After thorough deliberation and discussions with multiple parties, BBVisbadforme, Fedor Holz, and I have decided to raise awareness in regards to our recent dealings with GPL CEO Alex Dreyfus. For context, BBV and I have been very active in the SHR staking scene for the past few years.

I met Alex for the first time in person in Vegas this summer where we had long conversations regarding the GPL. BBV and I attended the first Cube match featuring Aaron Paul upon Alex's invitation. A few days later Alex approached me again asking if I could trade him $20k USD in Vegas for a Euro bank transfer. We agreed because BBV needed bank Euros. We met up, I gave him the cash, and Alex said he would send the same day. BBV and I put the issue out of our minds because we were accustomed to dealing with multitudes of transfers during WSOP.

Five weeks later after leaving Vegas and doing accounting with BBV we realized he never received the transfer, despite Alex stating he would send the same day and not mentioning for the duration of the summer he had not. We promptly contacted Alex to which he replied that he never had the intention not to send, but the GPL was struggling and he could not pay at this point. He asked for an extension until the end of August and offered to pay interest. I made it clear that receiving the money on time was more important than interest. He had asked for a trade, not a loan.

A week ago when we still hadn’t received the money I sent him a reminder of the deadline to apply pressure. He claimed he was waiting on a 150k transfer and will pay us back once it cleared. Around the same time at EPT Barcelona I reached out to a few close friends asking for their opinion on the issue. We weren’t sure at this point whether it was better to inform the public to ensure that no one else gets taken advantage of by Alex, or if we should just treat it as a single misstep that shouldn’t have such a dire impact on his public image.

We understand that the future of the GPL as well as the people involved with it, whose work we respect, are all somewhat dependent on Alex’s reputation. However, almost everyone we spoke with agreed we should make the whole story public, drawing the conclusion that the way Alex treated the problem made it likely it wasn’t an isolated misstep. After hearing that Alex had done the same thing to Fedor we had no choice but to take action to make this post. We would not have come out unless we felt it was necessary.

Three days ago Alex sent me a copy of a transaction receipt showing he wired the money to BBV's bank account with an added 5% interest. The money cleared yesterday. We gave Alex a Heads-up on thursday that we will be making this post on 2p2.

Hello 2+2 Community,

My name is Fedor Holz and after deliberate consideration with Hendrik and ‘BBVisbadforme’ I feel the necessity to share my recent dealings with Alex Dreyfuß and my thoughts on it with you.

On 3rd June 2016, Alex approached me and asked for 10,000$ cash in Vegas to trade for a euro bank transfer, stating that “he spend 50k$ [in the] last few days for [their] studio” now “reaching his daily limits”.
The same day I send him my bank details via e-mail and he responded with “Thanks will be proceed current next week”.

I was very busy in Vegas and didn’t do my accounting until end of July/beginning of August assuming that he wired me the money in euros when this message reached me on 28th July 2016:
"I just wanted to tell you, that I'm a bit late re: the transfer of 10k, as I spent a lot of resources last 6 weeks due to our vegas investment, and I'm in the middle of strategic/financing deal, which - if you allow me - to have few weeks more (end of august, early september) to process the Eur, bank transfer (with interest), would be highly appreciated. I apologizes for delay. Not my style, just Entrepreneur life. Hope it is fine for you."
I responded that “it’s okay, [but] I’d like to get it out of the way as soon as possible”.

I already didn’t feel conmfortable with the situation but I had a lot of other stuff on my plate and didn’t spend too much time thinking about it until on 27th August 2016 in Barcelona I randomly find out that he also owes money to Hendrik for a similar timeframe. This is the point where I start to question my decision to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I send Alex a message demanding my money and he says he will put in a wire on 31st August.
I received 9,500€ worth in euros on 2nd September 2016.
____

The reason why I post this story is not out of personal interest. I don’t have any reason to harm Alex Dreyfuß nor do I in any way profit from posting this (quite the opposite).
The reason why I post this story is because I strongly care for poker and its community and how we get presented to the outside.

In my personal opinion in our two cases he knowingly mislead us to get a 3-months loan out of a declared trade without communicating it in any way for the first 7 weeks.

