UB screwing me over...or am I wrong?

[johnnycakes]

Last Thursday I was playing in a $5+Rebuys satellite tournament that paid entries into the weekly $300+20 Aruba tournament. We had played for over 3 hours and were down to 4 players. 2 places paid out entries. 3rd place paid $20. I was in 2nd place. The tournament (and all other tournaments running at that time) crashed. When I was finally able to reconnect, the tournament was over and I finished in 4th place. I wrote and complained. A few days later UB "compensated" me by...refunding my buy-in! I wrote back and complained saying I thought giving me an entry into a $300 Aruba tourney would be fair, so they offered me...an entry into a $5+Rebuys satellite! I think this is completely unacceptable. If the tournament had just started when it crashed, refunding my buy-in would be fine. But it hadn't. My chips at the time of the crash were worth much more than the buy-in.

So, do I have a right to be angry? Or am I just whining for no reason?

Here is my last email (5th email) to customer service and their response. When he mentions my "threat", he must be speaking of my "threat" in a previous email to take my business elsewhere:

Registering me for a $5.50 Rebuy Aruba $300+20 DE is not enough.

You obviously don't understand what I am saying.
I will break it down for you mathematically.

We were down to 4 players. Top 2 places paid an entry into the $300+20 Aruba tournament. 3rd place paid $20. That means the total prize pool was $660. That means there were 132 buy-ins,rebuys and add ons. That means there were 132,000 chips in play.

As close as I can remember, here are the approximate chip counts when the tournament crashed:

Player 1 had about 60,000.
I had about 40,000.
Player 2 had about 20,000.
Player 3 had about 12,000.

When I was finally able to get reconnected after the tournament crash, the tournament was over and I had "finished" in 4th place. I did not get 4th place because I played poorly or got unlucky with the cards. I got 4th place because Ultimate Bet did not provide an acceptable tournament. Nothing I did can be attributed to my 4th place finish. The players who finished first and second did not win their $300 entry because they played well. They won their $300 entries for the same reason I lost mine. Why should they be rewarded for your mistakes while I am punished?

At the time of the crash I had about 30.3% of all chips in play. Since the total prize pool was $660, that means my chips were worth $200 when the tournament crashed.

Ultimate Bet owes me $200 minimum. In addition, I would expect a site that wanted to provide quality customer service to go above this and compensate me for my frustration and the time I've had waste writing these emails to obtain what I am owed.

Offering me a $5 tournament buy-in after all this is just insulting.

Sincerely,
John Holton.


RESPONSE:
Hello,

We have refunded your account for the tournament entries, rebuys and other games where you had inconveniences already. As it was done to all the other costumers that had problems in the last few days.
Let us assure you we value your business but do not deem any type of threats necessary nor will they be tolerated.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.


Best Regards,

Surge
Customer Service Supervisor

[krazyace5]

Hell yeah I'd be pissed. If the system crashed they either should have ended the tourny right there with you in 2nd or they should have gave all 4 players an entry imo.

That sucks to invest 3-4 hours and get offered $5 for their software problem. Sorry to hear you didn't get adequate compensation.

[jjnidguy]

yeah UB has this problem often. It happened to me once. I ended up doing better however when the servers came back 4 hours later, so I never tried complaining. Many people have suggested chip ratio pay outs, as in, if i have one third of the chips left in play, i get one third of the prize pool left in play. They aint going it do it however. Id be pissed about that response you got. What they said about the threats... You didnt make any threats, what a douche bag standard msg they sent you... Too bad UB doesnt do a better job of handling these situations

[johnnycakes]

I have cashed out my remaining funds, and will not play another hand of poker there again until they change their policies on tournament compensation for players when tournaments crash, and until I am compensated adequately for my loss.

I also would not allow someone to rob me and then invite them home for dinner.

Johnny.

[TheGrifter]

They didn't rob you, every major site clearly states that their liability in regards to a crash is to refund your buy in. If that's what they choose to do, so be it, you knew the rules when you signed up.

[johnnycakes]

[ QUOTE ]
every major site clearly states that their liability in regards to a crash is to refund your buy in.

[/ QUOTE ]

From UB's site:
"24. In the event a tournament is cancelled due to technical difficulties at UltimateBet.com, players who were already eliminated from the event will lose their buy-in and fees. The remaining players in the event will be paid the prize money based on their chip stacks and standings in the tournament at the time the tournament stops running."

I was in 2nd place when the tournament stopped running. Therefore I should have gotten a $300 tourney entry.

