I swear, I didn't know Pacific Poker still existed. Do they still rake uncalled bets?

Good news, some good samaritan (from twoplustwo?) has posted my story to 888s own forum:

http://my.888poker.com/go/thread/vie...kImy888pokerII

Thread is currently alive and kicking, should be interesting, let's hope it remains undetected by big brother for a while longer! If you decide to post there, please don't give them any excuse to shut down the thread.

Thanks again,

-Oystein

Sent email OP gl.

These terms and conditions would almost certainly be held unconscionable in the United States. I don't know anything about British law but there is probably a similar doctrine as US common law is mostly just taken from Britain. Your legal fees would probably make it a losing proposition to sue them though.

You might be able to take them to small claims court (no lawyer) in Norway if your system is anything like the US.

i'm pretty sure this will resolve itself quite soon with no lawyer needed...just the threat of a lawyer will make Pacific change course because it is an obv stupid clause, and they certainly don't want it to cost them the $$$$ and effort of fighting this while at the same time pissing off so many players...OP doesn't need luck, i say he has the cash within 3 days..

lol.. I remember that one, their business model is simply "let's see how much we can steal from them"

Terrible and unethical business practice that gives the Poker Industry a bad name.

Seeking legal advice is certainly the way to go, especially with 888 listed on the LSE and their base in Gibraltar (law is very close to UK law).

The sickening thing is that they were running up a nice % interest on your money, stiffing you both ways. Id email them asking them how the 10% a month is spent, what are they spending to keep the account going.

In fact all those players who do not have an account at Pacific should email them as a prospective new player and say that they have heard some horror stories about bankrolls getting stolen and now they are worried to sign up.

they charged the fee on the original balance every month 560*6=3360. So it wasn't charged on the remaining amout, am I looking at this right?

Edit- just went back and looked at the rule
In the case of a dormant account, the Company will levy a monthly administration fee at a rate of 10% of the balance in the account on the date that it became dormant.

wow, just wow

The prepaid gift card business does this all the time and gets away with it.

The province of Ontario (Canada) recently outlawed the expiration of gift cards.

Write your governor, congressman, or whatever!

LOL @ 888 referring to money as 'monies' in one of their e-mails.

Greetings,

I'm sorry to hear about your very unfortunate experience. Your story has a ring of truth to it, which is why I submitted the form letter with a small alteration at the end. Any site can concoct whatever terms of service it sees fit, but that does not make it legal or moral.

What I find really ironic is the site claims to abide by the 'Golden Rule.' They must read the Satanic Bible.


Good luck,

Jeffrey Johnson

Outrageous. Email sent.

Surely, Pacific must realise that this is an unsustainable business practice...As a result of OP's story I, along with any other reasonable person who reads this thread, will NEVER play at Pacific. The fact that this "policy" is buried in their TOC is completely unethical. There is absolutely no justification for the policy itself. After all, the very nature of a "dormant" account means that it doesn't require any administration.

I think it would be a good idea for anybody who has them to post contact details for Pacific's sponsors so that they can be informed of this appalling situation. As an Australian, I'd be particularly interested in contacting Shane Warne who'd no doubt be aware that this sort of dodgy practice would never be tolerated in Australia.

This is incredibly scummy. As a player on the lookout for new sites Pacific Poker has been swiftly crossed off my list.

OP good luck getting your money back these people are arrogant scum imo. I also sent your form email and noticed that Pacific Poker is somewhat regulated by Ecogra. They have a dispute submission form on this page, http://www.ecogra.org/contact.aspx?OP=P. If I were you I would go here and submit a formal dispute. Some text from the Ecogra site;

eCOGRA, a non-profit organization, is the independent standards authority of the online gaming industry, specifically overseeing fair gaming, player protection and responsible operator conduct. The function that eCOGRA performs protects those who engage in online gaming where it is lawful.

Prompt payments, safe storage of information, random games, honest advertising, and responsible behavior by the online casino and poker room operator are the primary concerns of every player, so that means they are also the primary concerns of eCOGRA, "eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance".

Once again good luck with getting your funds returned.

Personally, I do not play on 888 but have family members who do. I have shown them this thread and they are monitoring.

These T&C seem to be set out to kill off permanantly dormant accounts of little value. Lets hope you were just unlucky enough to run into some jobsworth in support and management will sort this out.

If not Pacific should join the list of sites currently treated with disdain by the community.

Rybka

Dont know if it will help, but I sent the following email:

I was considering playing at your site until I read the post below:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh....php?t=259629I

This february I logged into my account at Pacific Poker for the first time in little over a year. When I logged off in January 2007, my balance was $5,603. When I returned, the balance was $2,241.

I emailed customer support to ask where my money went. They explained that after 6 months of inactivity, they remove 10% of the original balance every month. They do this until either I start using the account, or the balance reaches zero after 10 months, at which point they will close the account.

They call this an administration fee for dormant accounts. In my case, this fee amounted to $3,361.80. In four more months, my balance would have reached zero.

At no point during this time did I receive any information from Pacific Poker that money was being removed from my account. (I did, however receive numerous email reminders for various promotions during the same period.)

