I'll post some of the excuses/email correspondence here. The first part here was sent 24hrs before the London EPT. Before this we had already agreed for them to cover the buy-ins but they had not sent me the money still, coming up with random excuses I can't remember right now. I was already in London, had bought my ticket, and they had promised to get the money sent. Remember that I play NL100, so buying a £5250 ticket and not being refunded is kind of a big deal.
Night before the EPT, msn:
1.10.2009
19:13:39
David:
hey miikka so sorry - just got in My wife was in a car accedent
1.10.2009
19:14:04
Miikka:
no problem, but omg is your wife ok?
1.10.2009
19:14:05
David:
she is fine but now I have to get my papers together
1.10.2009
19:14:19
David:
yea just a little bruised
After this he said he had to go, and never sent me the money. I went on to play the EPT and busted on day 1 (because I suck like that, ldo).
He didn't reply to anything for a few days, and then when I asked about the money he finally agreed to come to msn. This time he had lots of plans for us and agreed to send the money soon:
I never got the money. I didn't worry about this or ask about the $ for another week or so, as I had just moved to Thailand and was busy renting a house and stuff. Then like a week before the Warsaw EPT I asked why I still hadn't got the London EPT buyin or the buyin for Warsaw and the rest of the events, as I was supposed to fly there soon.
These are all copy-pasted from emails:
DAVID:
Great to hear you made it to Thailand :-) I will be in Warsaw for the ept I will be in Warsaw on the 20th. Here is my # again xxxxxxxxxxx
Lets meet up and have a few drinks and a great chat. I will be sending the $ to your MB today so you will be able to enter the tournament. I will also bring some tower gear with me.
But he never came nor sent me the money. Instead he sent me $270 via moneybookers about two days before the EPT. I sent a message asking wtf, and he replied:
DAVID:
No that is not the correct amount let me talk to processing and find out
I look forward to seeing the sights ;-)
Its a holiday weekend in canada but I will be in the office on Tuesday
Cheers
David
So ahem, how surprising they have a bank holiday exactly two days before the event, so they can again use that as an excuse to not send me the buyin and freeroll with my publicity like they did in London, knowing that I would play anyway. Further correspondence pre-EPT:
ME:
Also this is getting kind of super urgent as I need to pay for the EPT within the next 72 hours, so please let me know as soon as possible if you're going to be able to send the money in time.
What day/time are you coming to Warsaw again? Should we organize a dinner or something before the EPT? Assuming I will go all the way to the FT we won't have much time during it, as the days are really long.
DAVID:
It is a long weekend holiday so no one is in the office till Tuesday I will get it sent
ME:
Didn't hear from you yesterday and didn't get the money either. We have less than 48 hours to pre-reg now. Can you please please please get it sent asap when you see this?
DAVID:
Hey Miikka
The money has been sent via MB I sent the request to payments first thing in the morning yesterday
I will follow up with payments I will be flying to latvia today but will get it all confirmed
It never appeared on my mb account. I've tranfered 5figs there numerous times and the money has always moved instantly, so I sent him an angry sms stating that they either have not sent me the money or have made an error somewhere.
His response:
DAVID:
I have confirmed that MB has been made all is good I am in latvia right now and will be in Warsaw on the 20th
Still no money, I harassed him with a couple more extra emails.
Then:
DAVID:
I have emailed payment processes to get you the MB confirmation number. Have you already made hotel and flight arrangements? Let me know if you did get the payments. I might not hear back till Monday since the payment person is not in this week end. If something is wrong or some reason you are not able to make the flight let me know. I will make sure we are all in Prague ept for Dec 1st. I will have a full team set up and a marketing campaign to follow the tower team via vids and blogs.
He sms'd me the number after another 6 hours or something, this was maybe 12-24hrs before the EPT. I called moneybookers immediately, and they said such number doesn't even exist and nothing has been sent to my end from TowerGaming's account. I tried to call David and he didn't pick up, and sent him sms's asking wtf again and he didn't answer. I never played the EPT but spent 1,5k on flights and stuff for nothing. Thanks David.
Like I said in the first post, I don't have any of the correspondence regarding the next EPT (Vilamoura) as all this was made mainly via sms.
Then before the EPT Prague he told me how he had created a team of four players, me being one of them, and how we would all meet there. He also said that he has hired a live event manager who's been wired the money and that he'll take care of our buy-ins in Prague. I asked immediately to be put in contact with the manager, which he never did. I asked him to do that like 450 times and he just ignored it.
I already knew how this was going to end about a week before Prague. His email:
I have just come across a big road block. My new country manager is now in the hospital with appendicitis. So now I am scrambling around and getting things set up myself. He hopes to meet us in Prague. I will follow up with you today once I get things worked out.
I sent back a message saying something like I hope he gets well soon, and also that I don't need pampering or them to book me a hotel, and that all would be fine if he just shipped me the buy-in via MB. He didn't respond to this, or any of my dozens of messages during the next 5 days or so. Then two days before Prague, when I had already travelled there:
DAVID:
Hey Miikka
My live event manager has just been released from the Hospital and is not able to travel for 2 weeks. I was not able to leave Canada on such a short notice. I am not sure what plans he had made yet for Prague. I will try to contact him asap, but at this point I have no new info.
I asked him to send me the money via mb.
24 hours later, he didn't even answer my question about the money or offer to send it, but instead the story had a new twist:
DAVID:
Miikka I am scrambling to see what I can do
I also have been left out in the cold on this
It looks like the money we sent to the live manager is nowhere to be found
Boom! So now the manager who's hospitalized with appendicitis has hit and ran with the money? I told him one last time that I was already in Prague, the EPT would take place the following afternoon, that I had no time for this and he would have to ship me the buyin via moneybookers ASAP. His response:
David:
Let me see if I can get that into your account ASAP
I went to sleep, noticed that I hadn't got the money overnight, sent him another sms a few hours before the event asking about the money one last time. He didn't reply, and never sent me the money. He refused to answer any of my emails for another 10 days or so, which led to me starting this thread.
This guy is in charge of the rakebacks of a ton of you. Actually, as he is Tower's affiliate manager I'm pretty sure he's solely in charge of almost everyone's rakeback who plays there. And he's lying to their (only) publically sponsored player. Also, I'm 99% sure that the EPT team he told me he created doesn't even exist. I also asked him if I could meet them in Prague even that I couldn't play, which he also didn't answer. And since I asked in this forum if anyone knows anyone who's in this team and I got 0 replies, I think it's somewhat safe to say that's just another of his lies.
My end of the contract included - apart from playing - the editorials in the magazine, internet visibility and stuff. My blog has had about 500k hits since they stopped the payments in July, and there's been about 35 pages in the largest poker magazine in Finland with their ads and stuff, only because of this deal. So they've freerolled with a ton of publicity and never kept their part.
I also haven't been paid rakebacks, I'm not commenting further on that at the moment as most of my hands were played on another computer which is at the moment being fixed, and I can't get the numbers from my HEM database. To date I've been contacted by a total of 8 people who claim Tower hasn't paid their rakebacks for a while or have paid significantly less than the players are entitled to and based on these - assuming the people's claims are true - Tower owns at least 30k in rakebacks. And this is just Finnish people and TG isn't that big in Finland.
I've made a ton of bad financial decisions myself this year, but Tower has had a very large role in me ending up being temporarily busto. Just flights and hotels to these events have cost me about 100 buy-ins to my level and the amount they owe me is another 200-300. My bankroll is/was not deep enough for that.
Thanks again, TowerGaming.
Last edited by Chuck Bass; 12-15-2009 at 02:49 AM.