He represents poker to the outside, so he represents us as a community to the outside.
I think the above story is very questionable behaviour as a serious entrepreneur and a showing of missing integrity.

I really do hope that this was a single misstep.

Fedor

Im surprised hes borrowing money, after what about Bob I thought he would be set for life.

not all that surprising i guess..

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...-paid-1539388/

The future looks really bright for GPL after this.

Dear All,

I've already spoken on this matter for a few hours yesterday with all parties involved - a matter that has been settled already, again with both parties.

I've apologized to them both for having failed in respecting the original repayment deadline as it was intended .

I've also apologized to them both for the lack of communication and the non-professionalism that was inherent in this on my part.

We've had a tough summer and a lot of things didn't work out as planned. While I have legitimate reasons to have been late, these don't represent valid excuses. I apologize for that and am ready to take ownership of this mistake - I'm not immune from making errors like this. There was never any malicious intent.

Eventually, after clearing internal funds I gave both parties a clear deadline - a day at the end of August which included an added fee in the form of flat 5% interest as a financial means of apologizing as well. This was fully respected and all parties were paid including flat 5% interest on top. For me this matter is settled and I'm not intending to add any comment publicly on this, as I was believe it to be a private matter.

I'm not looking for a public trial on 2+2, but understand that this is something which is unavoidable.

As such I'll focus my efforts on doing what I'm the best at, delivering a vision of promoting poker as a sport. I'll understand that this contraversy doesn't help my mission to succeed, but I'll have to take that hit in order to move forward. I'm committed to this mission and this ambition, and will continue to invest and work towards these goals for the next few years.

I thanks both parties for their help in Las Vegas an offer a final apology. It is their right to air their grievances on a public forum and I respect that decision.

Alex

Alex. Why no mention of this on dnegs pod? You could have got out in front of it

#entrepreneurlife #visionary #epicpokerleaguepart2

where did the supposed 10m investment go?

Players lending the owner cash. Insert Jackie Moon meme here

Did they agree on interest or did you decide that for them?

Sound proof cube.

paid back personal loan with company funds #embezzler

I believe the term is 'communication blunder.'

Looks like the news cycle has caught up. This debacle + the uplifting news of RIO Poker = Polkernews soon pls?

I guess Phil Galfond should create RIO Poker League for USA players.

Ridiculous, and don't be surprised when the tonnes of ppl who had (obviously good reasons to doubt) criticisms say "told you so".


How is there no malicious intent, he makes excuses whilst barely accepting fault here and fails to explain simply put-
When you asked for the cash from these guys (and probably others..?) did you actually have the money in your bank account??? If yes, what happened- things went bad and you used that money (which was your only money???) to pay for others things instead of honoring your agreement, and didn't tell the parties involved?! Or did you not have it, aka lied...???

This is why poker players should stick to poker and quit fancying themselves entrepreneurs or businessman. You have no experience or education in contracts and liability, and the way you handled this shows you have no concept of business ethics or the law. This Alex guy will be in prison before long imo. This is what happens when you try to take shortcuts and try to be a big-shot with no education or discipline, everything inevitably crashes down.

There was no loan.

Also I imagine there is not these huge investments he claims but if there are it's pretty inexcusable to shareholders/investors that he would risk and damage the reputation of GPL/investment...

The 4.9m he "raised" came from some Chinese private equity fund. I tried to call him out on whether he really got the money or not a few months back. Some of these Chinese investment funds are known to commit to giving funds that they don't actually have or never wire to the holding companies. He also may have had some ratchet clauses within the contract which means he didn't get the full 4.9m. He may have gotten a fraction of that last year and needed to meet milestones for the rest (which explains slow play?). But who knows at the end of the day. He has a pattern of making promises that he doesn't deliver on.

1. He borrowed money from them
2. He didn't repay for over a month
3. They applied pressure.
4. He repaid with interest/late fee.

Only thing missing is settling for less.

Why did he need to borrow cash? He doesn't have a credit card?

He got a dirt cheap cash advance and was freerolling his ass off

could have just come hit me up for a loan would have given you better rates than that

We sportify scamming

yikes