This is long and detailed. My only hope is that it serves to help other players avoid wasting their time with this company.

I have been playing online poker for over 8 years now. I have gone from Paradise Poker to Party Poker to PokerStars to FullTilt Poker to Carbon Poker. I am loyal to the site I play on. I was even loyal to FullTilt in the end with their low level of service in comparison to Stars, but now I am paying the price as FullTilt Poker has my money and I do not know if I will get it back. With Carbon Poker, I have never experienced anything remotely close to such a low level of "service" with any company in my life, let alone a poker site.

Shortly after April 15th, I found Carbon Poker, part of the Merge Network and deposited $1000 through Western Union. The following post is my experience in dealing with Carbon poker and it should serve as a severe warning to anyone thinking of depositing money on the Merge Network and more specifically Carbon Poker.

Initial Deposit

The initial deposit went through fine, sort of. I used the bonus code from an affiliate to receive a 200% bonus up to $2000. You have probably seen this advertised before. It is a thinly veiled scam, you will never receive the majority of this bonus money. A small portion of it yes, but never the whole thing. The bonus clears at a very, very slow rate. I multi table the $100FR and will play up to 16 tables at once and rarely play under 10 tables, but I would have been nowhere close to finishing this bonus in 3 months time having played over 400k hands in that time.

My own experience never gave me the chance to even try for this bonus because Carbon Poker never credited my account with the bonus. I noticed this error and contacted them via their Live Chat several times regarding the issue after sending in multiple emails that they never responded to. Live Chat was never helpful after waiting in queue for about half an hour on average each time I contacted them. They were very nice, but could not/would not give me the $2k bonus. Instead they credited my account for a $600 bonus. It is worth noting that any bonus will be immediately forfeit upon request of a cashout.

I am very computer savvy and made sure to delete my cache/cookies before downloading the software. I also made sure to insert the Promo Code exactly as my affiliate instructed. So I am certain the issue was not on my end. There are several examples of other people experiencing the same problem on this forum.

Also, it took about 2 weeks for Carbon Support to link my account with the rakeback affiliate. This should have happened automatically, but did not and I spent several hours of my own time trying to get Carbon Support to make this happen.

First Withdrawal

I initiated my first withdrawal on May 5th for $1000 by check. By May 8th, the withdrawal was still "Pending Approval" and my account had swelled. I cancelled the withdrawal and changed it to $2500. This is currently the maximum allowed cashout from Carbon Poker for US Players. That check also simply sat in "Pending Approval" mode. Worth noting that you can only have 1 pending withdrawal at a time.

On May 10th, I canceled that check and opened a UseMyWallet account. I transferred $2564 from Carbon to UMW. This processed within 48 hours. I had already verified my account with Carbon to make the cashout process smoother. The verification process is a nightmare for many people, but I had done my research and it went smoothly for me. It took less than a week to verify me.

UMW has their own verification process which I also completed smoothly. They sent a wire transfer to my bank account on May 16th. Very shortly after this Carbon Poker removed UMW from their list of deposit/withdrawal methods. They never communicated this decision in any way to the players. They simply removed it.

A few days later, UMW sent an email to their client base stating that they have shut down their business for the foreseeable future and any money you had with them will not be accessible or returned. Basically, any money anyone had on UMW may have been stolen and/or seized by the DOJ. A horrible situation. I was very fortunate not to have lost any money in this manner. I feel sorry for those people who did. Again, Carbon Poker has not made any effort to communicate with the players on this matter. I sent an email to my VIP Support Rep and received back little to no information or official statement.

My VIP Support Rep

On obtaining one of the two highest levels of rakeback on Carbon Poker, Water and Ether, players are given an individual VIP Player Host. This person is dedicated to answering your questions via email. Do not believe the hype. This is an absolutely horrific thing. I have waited up to 5 days to receive a reply to an email from my VIP Player Host. Often I do not get my questions answered at all. He has been helpful in some ways. For instance, in May he bumped up my VIP level from Water to Ether just because I asked him to.

