Lock Poker Shadiness 101
Recently we have been treated to "explanations" from several Lock Pros, all of whom have displayed a shocking degree of ignorance regarding both the recent and long-term shadiness of their company. We keep hearing that they trust CEO Jennifer Larson and that they believe everything will end up okay. We keep hearing excuses as to why the current cashout fiasco is occurring, and why it should get better very soon. We keep hearing that we are being over-speculative by stating that Lock is likely broke.
Understandably, this gets all of Lock's victims (and interested observers) very angry, as they know otherwise. It is highly frustrating to be not only cheated by a shady company, but to get nonsensical and uninformed answers back from its employees.
Therefore, I have written this handy guide where all Lock Pros (and any other Lock apologists) can refer when they are trying to understand this situation.
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The 2013 Cashout Cancellations
What Happened: A large number of people found their Lock cashouts canceled, many of which occurred months after being approved and supposedly in processing. Almost all of these cancellations came with an excuse from Lock that the cancellations were related to chip transfers they received at some point.
Lock's Answer: Lock first claimed that these players received transfers and immediately tried to cash them out without playing. It was said at one point by 2+2 Lock rep Shane that all transfers require a 1:1 playthrough. When these players insisted (apparently truthfully) that they easily met playthrough requirements, a new story was peddled that there is some sort of nefarious cashout ring, where certain people are buying up Lock funds on the cheap (through Twoplustwo's trading thread) and then using "priority" affiliate accounts to cash them out. Supposedly affiliate accounts have priority to cash out much more quickly than regular players (which is wrong and unfair itself.) Lock claims that some affiliates were abusing this priority, and that the canceled cashouts were a result of being connected to these accounts abusing the system.
Why Lock's Answer is BS: Most of the players with canceled cashouts are longtime grinders, and almost none of them have these affiliate accounts. Many of the players have never received a Lock transfer. Lock has provided zero evidence of this supposed affiliate cashout scheme ever occurring.
It has been more than two weeks, and Lock has done nothing to correct these bogus cashout cancellations, even though it would take about 5 minutes to verify for each account that they were not involved with anything shady. In addition, it would be very easy for Lock to prevent this supposed "affiliate cashout scheme" by either making everyone's cashout the same priority or just scrutinizing cashouts by affiliates and leaving everyone else alone. I could literally teach a 9-year-old to look at an account's history and easily be able to tell which were "abusing" transfers and which were legitimate players. The fact that this still hasn't been rectified after more than two weeks is evidence that this is a cashout stalling tactic by Lock, rather than any attempt to stop supposed abuse of their system.
Lock's Super-Slow Non-US Cashouts
What Happened: While it is acknowledged that US cashouts are very slow due to interference by the US Department of Justice, non-US (also known as RoW) cashouts are not affected by this. This is because financial transactions between Lock and non-US players are not illegal. Therefore,
all other large and medium-sized networks are cashing out non-US players quickly. Lock's non-US cashouts are taking more than 4 months. This makes no sense, as the large delay in US cashouts is due to their illegality. Since there is no illegality involved in non-US cashouts, they should complete within hours or days, NOT months.
Lock's Answer: The affiliate cashout scheme referenced above caused a large number of cashouts to be processed through Skrill (the most common cashout method for non-US players), and this maxed out Lock's Skrill cashout limits, thus creating a large cashout backlog. Lock claims they have since put a stop to this affiliate cashout scheme, thus causing the backlog to clear up, and Skrill cashouts should be back to normal by June.
Why Locks' Answer is BS: In addition to the fact that Lock has provided no evidence that this affiliate cashout scheme really occurred,
all cashout methods have been slow, not just ones through Skrill. Lock cannot explain why they can't send quick Western Union payments or quick checks to non-US players. They have also provided no evidence that they have actually reached Skrill's cashout limit. We are just supposed to believe this excuse. Even if the Skrill excuse is true, it does not explain why ALL non-US cashouts are ridiculously slow, and why none have been processed in the past month. The likely answer is that Lock is broke, and that all of their stories are fabricated.
Lock's Lack of Solvency
What Happened: Lock's recent actions (segregating players from the rest of the network, slow payouts, cashout cancellations, non-payment of skins) strongly suggest that they are broke, and that they stole all of the player money. Many have demanded proof that Lock is not broke, by way of an audit from an accredited, respected third-party accounting firm. Lock is refusing to do this.
Lock's Answer: Lock says that their status as a US-facing room puts their bank accounts at risk, and that the location of their money must be a well-kept secret in order to prevent seizures by the US Department of Justice. Therefore, an audit cannot be done, as the auditing firm could somehow leak the location of their bank accounts, and the US will seize them all, thus causing the loss of all player money.
Why Lock's Answer is BS: There are a few major problems with Lock's excuse. First off, respectable auditing firms take confidentiality
extremely seriously. If such a leak occurred, it would destroy the well-cultivated reputation of these auditing firms, so such a leak would never happen. Second, the US DOJ has always held the position that they are not interested in seizing player money. In every case of seizure of poker site money (dating all the way back to the 2007 Neteller seizures), the US DOJ has refunded it to players (or allowed the company to do so) after learning that it was player money. Thus, Lock is not protecting the players from anything. Finally, even if there was a tiny chance that a leak could occur and the DOJ would seize the money, that risk pales in comparison to the risk Lock is taking to their business by allowing widespread speculation (and belief) that they are broke. Therefore, if this audit could assuage everyone's fears about Lock and bring the site back to respectability, Lock would do it in a second, even if it did carry a little risk (which it does not). In reality, Lock refuses to do this because they are broke, and an audit would prove that.