Customer support refers to a clause in their user agreement. And sure enough, a couple of pages into the fine print, this "administration fee" is described. This agreement is subject to change, and even though I cannot recall this clause specifically, it may very well have been part of the agreement when I signed up some years back. I had only heard good things about Pacific and 888 at that point, and never suspected I had to fear this kind of setup from a leading actor in the industry.

I emailed them back twice demanding a refund, arguing that this fee is completely unreasonable, and without any rational justification. They just sent me more emails referring to the user agreement, and are basically saying this is all very unfortunate, but tough luck, we're definitely keeping the monies, thanks for your patience and understanding, we're here for you 24/7, please play our Sunday $80,000 Guaranteed tournament, etc. I have requested that a supervisor looks at my request, but have been turned down.

At that point I more or less gave up. However, I did promise Pacific I'd warn other players about this setup, so today I'm finally posting my story. Please fellow players, let Pacific poker know what you think about this practice. Is this even legal? Any suggestions on how I should proceed to get a refund?

Also, if you think this is unfair, please write an email saying so to support@pacificpoker.com. The name of my account there is "bawanga".

Most importantly however: if you have an account at Pacific Poker or know someone that does, make sure the funds are safe!

Below I have included the correspondance with Pacific Poker Support. (Names x-ed out, line breaks removed for readability)

Thanks,

Oystein

I think this policy is deplorable and I will never play at your site unless and until I hear this policy has been charnged and all of the money (or less a much more reasonable service fee, which in my opinion should still be zero given your company can earn interest on the unplayed balance) has been fully refunded to the player that made this post.

Furthermore, I will take every opportunity to inform as many people as possible to never play at your site.

Hoping you'll reach your senses and reverse this policy ASAP!!

Thanks OP for bringing this to our attention. Email sent. GL.

I also sent an email to ecogra on OP's behalf. The text of the email was as follows,

I became aware of a fellow poker player's plight after reading his story on the 2+2 forum. It seems that after leaving $5,603 in his Pacific Poker account for around a year, he had a child and didnt play on Pacific for quite some time. When he returned he had less than half of his funds remaining($2241). The rest of the information including emails between he and support at Pacific Poker are included in his thread on the 2+2 forum which can be found here, http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...d.php?t=259629. Basically Pacific Poker confiscated over $3300 dollars from his account because it was dormant for a year. I can assure you and those at your organization that it would be in the best interests of ecogra and Pacific Poker that this practice be stopped. We have all seen what those on 2+2 accomplished when those at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker were stealing from their customers. They at least had the decency to hide their theft. Pacific Poker is doing it openly and they are an approved portal on your site. I hope that your company actually performs the functions listed on your site and takes appropriate action despite this outright theft being backed up by ridiculous terms and conditions on Pacific Poker. No one wants to be compared to the KGC.

I hope it helps.

email sent. Good luck with this!

I wished the 2+2 community rallied around like this when Tusk/MGS stole my money.

Email sent.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...d.php?t=141341

This was the last drop for me. First monies out, then off to emailing those c***s my opinion of their business ethics. I hope you get your money back.

I'm so pissed, I can't imagine how upset you are.

I went ahead and emailed the following from another email address I have:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to you in support of the player Bawanga, who had $3,361.80 confiscated from his account at Pacific Poker due to your outlandish 10%/month "administration fee" for idle accounts. Even though this fee is described in the fine print of your T&C, there is no legal, rational or moral justification for this unreasonable practice.

I am deeply disturbed by your actions, and I will definately be taking my business to more trustworthy sites, unless confirmation is posted on the twoplustwo.com forums that the matter has been appropriately resolved. I will also make every effort to disuade as many people as possible from ever playing at your site. I urge you to refund the money confiscated, and to remove the corresponding section from your T&C.

Have you ever read your own Pacific Poker's Fundamental Values and Principles, I find the following highly ironic:

We believe in the "Golden Rule" and shall treat you the way we would like to be treated.

Is this honestly how you would like to be treated if you found yourself in his unfortunate shoes?

Relevant forum thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...d.php?t=259629


Sincerely,



Jeff F.

Im really surprised to hear about this incident. This is a major dissapointment in the faith of Pacific for me. I m not even sure if i want to keep large enough money in the pacific account to play 1000NL now. Im in a law school and some ppl who say there's nothing he can do because of the agreement clause are absolutely ridiculous. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER ITS IN THE ****TY AGREEMENT CLAUSE which nobody bothers to read. I m 100% sure 99 out of 100 judges in England would nullify this ridiculous clause and some judges would even charge fines to Pacific about it.

I hope pacific realizes how serious this matter is, and how much damages it can do to their business. Just like UB/AB scandal, their entire business might take a major blow from this.

As a side note, Pacific is already doing some shady things in their rakes. ( which is already higher at $4 , industry standard is $3 or less)

A. They don't show rakes amount on a table, nor do they have hand history.

B. They charge 6max table rakes, when a table gets short handed that should automatically adjust. I played a long headsup session once at a 6max table until i realized none of us were making money other than pacific.

C. Uncalled bet rake? - Im not sure about this. But according to above posters this may be true as well.