The problems have far, far outweighed the benefits. On May 4th, he switched me from rakeback to a non rakeback account at my request. This will give me higher rakeback overall and he stated very clearly in his email to me that this would take effect immediately. It did not take effect until over a week later. I had to email him several times to get this to happen. It cost me a lot of money. Just in the Marathon Man bonus alone, I lost $425 through this error. I lost money in many other ways too, Money Tree, Points Conversions, King of the Hill, etc. To be clear, had he done as he said he did or had he not done anything at all I would have more money right now. By saying on May 4th that it would take effect immediately and then not having it process until over a week later, I lost the maximum and Carbon Poker made the maximum.

I asked him to fix this, but he never did. So I told him to just forget about it. I had given up on him and Carbon Poker.

Second Withdrawal

On May 22nd, I requested a withdrawal of $2500 by check. The maximum and only way a US player can withdraw funds. Over the following few days, I sent 2 emails to my VIP Support Rep and a private message to Carbon Atil asking that this check be expedited. On the second email to my rep he said that he would request it be expedited. I have not heard anything from Carbon Atil. The check is still sitting in Pending Approval today on June 1st.

Initial Depositor's Rake Chase Scam

Carbon Poker offers an initial depositor's rake chase for all first time depositors. The details on the program can be found by clicking on this LINK.

One week after I was supposed to be paid for this promotion, I emailed my VIP Player Rep. He responded that because I signed up through an affiliate I was not eligible for this money, which amounted to $500, and that they would not be paying me. I had read the rules of the promotion and, of course, this disqualification is not stated.

They simply decided to not pay me the $500 and there is nothing I can do about it.

Super Money Tree

I received my Super Money Tree payment today. It was for $439.93, but should have been $967.85. I have emailed support and my VIP Player Rep about this error. I have serious doubts about whether I will ever receive the correct amount. It is much more likely that I will hear some lame excuse followed by "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

I know times are difficult for poker players right now. Choices are limited. For me, Carbon Poker is not a rational choice for a winning player. The reasons should now be obvious.

It is my personal belief that this company is either incredibly incompetent and will take your money by being apathetic to your concerns or they are corrupt and will take your money because they can and there is nothing you can do about it.

Protect yourself, play somewhere that treats customer concerns with respect and diligence.

soda

I would beware putting money on any site that caters to the US right now, especially 4 figures.

Thanks alot! This is very informative, especially seeing as how i am one of those players that it took almost a week to "verify " my account, and have had a check "processing" for over a week now. At first their support was really good and since their live support has gone down, its been ATROCIOUS!! i believe they told me it would be 4-6 weeks to process my check, i asked them is there a way to expedite or courier it 3 days ago and havent received a response. please keep us posted as to how long it takes to ever get paid.

Good post op and very informative. Seems like you put a lot of effort into it.
Anyone that plays on U.S accepting sites is taking a huge risk, it almost seems like once you put money on there its impossible to get it out.
The liquidity,safeness of funds, dryness of the games just makes playing on those sites a pretty -ev scenario even for a big winning poker player.
I would not play on there unless I was being staked or something.

News Alert! News Alert! Warning! Warning!

This just in!

Poker sites are having problems cashing out US players. The full story at 11!

They did just get a boat load of U.S. players from Black Friday.. I've heard bad things about Carbon, but nothing bad about RPM Poker.. RPM is the best Merge skin..

Um, genius- cash outs, support, etc (except for some live support specific to skin), IS all the same on Merge.

Slow cash outs on Carbon, slow cash outs on RPM (and their live support can't speed it up for you).

I would have to agree with this statement. I'm going to deposit no more than $100 after FT releases funds and this is just to cure my "fix". No more until something changes for the US.

Hope all works out OP.

This is incorrect. I signed up on PokerHost yesterday, the last day anyone is eligible for rakeback. I'm not sure I'll even play at all but I did want to have the option. Anyway they have their own live support which answers right away, and I've used it like 5 times. Never a wait and within seconds I'm in a conversation.

They also have their own cashier and this was the main reason I opened an account with them. I actually had an account at GR88 but never played it. I purposefully opened it at PH because there's two cashout options that have worked well for me ever since I started playing online poker. Point is, there are Merge skins with their own support and own cashier.

That said I wouldn't recommend them and probably wont even play them myself. There's some sort of bad history with the company that runs their cashier. I want to say Gizzette or something, but TBH I haven't had time to research it and don't care to. You should though, if looking into signing up with the Merge skins that use this cashier.

