PartyPoker probs

1st off, I am new here and there, just posting some probs I've dealt with in my first 2 or 3 weeks at PartyPoker.
I made my first real money deposit ($50) using a bonus I saw advertised many times in the PP chat window, SIGNUPMONEY. I was supposed to get $25 bonus for my $50 deposit. Well, I got no bonus money, nor did any pending bonus appear at my personal page. After many days without a single reply to emails I sent to multiple 'help' addresses, I finally called customer service. (btw, the live chat help is "turned off" and the cust service phone line sometimes dials through to a "couples talk" line only)
I was finally able to speak to a real person who told me the SIGNUPMONEY bonus was invalid and to never use any bonus that appears in the chat window. He did at least credit me $20, $5 short but better than no response at all.

My latest problem was my registration for a new player "freeroll" multitable tournament. I waited 8 days for the tournament. Last night, the tournament began seating on time.. and 45 minutes later 32 tables had been seated but the tournament appeared to be stalled. 1:45 minutes later the tournament dissapeared from the "special tournaments" list completely. There was a $20k total prize purse and now I am no longer eligible for future 'free entry' real money tournaments. Not that big a deal to most people but I am seriously beginning to doubt PartyPoker's reliability, especially since I have dropped $150 into their vaults so far. I have begun the newest round of emails to see if I can get into another 'freeroll' tournament. Tried calling this morning but multiple navigations through the automated 24hr phone help line resulted only in "this service is temporarily suspended" messages.

These guys advertise everywhere.. even here . They have numerous references and links to 24 hour chat and telephone help lines, as well as a bunch of email addys for help. Apparently this is all whitewash used to cover customer care setup that is almost non-existant at best. I'm sure dealing with 100s of thousands of customers is daunting but they create an appearance of abundant, readily available help resources.
Currently, I'd have to recomend against anyone investing their hard earned cash at this site. I am serious about learning to play holdem (buying books, studying online, while at work, playing online between 2-7 hours every night) so I will go on to find a decent site to put my money into. It's just frustrating as it takes me 2 weeks to raise $50 to add to my real money stack. I know winning or losing is all up to me (in the long run) but I'd like to feel confident that the table isn't gonna screw me, or if it does, someone will tell me why and what I can do about it.

Anyone else had problems there? I'm gonna start looking for a new site tonight I guess. Thanks for any comments. Sorry for the long post and redundancy with past posts. I'm new but you will see me around for a long time, I'm addicted. (semi obsessive compulsive too I think )

Hello Locomule,

This is Tyson, welcome to FTR. We advertise PartyPoker because I like them. I like them a lot. I like the action they have, the bonuses they offer, basically everything.

If you would've signed up to PartyPoker through this website, you would have received your full bonus, and you'd be helping us keep this site up and running.

With regards to support, the chat line is weird, I've never had to call them. The dissappearing tournament sucks too. I've experienced occasional glitches across all the online poker rooms, Party has actually been one of the more stable ones.

Party is very good at cashing you out though. I've cashed out thousands from there with no problem - that's the most important thing.

No disrespect intended, but if you are so concerned about a $25 bonus, and a freeroll, it sounds like you can't afford to be playing online poker... my 2 cents.

i've only had one problem.

About 6 months ago I signed a friend of mine up through an affiliate link I had. He put the signup code in the wrong box, he never got the signup bonus, and I never got the referral money.
All in all it was about $75 PP got to keep, nothing big but somewhat frusterating.

Originally Posted by ttanaka

No disrespect intended, but if you are so concerned about a $25 bonus, and a freeroll, it sounds like you can't afford to be playing online poker... my 2 cents.

Sometimes its the principal of the matter.

We're told we're going to get these things and then don't.

Well I have had a major problem with them but it hasnt stopped me from playing there. I signed up 3 people in march and in my affiliate section of their site it even shows I signed up 3 people. So they owe me 195 bucks from that and never paid me a dime. I have sent them probably 10 emails and they always tell me some crap. 1 friend deposited 50 and worked it up to about 150 then lost it all within about a week. Another deposited 100 and lost it all in like 2. And the 3rd played his ass off for a real long time and single handedly generated 100 bucks in rake for the site. Well they say the first 2 they think were fraud sign ups and that they have to generate at least 195 before they will pay me anything. Whats bullshit is they say all that crap about it being guaranteed with the per sign up plan. The 1 month I signed up 2 people and they paid me the 130 no problem. And then in April I sign up one and he has played maybe like 100 hands total and they paid me the 65 no problem. They still give me problems about the 195 and its getting to the 6 month limit on holding fraud funds (in there terms & conditions) so im gonna start bitching at em again that they have to tell me one way or the other and that I'll bitch at em everyday for the rest of my life if they dont give it to me. What I dont get is they all signed up with their own debit cards. What do they think I go around stealing peoples debit cards to sign em up on poker. BULLSHIT IF YOU ASK ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah I forgot to add I only play there now when there is a bonus to be had. They have such great bonuses I just cant pass em up. Once they put 20 in my account because I hadnt played in awhile and I had to play 200 raked hands to get it released. I was like well it doesnt hurt to try so I did and got that up to like 155 in 200 hands and then cashed out. If they dont give me something I will play at empire even though I guess they are technically the same but Im hoping it isnt a jackass company getting my rakes then.

