PokerStars Support incompetence
09-06-2022
, 07:02 AM
Hello to everyone, im from russian-speaking poker community, firstly created topic on top-1 russian poker resource but there is no any reaction from Stars support, so i decided to go here and to share this text with english-speaking community too. U could see me on abi200 MTT tables of any poker platform with same nickname "pokanuktus".
You can consider the following text as the sum of all the missed ups of our wonderful "leader" of the industry, namely the Poker Stars room:
I've only been in freeze since Friday August 19, but don't jump to conclusions - it's not panic or something like that.
I'll start a little from afar: on May 18, I received the following letter from Winamax:
Almost immediately I replied that I would do everything in accordance with their requirements, asked a few clarifying questions - which, by the way, were answered almost instantly (hello Poker Stars - the average response time is more than a day? how are you doing there, ****ing hello? sometimes it seems that you use pigeon mail instead of e-mail).
A couple of days later I already recorded a video, sent it to them - they informed me of the preliminary terms of verification and on June 4 I was unfreezed.
Now let's move on to the cases of my friends in identical situations with Poker Stars:
I know a person who has been in the freeze at Poker Stars for 3 months, every time he initiates a correspondence about this with technical support, he is answered with a letter of this format:
I know a lot of cases in which people are not informed of any time frames (!!!) during this "routine check", the accounts were kept frozen from two to eight months. *After 8 months of verification, you can already contact eCOGRA so that they put pressure on the poker room. Well, here you and I, dear reader, should stop for a while and think about the phrase "are not informed of any time frames".
What the **** does it mean? A corporation with a market capitalization of ~$19 billion cannot report the timing of checking one player for fair/unfair play? Or for suspicious transfers?
Let's put it this way: in order to say with a probability of about 90% about the game of a group of people whether they are a bot net or not, I (by myself) will need a maximum of 1 week of time and a medium-power computer with allowed software on all poker platforms, such as hand2note, HM3, GTOwizard. Then, for the remaining 10%, you will need to ask people to play X time (X <= one week) to compare their gaming habits on the recorded video with what he sent me in the hand history (open). As a result, we have a time frame of 2 weeks. Yes, it's still a long time, but this is at least some specifics provided to the player.
At the same time, Pokerstars, having the entire history of hands with open cards for a player and a whole analytical security department cannot cope with giving a person at least an approximate check time? Is this some kind of joke or what?
How blatant must be the level of incompetence to allow yourself to do this? I can't think of at least one ****ing reason not to inform the player of some time frame in this case about how long this check will take.
Okay, let's say we figured it out here.
Another possible case is a case with transfers: connection with suspicious accounts, etc.
Here my competence is obviously a little lower, but given the fact that we live in the age of digitalization, we can assume with 99.999% confidence that all financial data on players of the anti-fraud department of Poker Stars is stored rather like this in this format:
than in this:
I mean, you understand, right? You don't have to go down to the basement 7 minutes on foot to find player data, because any query in the database is executed by your computer in X seconds, where X is very often less than 1.
What's wrong with you, friends? Maybe you hire detectives to organize surveillance of the player and find some suspicious actions in the player's routine? Besides, these ****ing detectives apparently move on horseback, because otherwise I am not able to understand where the time frame of this format comes from?
perhaps the photo shows an average employee of the anti-fraud department of PokerStars returning home after a hard working day:
How is it possible in 2022 to try to find out whether a person is engaged in prohibited activities inside an information structure that is completely open to you, in which you can trace absolutely any chain of transfers in seconds instead of eight months?
Oh no-no, I get it! Maybe you need a consultation about this, and all this time you hesitate to ask? feel free to ask, as they say.
Well, now let's go specifically to my case:
on August 19 I log into my account, and when I try to transfer to a fund player, I receive the following notification inside the client:
I tell them a few facts about myself in this format (sorry for the quality):
Text from picture:
Guys, i want to pass the "routine security review" as soon as possible.
there is some info about me in russian poker community:
1. i have my own backing team: https://rsb.team/
2. i have crystal clear reputation in poker community (there is my profile on top 1 poker news resource in Russia https://www.gipsyteam.ru/profile/pokanuktus)
3. i'm ready to give you any documents/video with actual date and time like in next 5 minutes after your request
4. i'm ready to pass any playing tests with recording my gameplay etc. everything you want and asap
5. i need access to my account because i have people who depend on me and all of them never had any problems with stars security or something like that. We don't take players with slightest problems with reputation or rooms security into our backing team.
