Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

I was hoping that this would confuse toe front-line of CS personnel to such an extent that they would be forced to forward it to someone who might have a chance of understanding.


I would like to say, 'should be interesting' but I really doubt anything interesting will come from this except for their lack of response and/or inability to address the issue.

Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

Oh, and here is the thread of e-mails with support that I had. Sorry for the grammer, it was late (by my standards) and I did not pay close attention to it. Also note, that one typo was really bad. I meant "I don't deny you have right..." but I think the reader should pick that up from the context. Also, the e-mail change was validated and done on all skins at the same time, about 5 days prior to the first e-mail from pay-pro, so I still have one e-mail and my real name/address for all of my skin accounts, one at each.

Vern

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Empire,

I received the attached e-mail this morning and called. The first person I spoke to advised she would call back in an hour, that was at 7:30am Eastern. I received no call back and just called again. I was advised to send this e-mail, so you could contact me. I will be up for at least another 45 minutes. If you cannot call w/i that time frame, I would request that you call Friday afternoon after 4pm Eastern. I will be out all day Thursday.

Contact number is what is on file, (XXX)-XXX-XXXX (USA)
Vern


[/ QUOTE ]
Dear Vern,

Thank you for contacting customer support.
We regret to inform you that your account has been closed due to a management decision and this decision is not reversible for any reason.

Regards,
Cathy


[/ QUOTE ]

Cathy,

May I ask why and may I open a new account at some time in the future?
Vern



[/ QUOTE ]

Dear Vern,

Thank you for contacting customer support.

I am very sorry, but I do not have any further information for you about the closure of your account. And, unfortunately, you will not be allowed to open another account with us.

Regards,
Cathy



[/ QUOTE ]

Cathy,

Is there a number I can call to speak with a supervisor about this. I cannot figure out what I have done to deserve banning and w/o information I am unable to offer a defense. The only thing I have done with this account in the last three weeks is change my e-mail because my old e-mail address was getting too much spam in it and my ISP was filtering outgoing mail to poker sites and preventing me from contacting them. It was shortly after I changed my e-mail that got notice to call, and I did. I was advised I would be called back but never was. When I called again 12 hours later, I was advised to send an e-mail the only response was that the account was closed. I am baffled though still hopeful this misunderstanding can be favorably resolved. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Vern


[/ QUOTE ]


Dear Vern,

Thank you for contacting customer support.

“We want to inform you that this account has been randomly checked and found to consist with suspicious and wrongful actions that we don't support at EmpirePoker.com, due to that we regret to inform you that the account has been closed permanently by the management, the process is unfortunately not reversible, we thank you for the time you played with us.“
Please refer the Terms and conditions for more information on this
http://www.empirepoker.com/about_us/...formation.html
*17. Abandonment of Account Balance.*
The Company reserves the right to cancel your EmpirePoker.com account for any justifiable reason whatsoever at any time without notice to you. If you do not access your EmpirePoker.com account by "logging in" to your Account by using your AccountName and password for a period of one hundred and eighty (180) days, your Account will be closed and the entire Account Balance will be deemed abandoned and forfeited; provided however, such requirement for log-in and entry is not and does not constitute any requirement whatsoever for you to play any Game, deposit funds or participate in any activity at EmpirePoker.com other than logging in. For the avoidance of doubt, pursuant to this section, Company may also close any account with any ESP which you have

If you have any more concerns or suggestions please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,

Suku


[/ QUOTE ]

Suku,

I do deny you have the right to close my account at any time, but I apparently tripped over some action so heinious I get banned w/o warning. By my records my last hand was played on 4/11 and my last login was 4/27 (To change my e-mail for the previously listed reason) so account abandonment really does not apply. I have read the legel information in full and just want to know what section I transgressed so I can either refute the allegation (Even if I am wasting your time and mine) or offer some mitigating circumstance that may provide for my ban to not be permanent. According to my records, my Empire account had <$1 in it so I am not really out money, I have just rather enjoyed Empire over the year as a customer, I have recommended it to others and don't want to just walk away w/o at least tryig to defend myself.

Thanks again,

Vern


[/ QUOTE ]
Dear Vern,

Thank you for your further e-mail.

We regret to inform you that your account has been closed due to a management decision and it is not reversible for any reason.

Best regards,

Louise


[/ QUOTE ]

Louise,

This disappoints me greatly. It would appear that I cannot defend myself against this misunderstanding because your rules do not permit you to inform me what rule I transgressed to be banned. I have asked for a way to contact a supervisor to try and further resolve this, but from the form of your response, that avenue appears to be closed tight.

Very well then, I apologize for whatever transgression caused this. Ignorance it not truly an excuse, but I claim it as my reason and hope some day you will reconsider at least giving me the opportunity to speak with a supervisor to try and rectify this. Thanks again.

Vern



[/ QUOTE ]
Dear Vern,

Thank you for your further e-mail.

This account has been randomly checked and found to consist with suspicious and wrongful actions that we don't support at EmpirePoker.com. Due to that we regret to inform you that the account has been closed permanently by the Management. The process is unfortunately not reversible and we thank you for the time you played with us.

