Only he can say for sure. I just repost things I think are relevant.

It's not our expectations that matter. We made it clear that it is the expectations of our users which must be satisfied.

That said, we are hopeful that Lock is truly in the process of making things right. If they wanted to close shop and run with the money, why go through all of this first?

Please relate your story to Melanie Weisner here on 2+2. Callista 5. She is a lock pro and in denial about the criminal behaviour going on at another level by her sponsor. Send her a link to your marketplace and trading threads so she knows you're on the level. You will be doing her a favor.

because that's what they do every single time this happens?

Have you been living under a freaking rock for the last week bro?

I understand there's a history, but I'd still still like to know why go through the effort if the intention is blatant thievery? All we did was have a phone conversation. We didn't get proof of anything, but in our conversation they were very confident that all of this would be resolved.

I can't imagine there are enough new deposits that would make prolonging this beneficial to them if they are actually trying to steal from anyone.

I'm holding on to the hope that the biggest problem they have is lack of communication. If that lack of communication continues, but people start receiving their money, then I think most people would agree that's an acceptable outcome.

I just read this and realize I probably haven't said anything particularly helpful, but I'm leaving it up just because I sent five minutes writing it.

More deposits and more time taking a salary before the you file for bankruptcy?

This isn't a serious question right. When your running a scam the best thing you can do is prolong it. Why close up shop now when you can do it a year from now and steal another few 100,000 dollars. (also the more you rake the less your technically 'stealing'). I can think of many reasons why Jen and the other top executives would love for this to drag on a little longer.
Also, most scammers have a delusion that eventually they will make enough money to pay people off... that may be happening here. Maybe they spent the player funds but feel in a year or so they can balance the books.

Also, your making a big assumption that Lock Poker is acting rationally. Just because they are scammers doesn't mean they are good at it.

Mat,

No one expects 2+2 to like demand that Lock make public an audit by a reputable accounting firm. What we do expect is that you demand that Lock explicitly disclose their transfer cash out policy, if there are players that they will not allow to cash out regardless of the amount that they play, and why they are refusing those cash outs.

Maybe their intention isn't blatant thievery. Maybe they are just delusional and think that they will turn things around. Maybe they are just really stupid. Who knows. Afaik though, every site that's ever bailed with player money has always kept up the act as long as possible, so its pretty naive to think that everything is all good just because they could be more efficiently stealing if that was their intent.

Fwiw, I think 2+2 is handling this pretty well, but just sayin.

The majority of criminals don't turn themselves in even when the cops are knocking at the door....just saying....

cost of running lock > new deposits

This should obviously be made clear by them asap. Or at the very least there should be some good explanation as to why it isn't being disclosed.

Frankly I think the players should be demanding an audit, or some other proof their money is safe.

At this point their word isn't good enough.

That is only because they have a terrible spending habit. If Lock Poker was run professionally they could easily bring their costs down so they are profitable again. But yes, when you spend 120% (random guess) of your income on marketing, its hard to show a profit.

From what I understand, Lock spends a lot on marketing and advertising. CardPlayer, 2p2, Covers.com, etc.

It would be -EV to pull the plug on deposits before you absolutely had to.

THIS!

I don't understand the politics of this situation, clearly, but:

Is it possible that as a retaliation to us demanding they remove their banners, they will just slink away from 2p2? Perhaps "Joseph"'s post was just a final decoy?

Mat, just so you know, there are accusations that the new lock security account is actually shane on a new account. It should be made clear to lock that this kind of attempt at deception is unacceptable. It is also my belief that shane should not be allowed to post on 2+2 either on his regular account or anyone else's. If he has not proven this already then today's little incident certainly does (if accusations are true). Lock should want to do this anyway since Shane has long ago lost all credibility. But for the good of everyone I believe it should be made clear that the new rep should be replacing Shane ... and not working on here in conjunction with him.

This seems perfectly logical, but the same logic would've applied to AP/UB or FTP after Black Friday, plus a long list of other sites that ran off with player funds.

I think that in situations like this, things can be significantly more complicated than blatant thievery but still end up being essentially blatant thievery from the victims' perspectives.

I mean.. it's actually pretty easy to come up with a long list of plausible explanations for why a poker site without the funds to pay players would claim that it has those funds--They might be praying that things will improve; they could just want to take in as many deposits as possible; whoever screwed up might be too embarrassed to tell other people; etc. It's also easy to come up with specific examples behaving more-or-less exactly like Lock is behaving that went under.

What's really hard to do is to come up with any OTHER explanation for Lock's behavior.

In some cases such as this one, silence is the loudest thing that they can say. When they talk, it's like listening to nothing. When we talk, it falls on deaf ears.

Probably buying time to get the money safely away and untraceable/unceaseable seeing as the cat's outa the bag. At the very least I'm sure this latest uber eff up has caught some unwanted legal scrutiny to be sure.

Btw, Shane's been on the forum several times since your original posting. With the exception of removing the stickies I'm dumfounded as to why or for what purpose seeing as "Joseph" apparantly has taken on this particular aspect of his "duties." Only bringing that to your attention, no hidden meaning directed at ya'all.

I suspect they are different people. Shane and Joseph do share a strange way of spelling "Cyprus" tho...

Seriously though, Joseph's statement is completely innadequate and doesn't seem to offer anything beyond what Shane was already saying. Also, it doesn't address many of questions at all, like why are ROW cash-outs delayed?

If this is Lock's response (re Joseph's first and only post so far) to 2p2 taking down their ads, then words fail me. Theres no facepalm.gif in the world that can describe how utterly incompetent they've handled this mess.

Ok so its the weekend, and even a bank holiday weekend in the UK (this might be irrelevant given the location of the business) but you would have thought that anyone wanting to salvage their business at this point would try just a little bit harder?

every post i've ever written^