In response to which I receive another standard answer, I understand that it will probably not be possible to talk to a live person until Monday, I went to find out the details of similar friezes from more experienced community members. I am horrified to hear phrases from different people like:
- "well, my account has been checked for 2 months somehow"
- "I have already had an account for 3 months on such a verification"
- "I have been verified for more than six months"
I started to check ToS Poker Stars - there by the way, there is nothing about such checks or the timing of these checks, but there is such an item in the "Privacy Policy" section:
Attention to this item:
"a right to request an explanation of the logic involved if we make decisions about you solely through automated means;"
2 weeks already have passed, no one has explained the logic of decision-making on my account in this case to me so far
I tried to contact the technical support of the room in all possible ways: VK, Facebook, Instagramm,Twitter and the same answer everywhere, which obviously does not satisfy me.
Don't get me wrong, of course, I realize that the check should be carried out for everyone in the same order and I reported the facts about myself only in order to demonstrate full openness, willingness to provide any necessary data on request and interest in resolving the situation as quickly as possible. But, what prevents them from reporting at least approximate dates? In my case, we are talking about a six-numbers sum and the announced deadlines would directly affect my strategy for the development of the fund and the distribution of liquidity. Instead, I am completely ignorant even just about the cause of the freeze, despite the fact that my most malicious violation inside this room is <10 warnings over a ten-year career about an open equilab or simple postflop when launching a client.
Well, purely from a human point of view, it seems that the behavior of the support in this situation does not even closely correspond top tier of the room and maybe, with proper publicity of this post will make someone from the Poker Stars management think about the chosen strategy.
And, of course, I will be glad to help in spreading the post and maximum publicity of the problem with the support PS in general.
P.S. By the way, while this text was being translated into English, a dozen more people with stories of a similar nature answered me on the Russian-speaking forum in a few days. People wait for months to be told that they must provide documents, which they can usually provide on the first day of the freeze.
You can consider the following text as the sum of all the missed ups of our wonderful "leader" of the industry, namely the Poker Stars room:
I've only been in freeze since Friday August 19, but don't jump to conclusions - it's not panic or something like that.
I'll start a little from afar: on May 18, I received the following letter from Winamax:
Almost immediately I replied that I would do everything in accordance with their requirements, asked a few clarifying questions - which, by the way, were answered almost instantly (hello Poker Stars - the average response time is more than a day? how are you doing there, ****ing hello? sometimes it seems that you use pigeon mail instead of e-mail).
A couple of days later I already recorded a video, sent it to them - they informed me of the preliminary terms of verification and on June 4 I was unfreezed.
Now let's move on to the cases of my friends in identical situations with Poker Stars:
I know a person who has been in the freeze at Poker Stars for 3 months, every time he initiates a correspondence about this with technical support, he is answered with a letter of this format:
I know a lot of cases in which people are not informed of any time frames (!!!) during this "routine check", the accounts were kept frozen from two to eight months. *After 8 months of verification, you can already contact eCOGRA so that they put pressure on the poker room. Well, here you and I, dear reader, should stop for a while and think about the phrase "are not informed of any time frames".
What the **** does it mean? A corporation with a market capitalization of ~$19 billion cannot report the timing of checking one player for fair/unfair play? Or for suspicious transfers?
Let's put it this way: in order to say with a probability of about 90% about the game of a group of people whether they are a bot net or not, I (by myself) will need a maximum of 1 week of time and a medium-power computer with allowed software on all poker platforms, such as hand2note, HM3, GTOwizard. Then, for the remaining 10%, you will need to ask people to play X time (X <= one week) to compare their gaming habits on the recorded video with what he sent me in the hand history (open). As a result, we have a time frame of 2 weeks. Yes, it's still a long time, but this is at least some specifics provided to the player.
