In my 7 years on Carbon, I never knew about Live chat until 2-3 years ago, after accidentally stumbling upon it. Now I just make my concerns known thru "Contact Us" at the bottom of the web site.

I was restricted to one table. I stopped playing on the site until not that long ago and nicely asked to unrestrict me. They obliged.

Thanks for mentioning that LiveChat is still available on Carbon. Sportsbook did away with LiveChat years ago , and I didn't realize that Carbon still had it. As I said in my previous post, I switched back to playing on my old Sportsbook account after Carbon took away color coding/tagging of players, and Sportsbook still had it. Carbon's doing away with their free HUD was also another reason for me not to play there. I did see ITT that Carbon has re-instated color coding/tagging, so if I continue to play on Merge I will probably go back to playing there, and at least be able to get some answers from Customer Service. Previously, Carbon had always been focused on features that benefited poker players much more than Sportsbook ever was, except now Carbon no longer has a lot of those things. When Carbon became a Merge skin, I made an account with them primarily because they had rakeback (now long gone of course ), and Sportsbook never did.

JUN100PK reload bonus showed up today again as before, in an announcement box on Sportsbook. However, Sportsbook's website Poker Promotions page still has the May promo listed as before. Maybe they're only offering it on certain days when they announce it or something , which makes no sense. I also checked the Carbon website and it's the same as Sportsbook, showing only the May bonus.

If anyone deposits and is able to get the June bonus, please let us know. Thanks.

Have you contacted the site(s) via Live Chat or Contact Us at bottom of site page? FWIW I've never applied for a deposit/reload bonus, but have always had a deposit bonus applied.

I went into live chat a few days ago to ask if there was a June one and they told me to use JUN100PK.

Initially it wouldn't work (not like normal where you have to ask them to apply it afterwords, but the system actually rejected the code and wouldn't let me proceed with the deposit) but I was still in the chat so the agent told me to deposit without it and then he applied it successfully.

dam,i cant login

same

That's it... it's over... they finally pulled the plug... RIP overlays

Is this gg ?

gg

Gg

It's probably just server downtime... this site has run extremely efficiently since 2011... with very little downtime... If it were ACR/BCP we probably wouldn't think anything of it... that being said none of this seems good.

Big overlays recently and global poker and other sites picking up a little bit makes me think they pulled the plug

Warning - long post. Sorry!

Lucky you, SeeTheMirage. I did find out that Sportsbook now has Live Chat again. However, I had a thoroughly unsatisfying chat with Poker Support Team rep Steve Garcia, which started out with me trying to get the bonus credited, and ended up lasting an unbelievable 1 hour and 10 minutes. Maybe this guy is just a poor representative for the company, I don't know. However, he made me so angry and gave me the impression that Merge is so totally screwed up internally right now, that I told him I would not be playing there anymore after 9 years as a faithful customer. I also said I would post the details to 2+2. Sorry this is gonna be kind of long because the chat was long, but I'll condense it as much as possible.

Yesterday like SeeTheMirage, I tried to deposit on Sportsbook and the bonus code was rejected, so I went to Live Chat. Steve Garcia tells me, "Feel free to submit the deposit without the code, I will manually add it", but then says, "You just need to let us know once funds are credited to apply the offer". So right away I'm ticked off that I'm going to have to contact them again, because it seemed like he should have been able to flag it to be applied, or as I now know, he could have had me deposit right then and applied it. Anyway, I say, "how do I do that? On here?" and he says, "yes or email". I tell him I've emailed several times in the last couple of months and never gotten a reply, and he says, "We have answered your question about the HUD around 3 times." I verify their email address, he verifies mine, and I ask him to resend the last email.

He says, "The email states as follow " We're sorry for the inconvenience, however we do not support or allow any third party apps used in conjunction with our poker software, the usage of ANY could get your account banned at perpetuity and the confiscation of all funds." I thank him for the answer and then ask again for a test message, and say I don't understand why I'm not getting their emails since I've never had a problem before in the 9 years I've been a member. He says, "I just sent you the last email from June 6th , what we can suggest is to use a different email address; we have had these problems in the past with accounts ending in ".net".

This also makes me unhappy, since my "net" account is my main one that I check all the time, but the test email didn't show up in my inbox or my SPAM folder. He says, "It is not recent , it is not a problem on our end either. Your email provider might be selecting our emails as spam and you are not getting them at all." This makes no sense to me since then they should be in my SPAM folder, and they're not. I've also continued to receive emails from Bet Online and Poker Stars during the times he said Merge's emails were sent. Plus I see an email from Sportsbook dated January 2018, and am pretty sure I received emails from them in February and March too.

Then he gets a bit of an attitude and says, "Well we are sending them, and I know for a fact that your provider is the problem. Do you have by any chance an alternative email address so I can copy the last email?." I give him a hotmail addy and receive what he says is the June email, but the text says something totally different than the email he quoted me earlier in the chat.

It says:
"We regret to inform you that as per management decision we no longer allow third parties to collect our information, that being said, you are free to use any poker tracker program you may find online, however the information you might obtain or see on that particular software wil not be accurate, since as we mentioned previously our data is not shared or provided to other sites.

