UGH, these guys are complete scum! I signed up with pokerswat.com (instructional site) on September 15th, 2009. I was interested in watching the videos of players such as pooruser, ozzy 87, andy mcleod, traheho, etc. Low and behold, the last video they decided to create was at/or around September 14th. Therefore, I paid them like $150 for a 6 month membership and was provided with NO new videos after I signed up. I couldn't help but ask myself, "Why in the hell would they take my $150 if they knew the site was soon going under?"

I asked them multiple times for a refund, and they kept beating around the bush.

And to make matters worse, I get an email from them saying they "transferred" my membership to a new training site. To my suprise, they greet me with the oppurtunity to watch videos from "leatherass" on some new site called dragthebar or something. Leatherass might win at poker, but I HATE his videos. I've watched them on stoxpoker, and they are very boring to watch.

The reason why I signed up with pokerswat, again, was to watch some of the beasts that I mentioned. I find it quite amusing that they happily accepted my $150 and decided, "Hey, we got his money! hahaha - little does he know, we won't be making any more videos!" And then, they try replacing that with videos by leatherass!? Are you ****ing kidding me?

Give me my damn refund and tell my "dragthebar" membership to go to hell!!!

(ps. I'm only pissed because I signed up the day after they stopped making ANY new videos. If I had been a member for like 3 months worth of new videos, I'd be fine with getting my membership transferred to some other site as a replacement because I would feel like they did everything in their power to keep the site running, but couldn't. MY SITUATION, however, is SO MUCH different; because THEY SHOULD HAVE NOT ACCEPTED MONEY from me without INFORMING me that no new videos were being made!)


Just imagine you buy a TITLEST golf driver on the internet and can't wait for it to arrive at your doorstep. Suddenly, titlest goes out of business the day before you buy the driver. They say, "HEY, WE AREN'T GIVING YOU A REFUND. INSTEAD, WE ARE SHIPPING YOU A NICE WAL-MART DRIVER!"

How's that for a comparison, leatherass?

pokers wat?



this thread probably works better in the zoo (internet poker), although I'm not sure.

If you paid via credit card dispute the charge.

at this point in time, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to see a dime (especially after this post - LOL). So I view this as $150 worth of entertainment (to call them out and give them a bad name for their shady business practices while dealing with me).

to clarify are they still in business but not making vids?

Yes, I think they are still in business (site is still up, anyways). I wouldn't be suprised if they're still accepting payments from innocent buyers such as myself, as well. Only to have them directed to a site where videos are being made by the one and only, leatherass.

Would that be a problem ? All the pokerswat videos you paid for are available on dragthebar. I was an instructor for pokerswat and I know they have made every effort to be as fair as possible to their customers in a very difficult situation.

Edit : I should have said "are or will be available". DTB may be releasing them over time. In any case, if you check the videos page you will see that two videos by Andy McLeod were released today, for example. And :

No, they aren't.

OP is a well known troll, please look into banning him apefish pleaseeeeeeeee

a well known troll previously known as gambler2k4.

didn't you already make this topic?

Where or not OP has been a troll in the past should have no bearing on this thread and op should not be banned for posting a legit complaint.

+1

I should have found this before but I suck at teh search. This issue was raised here :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/10...53/index2.html

Starting at post 140. Thread includes replies from myself and Pokerswat rep AcesDoubleSuited.

Edit : In response to a complaint by Troy Gamble. There is at least some speculation I have found (not least in this thread) that wood_wall = Troy Gamble = gambler2k4.

how do I not get a cash refund? the problem is that I was provided NO new material. as you know, the game constantly evolves. so why in the hell would it be appealing for me to watch videos that are 1-2 years old? i cannot believe your defending your position and at the same time making me feel uncomfortable from a customers view.

OP Actually has a decent point that some announcement that no new videos were going to be made, and he/she should have been informed.

"Scammed" is clearly not the correct description though.

OP,

Email dragthebar. You didn't sign up for a dragthebar membership and it sounds like they aren't making the old pokerswat videos you signed up for (and new ones you were expecting) available to you immediately.

Just ask for a refund, state your case in a calm and disciplined manner. Most good training sites that I know would take care of you. Based on what you are saying, you are in the right, but taking this up with DTB before making a thread on 2p2 seems more appropriate.

I'll try to find a DTB rep to weigh in publicly here.