i've had great luck with their tech support via email. quick helpful responses, no attitude and good customer service.

i've also made a lot more money on party than pokersharks.

I had an unfortunate "incident" with Party Poker when I tried to use my fiance's credit card (I had her permission) to finance my account. Stupid on my part for not forseeing this as a problem, but OMG the headaches that followed. I swore I'd have nothing to do with Party Poker ever again, but I got over it. I found the telephone customer service VERY hard to deal with, for one reason and one reason only......East Indian accents. EVERY single person I dealt with had a thick East Indian accent and I could barely understand a word any of them said. "Please repeat that?" "Again, please?" Bah! I have a hard time with foreign accents.

Other than that initial ugliness, I've had no problems with Party Poker at all. Probably the best online site overall with PokerSharks a close second IMO.

I've not had any problems with Party, and they always reply to my support e-mails very quickly.

Whoa, sorry Tyson. Didn't mean to step on the toes of your cash cow. "No disrespect intended, but..." lol.
Seriously though, thank you all for your responses. Guess I had higher expectations than I should have for PartPoker, it's just that they have so many "help" links, but I digress. Sounds like they pay up, which is apparently the main topic of public concern.
I must also say that I have been very happy to play (and literaly get schooled) at PartyPoker. I think I'll invest my future money into more books instead of expensive in-game lessons. I am the kind of guy who sinks his teeth into competative ventures and I hope to learn from and eventually teach lessons to all of my fellow holdem adepts at any site we might meet at.
Thanks again for all comments.

One thing I also notice is that every time they update their software. There are glitches for a little bit after that.

well I'll be, got an email bout glitched freeroll tourn. PPoker credited all 3000 participants (I'm assuming all) $10. considering the tourn was free to enter and I can turn around and use that money to enter at least one other 'cheap' tournament, not too bad a deal in my opinion. that's more like the kinda site I want to be at. kudos PPoker

Sorry, Locomule, didn't mean to come down on you. I've received emails asking for personal advice from players who have lost way, way more than they could afford. Players that don't know what to do, that want to immediately jump back in, but cannot afford it, college education in jeopardy, I mean some serious sh!t.

Just some disturbing stuff, so when I hear about players getting into it with a very limited bankroll, or beyond what they can afford, I sense potential trouble.

Anyway, hey, I'm glad Party did the right thing for screwing up, I hope you can parlay that gift into more!

Tyson, remember all that money comes from somewhere. Saw a post recently that gave some nice backstory to who some of the people are that sit down at the 2/4 table with less than the default $100, then proceed to go all-in like 4 orbits later.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Tyson, remember all that money comes from somewhere. Saw a post recently that gave some nice backstory to who some of the people are that sit down at the 2/4 table with less than the default $100, then proceed to go all-in like 4 orbits later.

Fnord, you've just described a friend of mine.

he plays to "gamble"

he sits at a 5/10 table iwth $50 expecting ot make a huge run from the begining.. Needless to say he's reloading quite often.

Originally Posted by ttanaka

I've received emails asking for personal advice from players who have lost way, way more than they could afford. Players that don't know what to do, that want to immediately jump back in, but cannot afford it, college education in jeopardy, I mean some serious sh!t.

Just some disturbing stuff, so when I hear about players getting into it with a very limited bankroll, or beyond what they can afford, I sense potential trouble.

Wow. It must be a real treat reading those. I wonder how many people have gotten themselves into serious financial trouble because of party poker.

Yeah, all that money you guys (and sometimes me) win has to come from somewhere. I guess the conventional wisdom is that at any given table, there are 1 or 2 big winners, and 8 or 9 small losers. So on a macro level, you have many fish feeding the game, losing small amounts, and a much fewer number of sharks winning large amounts. But I guess their must be big-money losers out there too.