At the same time, Pokerstars, having the entire history of hands with open cards for a player and a whole analytical security department cannot cope with giving a person at least an approximate check time? Is this some kind of joke or what?
How blatant must be the level of incompetence to allow yourself to do this? I can't think of at least one ****ing reason not to inform the player of some time frame in this case about how long this check will take.Okay, let's say we figured it out here.
Another possible case is a case with transfers: connection with suspicious accounts, etc.
Here my competence is obviously a little lower, but given the fact that we live in the age of digitalization, we can assume with 99.999% confidence that all financial data on players of the anti-fraud department of Poker Stars is stored rather like this in this format:
than in this:
I mean, you understand, right? You don't have to go down to the basement 7 minutes on foot to find player data, because any query in the database is executed by your computer in X seconds, where X is very often less than 1.
What's wrong with you, friends? Maybe you hire detectives to organize surveillance of the player and find some suspicious actions in the player's routine? Besides, these ****ing detectives apparently move on horseback, because otherwise I am not able to understand where the time frame of this format comes from?
perhaps the photo shows an average employee of the anti-fraud department of PokerStars returning home after a hard working day:
How is it possible in 2022 to try to find out whether a person is engaged in prohibited activities inside an information structure that is completely open to you, in which you can trace absolutely any chain of transfers in seconds instead of eight months?
Oh no-no, I get it! Maybe you need a consultation about this, and all this time you hesitate to ask? feel free to ask, as they say.
Well, now let's go specifically to my case:
on August 19 I log into my account, and when I try to transfer to a fund player, I receive the following notification inside the client:
I tell them a few facts about myself in this format (sorry for the quality):
Text from picture:
Guys, i want to pass the "routine security review" as soon as possible.
there is some info about me in russian poker community:
1. i have my own backing team: https://rsb.team/
2. i have crystal clear reputation in poker community (there is my profile on top 1 poker news resource in Russia https://www.gipsyteam.ru/profile/pokanuktus)
3. i'm ready to give you any documents/video with actual date and time like in next 5 minutes after your request
4. i'm ready to pass any playing tests with recording my gameplay etc. everything you want and asap
5. i need access to my account because i have people who depend on me and all of them never had any problems with stars security or something like that. We don't take players with slightest problems with reputation or rooms security into our backing team.
In response to which I receive another standard answer, I understand that it will probably not be possible to talk to a live person until Monday, I went to find out the details of similar friezes from more experienced community members. I am horrified to hear phrases from different people like:
- "well, my account has been checked for 2 months somehow"
- "I have already had an account for 3 months on such a verification"
- "I have been verified for more than six months"
I started to check ToS Poker Stars - there by the way, there is nothing about such checks or the timing of these checks, but there is such an item in the "Privacy Policy" section:
Attention to this item:
"a right to request an explanation of the logic involved if we make decisions about you solely through automated means;"
2 weeks already have passed, no one has explained the logic of decision-making on my account in this case to me so far
I tried to contact the technical support of the room in all possible ways: VK, Facebook, Instagramm,Twitter and the same answer everywhere, which obviously does not satisfy me.
Don't get me wrong, of course, I realize that the check should be carried out for everyone in the same order and I reported the facts about myself only in order to demonstrate full openness, willingness to provide any necessary data on request and interest in resolving the situation as quickly as possible. But, what prevents them from reporting at least approximate dates? In my case, we are talking about a six-numbers sum and the announced deadlines would directly affect my strategy for the development of the fund and the distribution of liquidity. Instead, I am completely ignorant even just about the cause of the freeze, despite the fact that my most malicious violation inside this room is <10 warnings over a ten-year career about an open equilab or simple postflop when launching a client.
Well, purely from a human point of view, it seems that the behavior of the support in this situation does not even closely correspond top tier of the room and maybe, with proper publicity of this post will make someone from the Poker Stars management think about the chosen strategy.
And, of course, I will be glad to help in spreading the post and maximum publicity of the problem with the support PS in general.
P.S. By the way, while this text was being translated into English, a dozen more people with stories of a similar nature answered me on the Russian-speaking forum in a few days. People wait for months to be told that they must provide documents, which they can usually provide on the first day of the freeze.
09-07-2022
, 04:54 AM