I'm Hunter Bick, CEO and founder of DragTheBar.com. While I cannot comment on how PokerSwat ran their company because I wasn't there and we did not have a relationship with them until we acquired them in January, I'll do my best to clarify things.

Pokerswat in October stopped accepting new videos from their coaches because they were looking to shut down their business. The reason they transferred your membership to us is because we stepped in and rather than have them shut down their video library and leave their members without training they had paid for, we offered to acquire their library and fulfill the outstanding memberships.

It was an unfortunate situation for their members and we are doing our best to help them get their money's worth. While I can understand your disappointment with the outcome since its not 100% of what you thought you were paying for, the current outcome is certainly better than if they had just closed their doors and that was it.

We are doing everything in our power to fulfill PokerSwat's obligations to them with no gain to DragTheBar. We never received any monetary compensation for these memberships and we are providing these at no cost to PokerSwat customers. We acquired their video library and felt obligated to do all we could to help these members get something where there had been nothing, we are trying to do the right thing here for these people.

Just to clarify, Leatherass coaches and blogs with us, he is not a DragTheBar owner and does not make management decisions.

Hunter,

Thank you for weighing in here.

I have a few questions if you don't mind:

- When you were talking about purchasing PokerSwat, did the topic of members that did not want to switch over to DTB come up? Did you anticipate this at all? This is no hit on your site, but it's expected that even if your site was rated superior in all categories by a majority of users to pokerswat, some people may still not be satisfied.

- Is there not a potential gain from gaining new members that were previously paid members from another training site, even if you end up giving them a few months free to honor their prior subscriptions? To me, that could potentially be profitable in of itself, as you're gaining new, built in paid members that get to see your site and resubscribe. Renewal rates are high on good training sites, so you could potentially come out ahead in this regard, I believe.

- How do you verify who was a paid subscriber to PokerSwat as they closed? Did PokerSwat reject refunds from users that had paid memberships extending beyond their sale?

- If you were not going to provide refunds to users that were not satisfied with the sale, did you ask PokerSwat to mention this prior to the sale being finalized?

- If a refund is not a willing option for you to users such as OP (and I'm sure they are very small in number), why not publish or give these users access to all the old PokerSwat videos? This seems like it could be a major problem. A user that subscribed to PokerSwat then saw the site videos sold now has no access to these videos (or limited access if they are being periodically rereleased as somebody mentioned in this thread).

Thank you for coming into this thread in a timely manner. My questions are meant to resolve this issue, and I want to point out that you've shown a very efficient willingness to participate here and thank you again for that.

zzzzzzzz not worth my time to argue this anymore. I got my word out that they practice shady forms of business, and that's all I care about. I guess I'll just have to settle for the "wal-mart driver" instead of the "titleist driver"...

Seriously, this tone doesn't help.

You get one reply from the owner of the site, he makes some valid points and needs to make some follow up answers.

You already posted a bunch of times, you started a thread, why can't you wait until he replies again?

I once had a subscription for a magazine that went belly up. I started getting a different magazine in the mail along with an explanatory letter that this was to fulfill by subscription. While it was not the magazine I'd ordered, I was still getting some value for my money and it was better than getting shafted altogether. I was not offered a refund, but a magazine that folds is generally hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when it does (a video site, however, is quite clearly different).


You definitely have a complaint, but not with dragthebar. They appear to be simply stepping in to help out and raise their own profile and did not profit from the situation. The owners of the original site should have offered a pro-rated refund and should definitely be thought less of if they do not do so.

surprised lukieplaya hand has not been posted yet... trollers are slacking.

Hi Hunter:

Thanks for taking the time to comment. None of that sounds unreasonable, but even your own press release has this written up as an acquisition of Pokerswat, as opposed to just buying up a few video assets. The language appears very clear to that point a number of times (your press release is below), and in practice it looks like that's what's happened as you've effectively assumed their memberships as well.

Obviously Pokerswat should not have been accepting any subscription payments when they were essentially defunct, so it's hard not to sympathize with OP a little here. The obligation to give him what he actually paid for seems to have gotten lost in the move.

You've been around a while on 2+2, so I'm sure you know how little things like this can reflect on various poker sites. Can I humbly suggest that DragtheBar make an effort to quickly make this right with OP, even if Pokerswat failed to do so?

EG