Warning To Empire Poker Players About Cash Transfers

[elgrkn]

Be careful if you ever send or receive a transfer on Empire Poker. The other day a friend asked me for a cash advance, in exchange for $50 on Empire Poker. So, being the nice guy that I am, I complied.

I've also been trying to scrounge up enough cash to get a last minute plane ticket to Las Vegas for Def Con. So I started withdrawing money from all of my poker accounts.

Then today, instead of a cashout notice, I received this email from Empire Poker.

[ QUOTE ]
Subject: Cashout Pending Verification
From: info@empirepoker.com
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 19:42:36 -0400 (EDT)
To: ***REMOVED***

Dear Christopher Anderson,

While approving a cashout request of yours we see that you are cashing out an amount transferred to you by another player on our website via the Inter-Account Transfer feature.

Please note that the Inter-Account Transfer feature is a privilege for all Real Money Account Holders who wish to help their friends on the site who go broke, or want to convert Play Money Players to play for Real Money.

Using this feature for any purpose other than those mentioned above is not encouraged, so please write back to us with a clarification about the same for us to verify the cashout.

We thank you in advance for your cooperation and patience.
zabeers
Investigations Team for Poker
alerts@empirepoker.com
http://www.empirepoker.com

[/ QUOTE ]


Now I'm normally not one to get pissed off about policy. I understand that there's a usually a reason why that policy is in place, and I just have to deal with it. I also understand that Empire Poker is running a business, and to run a business you have to make money. Although, in this case, I completely disagree with both the policy and the reasons behind it. I had always thought Empire was one of the better poker rooms with decent support, and now I'm very disappointed. I had thought the money transfer feature was for the user's convenience, so they could transfer money to friends quickly through the poker site instead of waiting for the cash to withdraw to neteller, then withdrawing to the bank, then withdrawing from the bank to hand to friend. Although, apparently the money transfer feature is a privilege for players who wish to give their friends who busted more money to play with, and to convince play money players to play for real money by giving play money friends some real money to try playing with.

Anyway, since they are now holding my hard earned cash in limbo, I sent them an email back as the requested to explain myself.

[ QUOTE ]
Subject: Re: Cashout Pending Verification
From: Chris Anderson <***REMOVED***>
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 16:53:26 -0500
To: info@empirepoker.com

A friend of mine needed some cash, but the only money he had was in his Empire Poker account. So he asked me if he could transfer me money from his Empire account if I loaned him some cash. I don't see how there could be anything wrong with this. Although, I'll make sure I warn him about this so that he doesn't keep money in his Empire account in the future.

I'm sorry for any trouble this may have caused.

[/ QUOTE ]


I'm posting this to notify you all of Empire's policy regarding transfers. I'm sure there are others out there who are unaware of this policy, so I thought I'd do Empire Poker a favor by making it known before other players make the same mistake as I did.