For further information please refer to our terms and conditions:

http://www.empirepoker.com/about_us/...formation.html

17. Abandonment of Account Balance.
The Company reserves the right to cancel your EmpirePoker.com account for any justifiable reason whatsoever at any time without notice to you. If you do not access your EmpirePoker.com account by "logging in" to your Account by using your Account Name and password for a period of one hundred and eighty (180) days, your Account will be closed and the entire Account Balance will be deemed abandoned and forfeited; provided however, such requirement for log-in and entry is not and does not constitute any requirement whatsoever for you to play any Game, deposit funds or participate in any activity at EmpirePoker.com other than logging in. For the avoidance of doubt, pursuant to this section, Company may also close any account with any ESP which you have

Furthermore, speaking to a supervisor will not enable you to reactivate your account. As previously stated, this was a management decision and is irreversible.

Best regards,
Louise


[/ QUOTE ]
Louise,
Well after some research it would appear that my account was closed because as a player I cost you more in bonuses than I was worth in revenue. I can appreciate that position and do not have a single problem with. I do wish you had just stated that initially instead of implying I had engaged in some suspicious and wrongful acts. That was a little disturbing.

I would recommend in the future that you consider awarding your bonuses to players based upon the amount of rake they generate or insure that in complying with the terms of the bonus, it can only be completed by collecting more in rake/fess from the required play than the bonus is worth. The VIP club not withstanding, the current way you do bonuses fails to reward loyal players and allows for players to be 'in the hole' as far as revenue goes by only playing the bonuses. I am sorry that by playing the bonuses I was deemed a customer you no longer wanted. I would have appreciated a warning as I would have clearly increased my play to preserve my account.

Second, you may want to break out the first line of paragraph 17 of your T&C, the one quoted by you below, into its own paragraph. When you quote the entire paragraph it appears I have been canceled because of account abandonment, when in reality only the powers invested in the first sentence apply as you have exercised your power to cancel my account for a reason you deem justifiable and have no duty to notify me of that reason.

Thank you for all your attention to this matter.

Vern




[/ QUOTE ]

Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

I like the layout.

Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

Interesting.

Your e-mails were very well-written.
Empire's responses varied from evasive to non-sensical.

You are to be commended for your behaviour in this situation.


I do suggest that you continue to try to call them though.
They are clearly giving you form-responses and I doubt that your very good suggestions will be taken seriously.

Keep trying (if it's not putting you out too much) and keep us informed.

If you call back tell them that you had played there VERY recently and that you had not abandoned your account in the least.
Don't mention any bonus-whoring or anything like that.
See if they bring that up.

They are still telling you that your account was closed for 'abandonmet' type reasons so pretend like that really is their reason and point out that you haven't done that at all.

Basically, I want to see if you can get THEM to say it was just due to bonus-chasing.

Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

I am taking this light hearted because poker is just a recreation for me. I opened an empire account because they sent me a promo offer, after I was a Party player. I signed up with my real info and same neteller as party. I will try to call them on Monday if I get no response to the last e-mail.

Vern

Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

I predict the response will be somewhere along the lines of:

"Robert,

We're sorry, but the first time deposit bonus is only for people making their first deposits to Empirepoker.com. You may, however, refer a friend and receive a $50 bonus! Thank you for playing at Empire Poker. Good luck at the tables!

Raghib"

Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

[ QUOTE ]
my ISP was filtering outgoing mail to poker sites and preventing me from contacting them

[/ QUOTE ]
Did you make this up or is this part true? Because I've never heard of an ISP doing such a thing and I can't see why they would.

Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

Not made up, I think some tech at the ISP tried to put pay-pro and the Party Skins in the spam list but did it backwards. Anytime I would send them an e-mail, it would bounce back from the ISP's mail server but all incoming male got through just fine. I could not get them to figure it out, so I changed to a different Pop3 capable service for my e-mail and have never had a problem with any of the accounts since.

I tried to explain the header info to a tech at the ISP, but you get what you pay for and I just want cheap broadband [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

i've had this happen several times.

first empire was filtered out (didn't even make it to my spam-box)...then a couple months later empire was fine but party was being filtered out.


this happened to paradise as well...but they were on top fo the situation.

Re: My long-winded e-mail to Empire
 

I never got an email from Empire for whatever reason, I just started seeing these threads today and found that I couldn't log in. Now that I've read through the whole thing, I think it isn't even worth it to try to verify my information. I'm very unhappy with the way Empire has handled this, so getting my account reopened (I had maybe 17 cents in it) has almost no value to me. If they aren't even willing to give the real reasons for what's going on, I don't trust them at all. Sent the following email to see if I might hit a longshot and actually get somebody to say what they are actually doing, pasted below:



My account name is xxxxxx. I was told by one of your representatives that I needed to verify my account information to open my account. "But I've had an account for a while now" I said, "so why do I suddenly have to verify my information?" Your representative did not give a reply to this question. Eventually he told me that it was just a random check being done.

But I'm actually told that that is a bald faced lie. I'm hearing from a lot of other people that their accounts are being frozen for no reason. I'm hearing that they have to send you these verification emails, only to find that you give them bullshit responses that they have engaged in "Suspicious and wrongful" actions which you refuse to disclose. Well I can tell you this: I have never done anything either suspicious or wrongful concerning any online poker site, including yours. If what I'm told is correct, the actions taken by Empire Poker are both very suspicious and very wrongful.

In order to verify the honesty of your intentions, I therefore require that you furnish a logical, concrete reason for the freezing of my account before I provide you any more of my personal information.