In regards to increasing micro stakes games, from time to time these offerings are adjusted based on a variety of factors including popularity, time zone considerations, seasonal fluctuations, just to name a few. (I had told them I wished they would try to attract more micro stakes players, because often I can't get in a game because there aren't enough players, but their answer really doesn't address the issue of their dwindling traffic.)

We take pride in listening to our player feedback and we will be sure to pass along your comments to Management.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

Steve Garcia
Poker Support Team"

So the first email he quoted says you can't use HUD's or you'll get banned, but the one he sent says you can use a HUD if you want, but the info may not be correct. Now I'm really getting pissed because these two messages are the complete opposite of each other. I tell him that and he starts acting like I'm an idiot or something and says, "Forget about all emails it looks you are getting confused , I forwarded the last email sent back on June without reading it as you asked me to sent you a test message. Lets start from zero." I tell him I'm not confused, I just don't understand why these two messages state completely different policies. He says the first one he quoted is correct (that HUD's are banned) and to disregard anything that says differently, so I ask why he sent me what was supposedly their latest reply to me, which says I am free to use a HUD if I want to, if that's not the correct policy. So he says, "With all due respect , I'm here trying to help you out. In the past we were allowing third party software to have access, now we don't. The email you received does not contain accurate information and I apologize for that mistake. What was posted on this conversation and I have quoted different times, is the information we are handling now a days." So I say, well then your emails were just backwards from what you just said, if the one you quoted me first was sent to me previously saying HUD's were banned, and the one you just sent that you told me is the latest one you sent in June says I'm free to use a HUD.

I'm really, really pissed now, because I say what if I had only gotten the June email and thought it was ok to use a HUD? I could have gotten banned and my money confiscated and it would have been due to an email that YOU sent me. Steve says, "The information that we do not allow third party software is posted since months ago on internet; looks there was an honest mistake sending you an email ( you did not received ) with invalid information. (Note: the third party software policies that they have posted within the poker app are very confusing the way they are worded, and don't clearly say you can or can't use a HUD, which is why I told them I was writing for clarification). However, I'm explaining you how it is handle now days and I do not quite understand why are you upset for an email you did not receive until just a few minutes ago."

So that's when I tell him I really don't need the hassles of having to re-contact them to get a bonus applied, not being able to get email from them at my main account address when I always could before, and finding out the messages that supposedly were sent contained contradictory information, when I'm already struggling to play on the site due to poor traffic. Therefore, I'm not going to play there anymore and I'm going to post about our chat and these issues on 2+2. He says, "We understand and respect your choice.", but then he continues for 10 more minutes to repeat the same explanation that didn't make sense the first time, saying that what the June email said was a mistake and that he's sorry.

Anyway, I just wanted you all to know this is how really screwed up Merge is these days, so you can decide for yourselves whether you want to continue playing there. I realize that management is much more to blame for things being messed up than Steve Garcia is unless he is part of management. However, he is their customer service representative, so why is he sending out emails with outdated, incorrect information regarding their policies. Yes, mistakes are always gonna happen, but that's a pretty big one when a player could get banned if they acted on incorrect information sent to them, and the mistake was not found out until this chat because I never received the email.

Spent a long time composing my previous post, so just saw that the site is down. After what happened to me yesterday, it wouldn't surprise me if they did pull the plug. Indeed though it may be server issues, as I remember they were off line for several hours about a month or so ago and have had disconnection issues as well.

doubt they pulled the plug the sites been around forever

I also cannot log in or even view carbons websites....nothing loads. However, the early birds are running. I am watching my friend play on carbon on twitch right now. So I guess only some of us cant log in. Maybe its a maintenance thing for select accounts. I sent carbon an email, hoping this gets figured soon

I am able to log in now! try sending them an email guys

AAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDD.... WE'RE BACK!

LOL yeah the $33 early bird only got 22 entrants... what a ****in steal...

yep if you were one of the lucky boys who cud log in this morning you made bank. im sad.

You can't paint every skin at Merge with Sportsbook's brush. You have stated you have an account with Carbon if I'm not mistaken. Whether I like their responses to my inquiries or not, they have always promptly responded to me. Even when I bypass live chat for Comments & Improvements at the bottom of the main lobby.

Yes, I've had a Carbon account almost since they first joined Merge, which I think has been at least five years ago. I played mostly on Carbon instead of Sportsbook until they dropped their HUD and then didn't allow us to color code and tag players. For the last few years ever since the Merge skins started pooling players, I think pretty much everything else was also centralized, although Customer Support may still be individual to each skin. I didn't think they were, but I really don't know. If Carbon has always had Live Chat then maybe their staffs are separate.

Anyway over the years, until the last few months I've never had a problem with either Carbon or Sportsbook's Support getting back to me promptly. Since I haven't played on Carbon in over a year, I couldn't have an opinion on their Support reps during that timeframe if they are strictly Carbon employees.

Sportsbook says they replied promptly to my emails and perhaps they did, but I didn't receive them, and I find it strange that this issue only cropped up for me a few months ago. That's not really my main problem with them though. My beef with Merge at this point is just being super frustrated when I add all the issues that I spoke about together, which I believe mostly stem from bad management, and that it's more hassle than I feel like dealing with. Everyone else of course is entitled to their own opinions, and to make their own judgement calls. I just wanted to make other Merge players aware of the issues that I encountered in my recent dealing with Sportsbook's Support rep.

Understood.