The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow
Lock's Statement: Jennifer Larson told Lock Pros that everything with the cashouts would return to normal by June -- about 4 weeks from now. The pros want us to wait and see if this happens before we complain further. If cashouts do improve by June, that should be enough to know that Lock is indeed on solid footing.
Why Lock's Statement is BS: Recall that Full Tilt was doing a great job processing non-US cashouts after Black Friday, despite having only about 2% of all player money on hand. Simply put, Full Tilt had stolen 98% of player funds, and was still able to operate normally and cash out people in reasonable amounts of time. Therefore, simply processing cashouts by industry standard is
NOT proof of solvency. All of Lock's actions indicate they are broke. They need to prove they actually have player money. Simply returning cashouts to "normal" (after two months of not cashing anyone out) is not acceptable, nor is it indicative that Lock is healthy. It is more likely that Lock is stalling for 2 months while they collect a little money (through deposits), and will use those deposits to pay cashouts in June -- a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is unacceptable, and without an audit, it seems likely that Lock is broke.
International Lock's European Vacation
What Happened: Lock CEO Jennifer Larson held an expensive retreat in Portual for Lock Pros in late April-early May of 2013, despite the site's massive cashout problems and likely insolvency. She rented a castle, hired an expensive UK dance act for entertainment, and engaged in all sorts of other lavish expenditures for her employees. In the meantime, many players' cashouts have been arbitrarily canceled, and nobody has received a completed cashout since April 9th.
Lock's Explanation: A large number of Lock pros were at this retreat, and all of them were under strict orders not to talk or tweet about it. Of course, given the vast number of people attending this highbrow retreat, word slipped out, and I posted about it in the Lock forum. Shane denied it and told me that I needed to get "better sources" for information, but subsequent tweets and Facebook messages proved that indeed this really occurred. None of the Lock Pros posting on 2+2 are willing to talk about this, and keep ignoring all questions about Portugal. This is despite the fact that all of these pros claim to "care" about the plight of the Lock players and the money they have stuck on the site.
Girah and Lock's Cheating Complicity
What Happened: Girah, a supposed young Portuguese poker prodigy, became a Lock Pro. In April, 2011, Lock held a contest to where the player who won the most on the site would get a great prize prackage, including a WSOP Main Event seat. A dedicated grinder, who was unaffiliated with Lock, was leading the contest going into April 30. Girah, despite a lot of grinding of his own, was WAY behind in the contest, to where he'd have to win a nearly-impossible 100k in the final day to overtake the leader. As a 5-10 NL grinder with no experience at upper limits, there was no way Girah could win the contest. However, suddenly a previously unseen player showed up on Lock with $100k, played Girah heads up, and Girah crushed him for his entire bankroll. Thanks to this last-minute bit of obvious chip-dumping, Girah "won" the contest. Lock awarded Girah the prize and did not question the EXTREMELY suspicious nature of his last-minute win, including the fact that a 5-10 grinder suddenly played an otherwise unknown opponent at super-high stakes and won 100k, just enough to rocket to the top of the leaderboard. After the subsequent outrage regarding Girah's cheating, Lock changed course and disqualified him. However, they would not explain how he was awarded the prize in the first place given the obvious cheating, and Lock eventually refused to talk about it, claiming they had a pending lawsuit against Girah.
Lock's Explanation: Girah actually legitimately won the contest, and there was no chip dumping. However, since he had shared his account briefly at one point in the contest, he was disqualified on a technicality. Here is Jennifer Larson's statement about it:
Quote:
We pride ourselves in standing for trust, legitimacy and loyalty. The truth is sometimes hard to stand by but it is the only way we can move forward. Although José won enough money from his own IP to have legitimately won the challenge, the unfortunate fact remains that breaking the rules is strictly disallowed. It nevertheless remains José is an exceptional player and I firmly believe that his mistakes only lead to greatness if he learns from them and himself moves forward.
--Jennifer Larson, Lock Poker CEO
Lock later refused to talk about this, citing a pending lawsuit against Girah.
Why Lock's Explanation is BS: Girah's partner-in-crime, the chip-dumper himself (DogIsHead, aka Haseem Qureshi) later admitted that this was exactly as it appeared -- a blatant chip-dump in order to cheat in the contest. This means that Jennifer completely lied in her press release where she claimed "José won enough money from his own IP to have legitimately won the challenge" -- or at least she was being intentionally misleading. Yes, Girah "won" the money from his own IP, but he "won" it all through chip dumping! Therefore, her implication that he was disqualified on a technicality (despite legitimately winning) was COMPLETELY FALSE.
Nobody was ever willing to explain how such a blatant and obvious attempt at cheating a contest was ignored by everyone at Lock, and Girah was declared the winner. When pressured on this matter, Lock reps insisted that there was a lawsuit against Girah, and therefore they could not comment. Two years later, nobody can find any evidence of such a lawsuit, nor will Lock present any. This has been completely swept under the rug.
What Really Happened: Girah and DogIsHead conspired to chip dump to win the contest. This was a last-minute decision, so the entire dump had to be done on the last day, which of course was stupid and raised huge red flags. Lock would benefit from Girah being crowned the winner of the contest (since he was their pro, and the winner was to get a big profile in BLUFF Magazine), and it was much better for business for their highly-touted poker prodigy to be profiled in BLUFF rather than just some no-name grinder. Therefore, Jennifer attempted to look the other way despite knowing the truth about the cheating, until public pressure forced her to change course. Even then, she lied about what really happened, hoping people would no longer question how Lock could have "missed" this ridiculously obvious cheating attempt.
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I could go on and on here with so many other Lock scandals and examples of shady behavior, but I'll stop here.
Please refer all uninformed and naive Lock Pros to this post if they show up spouting company-line idiocies.
Last edited by Mike Haven; 05-07-2013 at 02:54 PM.