But they do reserver the right to screw me here:
"29. reserves the right to alter the rules and make final decisions on all tournament related issues as they arise, and at our sole discretion"

Johnny

[Oski]

[ QUOTE ]

RESPONSE:
Hello,

We have refunded your account for the tournament entries, rebuys and other games where you had inconveniences already. As it was done to all the other costumers that had problems in the last few days.
Let us assure you we value your business but do not deem any type of threats necessary nor will they be tolerated.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.


Best Regards,

Surge
Customer Service Supervisor

[/ QUOTE ]

Ironic.

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
I was in 2nd place when the tournament stopped running. Therefore I should have gotten a $300 tourney entry.



[/ QUOTE ]

If the tournament stopped running, how did you fall to 4th place? The tournament must have continued at some point for the others to jump ahead of you.

[CORed]

Since you finished fourth but were in second when the tournament "crashed" it seems to me that you probably had a connectivity problem rather than a server crash. If so, that may well have been beyond the control of UB and their settlement was reasonable. If it really was a server problem, then I think they could have done better. If it was a connectivity problem, they could have done a better job of explaining it to you.

[MicroBob]

i think he could have done a better job of explaining it here.

UB hs had a rash of problems lately.

i have been disconnected from some SNG's....while i was able to continue playing in other SNG's.

i'm not sure if his connection problem was UB's or not....but based on my experiences, it seems entirely possible that UB could have cut him off without cutting off the other players.


if UB is accepting responsbility for his disconnect then they should pay him more than his entry-fee.
if UB is claiming that they weren't at fault for his disconnect then their reaction is a bit more understandable.


i played an SNG a couple nights ago and one of the players was absent for quite awhile. by the time we got to the final-two he railbirded our table and kept asking 'was i in this tournament?? do you guys know??' my opponent responded that he was (i really didn't notice if it was the same name as the guy who was absent).

i suspect it was a problem with UB rather then his own connection issues.

there have been some screwy connection things going on at UB lately.
although i have not had or seen any of those problems since they claimed they got their servers fixed a couple days ago.


again, i'm not saying that this was the case in the original-poster's satellite-tourney...but it is certainly possible imo.

[johnnycakes]

Good point. But it wasn't a connectivity issue on my end. All tournaments froze. Then my client crashed. When I finally got it back up and connected, the tourney was over and I finished 4th.

So, yes, the tournament did crash, and it did resume. It was not a connectivity issue.

When it happened, I also hopped on this board and other's were experiencing the same problem. Here's a link to that thread: thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=inet&Number=837878&Forum=, All_Forums,&Words=&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=8378 64&Search=true&where=&Name=3484&daterange=&newerva l=&newertype=&olderval=&oldertype=)

Johnny

[Goodwin]

The first thing that I would do is ask for the hand history that shows you busting out. There is a possibility that they never actually played out the tournament and just screwed up prize allocation. If that's the case, you should be able to show it with the hand history.

I had something similar happen once, and although it took me half a dozen e-mails explicitly leading them to the correct answer, I did get my money eventually.

I was in 5th place in a multi when the tourney crashed. It later restarted for a few hands at 2 of the 6 remaining tables. When they allocated the prizes, they only considered the people at the 2 tables that had restarted even though there were 4 tables of people who still had chips. Anyway, the fact that there were multiple tables and many people prevented them from using the argument "we restarted and you didn't reconnect. The problem is on your end, tough luck", which seems to be the most likely argument they'll throw at you - and it's hard to refute if the other people did, in fact, resume playing. If they didn't, the hand history will show it.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
There is a possibility that they never actually played out the tournament and just screwed up prize allocation.

[/ QUOTE ]


if this were the case he most likely would have finished 2nd since that was his chip-position when he was disconnected.
however they would have the rising-blinds combined with the fact that they put you all-in on your last hand even if you're not there . so there is the possiblitiy that someone else caught-up to him on a couple of their desperation all-in blinds and bumped him down a couple places.


but the more likely scenario is that others were able to reconnect while the UB client prevented him from doing likewise.

[Goodwin]

[ QUOTE ]

if this were the case he most likely would have finished 2nd since that was his chip-position when he was disconnected.

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be logical, but assuming that without verifying it would be giving the UB support staff too much credit.

[ QUOTE ]

but the more likely scenario is that others were able to reconnect while the UB client prevented him from doing likewise.

[/ QUOTE ]

This also makes sense, but how do you demonstrate it was the UB client that prevented him from logging back in? If that is the case, then this guy is probably out of luck and will have to settle for a $5 entry instead of a $300 entry (or the % of the prize pool that his chips represented).

His best hope is to try to convince them that the tourney was screwed up beyond recovery as of the time of the initial crash and that the prizes should be awarded according to the chip counts at that time. To do that, you need to start with the hand history.