Just a quick question to those mad about Star's stance on FPPs:

Did you expect them to pro-rate you to your next milestone bonus?

If I knew that six months from now, Pokerstars would let U.S. players play, then I would be fine with the situation at hand now. But Pokerstars may NEVER AND I MEAN NEVER let or be allowed to let U.S. players play again; it's that simple.

Wait a sec...if Stars reinstated the .016 value that existed on April 15th (via MTT tix, etc.), which group would be calling it unfair?

AFAICS, everybody would be happy with such a solution. Assuming said solution could extend all the way down to the smaller balances.

Who would then, still be complaining? I think the answer is...nobody...imho.

I expect Pokerstars to be fair. I don't feel they are being fair. It's that simple.

I kept high FPP balances and cash balances in my account at Pokerstars because I trusted them. They paid me back my cash, and I thank them for that.

But, as it stands now, I can't realize the 1.6 cents (USD) per FPP that I reasonably expected, because Pokerstars won't let me. Any player at a Silver Star status could realize 1.6 cents (USD) per FPP, up until Black Friday. Pokerstars has taken that away from me.

Because I trusted them, I am getting screwed on my FPP's. Pokerstars sends a message (at least to me) when they don't allow U.S. players to realize a fair value on their FPP's. This is the message they are sending me:

WE ARE POKERSTARS AND YOU CAN'T TRUST US TO OFFER YOU A FAIR RATE OF EXCAHNGE ON YOUR FPP'S.

Other may disagree, that's just how I feel. And yes, I am entitled to my feelings!!!!

That they did the right thing here only makes me think they haven't thought the fpps through properly.

That they did the right thing with regard to milestone bonuses is commendable. It doesn't excuse another oversight.

Also, I haven't been upgraded because I don't have any milestone bonuses that I was trying to achieve. I did, however, earn 800k vpps last year. 95% of my fpps are the result of that. I'm happy for everyone that received prorated milestone bonuses, I just can't understand why the general happiness surrounding that decision is allowed to obscure the unfairness of another decision, and why people who benefit from that decision are apologizing for Stars to the death because they did the right thing on A, B, and C so therefore it's okay that they haven't on D.

Yes. Absolutely. To not do so would have been pretty unfair. Granted, I'm glad they did. But I fully expected Stars to be fair and correct about this because I don't think they suck as a company or try to short their players (which is why the FPP thing surprised me).

The milestone stuff is based on getting the whole year to get to the next level. There is an understanding with the players that they will get until December 31 to get to that next level...and that every point earned along te way is really a fraction of the value of getting there.

Since the year ended up getting cut off at April 15 due to no fault of the players it is only fair to compensate the players for the points they had earned up until that point.

I think this is a fair point and it's one that has crossed my mind combined with my general impression that I've always had that they don't actively try to screw their customers.

But do consider that they knew full well that a ton of SN's would be redeeming points at 1.5c and 1.3c. Evidently they were okay with that. And they absolutely knew that pretty much every player would end up with odd numbers of leftover FPP's in there.

The fact that they only allowed the FPP purchases in the bigger bulk increments of 100k and 50k etc without allowing anyone at 171,444 FPP's to take them ALL out strikes me as suspicious.

I mean, maybe they didn't just think it through and they thought that thousands of players leaving $10 each wasn't a big deal...or that players like me getting shorted by $400...or the 1M FPP guy having to take it at 1.1c was "just the breaks." But after taking that many days to come up with the policy it's kind of hard to fathom how they couldn't have SOME idea of a lot of this stuff.

That said...I haven't cashed out my points quite yet on the slim hope that they read my posts on this topic, slap their foreheads and say, "OMG, He's Right!" and change their policy on this issue that they missed the boat on so badly. I suspect there's roughly a 0.0001% chance that this actually happens. Call me a dreamer I guess.

I was expecting you to take this sensible approach. AFIK there is no expiration date for the actual FPPs. Stars would seem to have to let FPPs idle in any account for the possibility one might relocate. This all smacks of an ill-advised marketing decision based on an irrational expectation the door isn't permanently shut for their U.S. customers.

I think ALL your FPP's get lost if you don't play any real money hands during an entire calendar year, which would be January 1, 2013 for American players who don't relocate out of the country AND Stars continues to not service American customers during that time. That is, UNLESS they are specifically making exclusions indefinitely for American players.

If I would have earned 3k more FPPs before black friday (a day or two of playing): $1500

Now: $1,175

$325 loss... bleh

Thanks anyways stars. It's been real

Well, yeah, if everyone gets the max .016 rate, I can see zero reason for any players to complain, but the 'group' that the solution is unfair to, imo, is Stars. They would never be giving a .016 exchange rate across the board normally, so why should they have to do it now?

