every transaction where Lock erases 2/3 in debt for 1/3 in currency they also lose new deposits to players who are buying chips from other players instead of depositing directly to Lock. I bet that Lock's cash revenue is down to 20% of what it once was. All the regular players know that chips are only worth roughly .33 so no one is buying in for full value. The result is that everyone loses until the value of the chips stabilizes. Eventually it will either be worth 1-1 or 0-1. Right now the market says that it is more likely to reach 0 but I am hoping that it will eventually be worth 1-1 however I am somewhat hedging my bets as I've sold off some of my winnings but kept the bulk of it.

Yes lock puts high value on being such an ethical company as we all know

I'm sorry but I seriously doubt that any reputable creditors are gonna loan to Lock. The kind of "loans" they might be able to get are the ones with exorbitant vig and that would kind of defeat the whole idea.

I don't know if you're doing this thread purely as an intellectual exercise or presenting it as a realistic way for Lock to emerge from the doldrums, but if the latter then the problem is that it assumes some sort of good faith desire on the part of Lock to run a competent, sustainable business. It's like if you came to Bernie Madoff in 2008 and suggested he save his enterprise by investing in X, Y, or Z.

If Lock starts buying up their own funds at a vig, then basically they're as a company admitting to stealing / admitting to their own funds being worth less. Furthermore, it means "selling" improved cashout times for a huge price as a business.. individuals doing this is something they can't really prevent, but doing it as a business is indeed imo unethical, it's basically scamming really.

Do you think they're not capable of it? Lock has shown us all numerous times over the years that they can't be trusted. Every time an issue came up giving them a chance to act with integrity, they've chosen the lying, scamming low road.

I predict that Lock is going to stiff the network and try to go somewhere else, maybe Winning. They'll blame everything on Revolution and promise that everything is going to be great now that they arent being held back by the network. Some new players might be fooled again, and new deposits might pick up again. Price of Lock money might also pick back up on a new network, this would also increase deposits.

Cutting and running seems far more likely than sticking it out and paying their debts on Revolution. Unless of course no other network will accept them.

Well, I'll speak for myself here, I don't know how dumb the masses would be if they decide to do this. I'd definately agree with you, the network can't be the core problem, they've always said it's payment processing issues, and while I know they also ran into some issues / things that could've been dealt better on a network level, to me, I will personally know the network isn't to blame and if they decide to ever go this route, you can be damn sure I'll post about this fact not only here, but possibly on other forums aswell.

What they will or won't do, I don't know, though, honestly? No, I wouldn't "put it past them" if that's what you're asking, still doesn't mean I know whether they will or won't, though.