I remember reading somewhere that Party Poker supposedly refuses deposits from people who have lost over a certain amount, but they wouldn't say what that amount was. I wonder.. $5,000? $25,000? $100,000???

I've heard tales of people throwing 20k at PP in a week.

I read a post about someone following someone from table to table for 2 hours while the guy blew 5k in their 15/30 game.

Originally Posted by TheNatural

I guess the conventional wisdom is that at any given table, there are 1 or 2 big winners, and 8 or 9 small losers. So on a macro level, you have many fish feeding the game, losing small amounts, and a much fewer number of sharks winning large amounts. But I guess their must be big-money losers out there too.

More like:

2 steady winners
2-3 marginal winners
3-4 marginal losers
2 big losers

Big winners are an illusion created by variance. Any one of those 10 players could go on a massive rush. Actually, the worse players are *more* likely to have such a rush because of the high variance of a losing game.

My .02

I have had a similar incident as DrNoChance.

I called to find out why my credit card was not being accepted. The receptionist sounded south american. Broken english + accent.

I also noticed on their western union option to put money into your account, their receiver a few days ago was a person in nicaragua.

If you know anything about western union you'd probably agree with me that WUing money to someone, especially in nicaragua with no apparent affiliation with Partypoker, wouldn't be what I'd call a "safe bet", pun intended.

ok, a few minutes ago at PartyPoker, the mysterious SIGNUPMONEY bonus code popped up into my chat window again. I took a screenshot. Then I figured something out.. here's how the message appears..

INCENTIVE: 50% Deposit Bonus! Open a new Party Poker account, deposit $50 and have $75. Sign up using Bonus Code: SIGNUPMONEY

the thing is, whenever you send a message through the chat window, it starts off with your name followed by a colon.. ie.. if I say "wazup" it appears in the window as..

Locomule: wazup

so the person spreading this false code around has an account under the name INCENTIVE

I emailed Ppoker about this, just have to see what will come of it. seems like they should be able to close this person's account as well as do a permanent ip ban. I even told them about me coming here and bitching cause for a while I got no bonus or even a response to my email inquirees. Bad business for them, you'd think. Anyway, I doubt many people care to much, just a heads up and a continuation of my increasingly bizarre saga with PartyPoker, lol.

I called in and spoke to customer service lady who seemed very interested. She got all the pertinent info and got me to send in my screenshot of the fake bonus message. I hope they bust this guy but more than that, I hope they credit me a fat bonus for identifying the person! Lol, it never hurts to dream, right? ;D

lol yeah dude that would be phat. the cheap bastards that party poker are though I wouldnt count on it.

they did credit me $10 for a new player freeroll tournament (free) that crashed. I can't complain

here's the reply I got from cust service..



Dear player,

Thank you for contacting us.

We are certainly grateful to you for bringing this to our notice. It is for the support extended from players like yourself that we are able to deliver an enjoyable gaming experience to your players.

As for the player "Incentive", please be convinced that we have taken the most appropriate action to make sure that he will not be able repeat such actions again.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Care Department at any time. We are here 24/7 to assist you via email.

Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site!

Purvi M
Poker Customer Care



and they credited me with $10,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



heh, j/k. but I am up like 400k play money chips tonight ... sigh...
peace all

Just so you know ... I don't think anyone is really interested in this. You're kind of teetering towards spam here.

If you're done, cool, but I hope there's not 3 posts a day with updates on the latest Party support email and your play money earnings.

I think Locomule's posts are all good. The heads up on the chat room bonus code scam is good information. Not like any of here would have actually fallen for it, but it is good for newer folks who may be reading this.

Originally Posted by michael1123

Just so you know ... I don't think anyone is really interested in this. You're kind of teetering towards spam here.

I'm with TheNatural. I don't see the spam here, or even the near-spam.

True, not everyone is interested, but there are a lot of posts that fall under that category. You can't please all the people all the time...

Originally Posted by FyrFytr998

One thing I also notice is that every time they update their software. There are glitches for a little bit after that.

After this last up date has been the worst time for glitches yest, but they were fair and paid for my potential (freeroll) winnings in the 5 paused games i was in.

I can relate to them not releasing my money, I earned 20$ in freeroll then promptly turned that into 95$ but i could not get to the money as I was still not a "real Money" player had to deposit money to get mine out.

Posted: Thu, 09 Sep 2004, 1:49pm
Total Posts: 12

I miss locomule so much.

Originally Posted by EasyT

Posted: Thu, 09 Sep 2004, 1:49pm
Total Posts: 12

I miss locomule so much.

I'm a little misty-eyed, myself.

zomg stop bumping old threads please