Anyway, I'm done- I'm not trying to talk people out of fighting for more money, I do support them and their argument. I just think the more personal attacks on Stars and Stars-defenders is uncalled for, but I guess its the nature of internet forums.

@Jfresh

What about just giving it to current supernova players who legitimately deserve that rate?

I was supernova, was on pace to keep it, but can't spend one FPP at a supernova rate because I had 97,000 FPPs (min supernova cash bonus is 100k). The more I think about my own situation the more it rubs me the wrong way. Can't help feeling a little screwed tbh

Yes I did.

For the record I DIDN"T get mine. I fell into the less than $10 category due to very little play this year. I'm sure a lot of people did, well not pros obviously.

I guess there might be a reason they didn't give me my extra $4 for partial credit while everyone else got it. I just can't figure it out no matter how hard I try.. Just like my $8 in FPP sitting there collecting dust. Maybe their computers crashed when they tried to cash less than $10 milestone credit, or they forgot how to release those $1 bonuses they used to do.

Still waiting for one of you Stars defenders to explain why they are keeping our excess FPPs.

Can anyone explain a reason for this, other than outright stealing millions of $ from their players? And is anyone dumb enough to believe that this is an accident?

1. VIP program rules
2. black friday

3. you are a dumb corporate apologist

I'm pretty sure it was so they could pay out their 100k+ vpp members partial milestone credits because they are more important.

Yeah, and it only costs them about 1% of what they stole from everyone through the excess FPP confiscations.

you are a typical American

Also, Stars screwed their affiliates in the last 2 months, as well.

But I guess since they're not as shady as Tilt or AP, we can give them a pass to keep stealing smaller amounts of $.

so when that guy hit 950k or something last year, did stars steal 15k of his value by not hitting SNE? If stars had been unable to cash people out in a timely manner, would you be so upset missing your $25 of value in FPPs 6-18 months later when you finally got your money? I can't believe how people are foaming at the mouth over this when stars has put money in bank accounts, while ftp founders and ub/ap just take it all.

flash flood, go to McDonalds, and order HALF a cheeseburger.

they haven't put all of the money in our bank accounts, just a decent portion of it. . . I don't know what's so hard to understand here.

When you go to a restaurant and they got your food out to you much faster then you thought the would but forgot your sides. . .do you just give them a pass and say don't worry about it, I'm just happy I got some of my dinner.

When you go to the bank to get a loan and they approve it very quickly but they forget to give you the full loan and kept a small portion of it. . . . Do you say oh well, I'm just lucky I got this portion of my money so fast, just keep the rest?

I could go on and on but I think you get the point. Stars has been great up until this one point but they're keeping a portion of our money that we earned. I don't think it's ok for them to do this even if they did most everything else right.

What point are you trying to make here? That Stars isn't as bad as AP and UB?

Newsflash for you, buddy: This thread isn't a comparison between Stars and the other sites. We are discussing whether or not Stars is stealing from its US players. Even if the other sites end up stealing more, that isn't relevant to this conversation.

You can't give Stars a pass for stealing just because the other sites were even worse.

We can sit and debate endlessly whether the degraded 1.6 cent value of FPPs is stealing. However, we can DEFINITELY say that their keeping of the excess FPP points in each account qualifies as theft. There is absolutely no reason they should be doing this. It's not a logistical problem. They could easily solve it, but they'd rather keep the MILLIONS of dollars they will make from stealing 1-2499 FPPs out of each account.

Add this to all of the other shady crap they are pulling with the FPPs (VIP level crap, forcing you to buy in blocks, forcing Supernovas with less than 250k FPPs to buy at lower rates, etc), along with their refusal to pay affiliates, and we have a company that is far less honest than originally believed.

Also, I don't think we can give Stars the benefit of the doubt for accidentally doing this the wrong way.

I thought that might be possible at first, given their stellar integrity up until this point.

However, they have received countless complaint letters about their unfair FPP situation, and they haven't changed a thing.

Instead, their 2+2 rep is giving us some complete garbage about the DOJ requiring them to do it this way.

Uh-huh.

I'm sure the DOJ required Stars to keep our excess FPPs. Stars would be in a lot of trouble if they dared let us cash out our entire FPP balance! I bet the DOJ told Stars, "You can give the players their FPPs, but if you dare let them cash out anything below 2500, we are taking your domain back and the deal's off!"

Give me an F-ing break. Stars came to the DOJ with this proposal, the DOJ only understood the most basic generalities and approved it, and now Stars hides behind the DOJ and blames their stealing on the government. Really terrible.

If Stars didn't realize what they were doing at first (news flash: they did), they definitely know now. Nothing's changing. Stars is stealing from us.