Soda, sorry to hear of your bad experience. I do want you to focus on how extremely fortunate you were to just barley miss the UMW/QT shutdown though. PM me if you need any advice, including a suggestion for online play. I personally am done with online poker and have made plans to be playing live exclusively, full time. Good luck.

RPM has great live support, and RPM Seth has been pretty good to me so far through PMs a such. I haven't cashed out, but I don't really expect it to be quick - I'm not playing professionally, so I don't really care.

I guess if you don't cash out then it doesn't matter much...

As you noted with Poker Host - the most unreliable are those that DON'T use the Merge Cashier.

Consequently, the main Support for RPM is the same as Carbon. Just pointing this out. There are over 100 skins (or thereabouts) on Carbon, we just have the main ones ITF. I was responding to a poster, if you wish to nit pic, so be it.

However, he did post this also in the Carbon thread - and most responses were along my line - I suggest you give that a read.

Didn't mean to nit pick, just was saying that support and cashier are not the same on all skins of Merge. That's it, take anything else FWIW.

If you want opinion, I suggest not playing online poker for anything meaningful anymore, if you're American.

Bottom line, and regardless of the support levels: I wouldn't put any $$ in an online poker site that you can't afford never to see again - treat it like you're going to Vegas for the weekend --- strictly entertainment value and anything you see at the end of the day will be a bonus. Don't rely on it for income. If you approach this any differently now (i.e., after BF), you're setting yourself up in a bad way. Just one man's opinion.

I put a few hundred into RPM just to play for fun - if I get some back, great, if not, it's just entertainment at this point...

Cheers

So true. The DOJ could anyday do the same with these sites that it did with Stars/FT.

shady site that will be shut down soon = they dont get my deposits.

like u have any $$$ to deposit!

OP, may be worth it to contact Kahnawake Gaming Commission and inquire about legal options in Kahnawake, Canada.

Although I think soda came in with some unrealistic expectations, I do agree with the majority of his post.

I would also add that Carbon has not even recognized the UMW/QT problem or reached out to players that were stung by using it at Carbon's clear recommendation. In addition, Carbon has never paid out any of my quads promotions, and I am still waiting for for my April rake chase payment.

I reached out to help a lot of people when they had questions in the Carbon support thread in the mad rush to deposit after BF, while the reps Atil and Chris basically disappeared. AlexSinn also busted her *** helping people with questions at that time. At this point, I regret that because Carbon has been an overall fail in the last month and a half.

I got paid for quads promo on May 18, about 2 days after I submitted the screen shot.

I am sorry to hear about the troubles everyone is having with Carbon. I enjoy playing on the site, but now I am getting very depressed and wondering if it is worth it. I haven't tried to cashout yet, ldo.

Disturbing if true.

I suppose, but a US player playing online in this climate should really expect cashout times to be delayed, no matter where they play. What I'm saying is that I would expect a lot of the other issues the OP ran into at Carbon with their sh*tty support wouldn't happen @ RPM because they're support is a lot better.

It is only a matter of time before Carbon and the rest get slammed by the DOJ. And with the UMW thing it sounds like they are well aware and getting ready. I personally think all US serious grinders should get get a job or play live because until the gov gets their hands in the pie. There is going to be constant problems with sites and DOJ shut downs. The odds are like 90%+ that something is going to happen to your money, be it not paying promos, ridiculous cash out waits, etc. It all boils down to most people crying about how the cant pay their bills and the sites are a scam. I really dont see how it could be worth the risk.

Not saying you are crying OP you seem to be taking it in stride and just giving a heads up about the site. And thank you for that. Hope everything eventually works out for you.

if gov decided to target Merge today, it could take 1 year+ for them to take action.

i just wish Carbon was more like Lock.

How is it that Carbon has a larger budget than both Lock and RPM, yet is unable to provide the same:
- customer support - sucks
- sponsored pros - i dont even care, but it means they have even more money (lock and rpm have a bunch of pros)
- promotions - lock and rpm have more
- intelligent management - lock and bodog have already moved to .eu

A lot of the valid complaints the OP has involves rakeback, bonuses, rake chases and the like. I suspect these types of things are handled by the skins and not the network. I have had an excellent experience with these things on RPM.