Just a small complaint about Absolute Poker

[WholeBean]

HmmmWhere to begin. I guess Ill start with the good news. Around March 1st this year AP gave me one of those we miss you free money in your account promotions. It was 30 dollars, which over two months time I turned into 500. I made a withdrawal for 300, played another week, took some beats, got upset and withdrew 170. That left me with 30 dollars again. I figured Id rinse and repeat.
Around May 14th I logged into my account, which was up to 50+, and found it had been cleaned out. I went to mail AP and found a message from them in my inbox. Apparently they had double posted the 170 dollar withdrawal and in an effort to recover the funds snatched all the money in my account. I checked my bank account and sure enough there was the second deposit, which came in one week from the first. Their email said they would be contacting me soon to find out what happened.
O.K. Here is why Im not happy with them. They never contacted me. They didnt respond to my email (its been over three weeks). They just snatched the money in my account rather than talking to me and working out a solution. I figure they are just waiting till I deposit so they can snatch the rest. Anyway, I dont care about 170 and I doubt they do either, but the way theyve conducted themselves seems very impersonal. I guess they get an F for customer service.

Heres the email they sent:
Dear Valued Customer,


We have been reviewing our accounting records to find that due to a banking
error the ACH payment processed to you on April 25th 2007 caused the payment to
be sent back out to your account again on May 2nd 2007 causing a double credit
on your behalf.

Due to this circumstance we are contacting you to inform you about this, and to
also ask you to please be aware that we have been collecting the overpayment
amount from your player account balance at the site (In case there was enough
funds to cover the overpayment). Besides this one of our representatives will
be contacting you on the phone to touch base on the details that lead to this
problem in order to reach a better understanding about this matter.

We truly apologize for the inconveniences this issue may have caused you, and
truly make our commitment to make the best out of this misfortunate incident
for the both of us.

 

[pokeraddict]

Absolute and Ultimate Bet (owned by Absolute) have gone down the toilet when it comes to service and honesty but in this case they are in the right except for how they handled it. You owe them the money. If they aren't capable of figuring out a way to fix it then it is their loss.

Call them at 1-866-788-3005 if you want to be proactive in fixing this.

 

[fernando78]

no offense but I am here for less than a week and I noticed AP is in top of complaints concerning poker rooms, it looks like they dont give a shit about us except when they are taking our money...

 

[phillypretzel]

Absolute Poker is a mess

Hello,
Absolute Poker's customer support is horrendous. I have cashed out from the site several times. Previously, my checks have arrived in 2-3 weeks--a long time to wait to get your money, but at least they pay. Recently, however, I did not receive a check for a small cash out of $100. I waited several weeks and then received a voice mail message from Absolute Poker's customer support informing me that there was a problem processing this batch of checks, but that the check would be there within a week or two. I waited a couple of weeks, but nothing came in the mail so I called the customer support department. The woman I spoke to told me that the check was delayed, but it would arrive by no later than July 27. Well, July 27 came and went. I called them back on July 29 and was told that the check had been sent, but I might have to wait 17-22 business days to get it! I was outraged as it had been more than 2 months since I had cashed out the $100. The woman then put me on hold for a few minutes and when she came back on the line she said that the check actually had not been sent at all. She said that Absolute Poker would credit the $100 back to my account if I did not want to wait. I agreed to accept the credit as I had not had problems with them in the past. She said that the credit would be posted to my account first thing in the AM. Well, I checked in the AM and again at noon PST and the money was not in my account, so I called customer support yet again. They told me that they would credit the money in 30 minutes, which they did. When I came home from work that night, though, the money was gone. So, I called them back to find out what happened and then they said that they withdrew the $100 from my account because I had already received and cashed the check for $100. I insisted that I had not and explained to them about the voice mail message I received, etc. I have cashed out much larger amounts on several occasions and always received the checks, but I definitely did not get the check for $100 and every single person that I had spoken with previously had acknowledged that I did not receive it and had made promises about when and how I would get the money (none of which were honored). After more than 10 phone calls to customer support and several email messages, Absolute Poker offered to resolve this matter by giving me a free entry into their $150 weekly tournament. I was very pleased with this offer because the buy in for this tournament is $500 + $30 and I had planned to play in a satellite to try to qualify for it anyway. They told me that I would be added to the list of tournament entrants 30 minutes prior to the tournament start time. Well, the tournament came and went. I was never added to the list. About 25 minutes prior to the tournament start time, I called customer support again to find out why they had not yet included my name on the list. They said that it would be added within 10 minutes. I waited until the tournament started and my name never appeared. I called them back and they said that it was "too late" for them to include me in the tournament--even though they had sent me an email message 6 days prior to the tournament date stating that they were going to include me on the list.

The matter was finally resolved because they added my name to the list for next Saturday's tournament, but I wanted to post this message so that everyone would be aware of the atrocious customer support and extremly slow cash outs.

PartyPoker please come back! Your U.S. customers miss you!

 

[peteyweestro]

absolute poker=absolute nightmare

 

[GaryWatson]

absolute poker=absolute nightmare

I tried to make a deposit last night at AP. Not accepting a previously accepted card. Told to contact customer service. Some sites have online support that deal with it instantly. They have still not replied to my previous query months ago. I just deposited into another site instead. There is definately room for improvement on the communication

 

[Tdoggy]

???????

ok so now Absolute is having paying Problems also??? Anybody getting checks by mail with in 1 or 2 weeks anywhere anymore???? I'm afraid to deposit anywhere...

 

[wangpoker]

AP support has big problems.
I sent my docs, they got it and lost it. I sent again and waited for a long time to get verified.

 

[jolub]

I use to play there alot, nearly 1200 hands of $.25/.50 and $1.00/.50. I lost about $60.00. I never got a bonus or anything free. I haven't played there in sometime. I wish they'd give me some free money.

 

[WholeBean]

jolub,

That's all I do is play the "we miss you" 10 dollar free money bonus. After I got the double cashout mentioned in my first post I just forgot all about AP. Then they came again with the "we miss you" bonus. I'm not sure how many months they wait to offer it. Maybe two?

Other small complaints: You always have to e-mail support to get your name added to the AP challenge list. Your name should be added automatically when you qualify. I'm no programmer but that seems to be a simple if:than bit of code. However, I haven't been there since the upgrades so this may have changed.

And last time I cashed (maybe a month ago) the free eft was no longer available. I had to shell out the 8 bucks for a check. I worked hard for that free money.

 

[SeattleSinner]

I have been playing at AP regularly for about 6 months now. I have had some issues with customer support as well however usually things do get sorted out. What really gets me mad is the cashout. It takes 3-6 weeks to get a check and you have to pay $8! The cashout policy seriously needs to be re-evaluated. I'm not really sure what they gain in making cashouts so hard except losing customers.