What a screwup by Pokerstars!!!

[crazy canuck]

I got FFP points for compo, anyone else?

I didn't get anything.

[PoorLawyer]

[ QUOTE ]


A quick glance at it shows the playing names of , Bartholomew Simpson,


[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't know the poker craze has filtered down to middle school aged cartoons.

[lucas9000]

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A quick glance at it shows the playing names of Lee Jones,

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this is interesting because supposedly stars employees aren't allowed to play on stars. very interesting.

[Adde]

this is interesting because supposedly stars employees aren't allowed to play on stars. very interesting.

I don't think for a second that Lee plays undercover at his site. If they aren't allowed to, I don't see any reason for him to play. It's just too stupid a move, that I can't suspect him of that.

Also, there may be many valid reasons for him having multiple accounts there: he had one before he was hired at Stars; he needs to login under a less public name, not to play, but for whatever valid reasons.

Adde

[PoorLawyer]

[ QUOTE ]
this is interesting because supposedly stars employees aren't allowed to play on stars. very interesting.

I don't think for a second that Lee plays undercover at his site. If they aren't allowed to, I don't see any reason for him to play. It's just too stupid a move, that I can't suspect him of that.

Also, there may be many valid reasons for him having multiple accounts there: he had one before he was hired at Stars; he needs to login under a less public name, not to play, but for whatever valid reasons.

Adde

[/ QUOTE ]

As someone said earlier, they can play in certain events like PS employee things. I would imagine one would need a username to do that. Further, he would need a name to login to the system to post announcements too or for many other reasons I'm sure.

[Lee Jones]

Hi folks -

I will explain exactly what took place. I know because I, single-handedly, without assistance from anybody else at PokerStars, messed this up.

I had broken up the list of tsunami donors into 20 different sublists (just to facilitate sending the acknowledgments). In using our tool to send the bulk email, I accidentally cut and pasted one of those lists into the text portion (rather than the distribution portion). So a random list of 500 donors got sent to a random list of a different 500 donors.

The exact information released was the players' real name, their userid (screen name) at PokerStars, and the amount of their donation. No other information (including email address, home address, password) was released. So the "only" concern is that the people who received that list can now associate those real names with those PokerStars userids.

By way of compensating the people whose names were released, we:

1. Gave each of them a bunch of FPPs.

2. Offered to let any of them that wished change their userids.

About 35 have taken us up on the "change your userid" offer so far.

As regards my playing at PokerStars, I don't. Yes, I have a "Lee Jones" userid. And in fact, you can see it observing at PokerStars on a regular basis. If you want to see it playing, then you'll have to come watch one of our monthly no-money staff tournaments [1]. I had put my userid on every donor distribution list so I could verify that that list went out correctly.

In short, it was a stupid, unconscionable error. With that said, I think we took exactly the right steps following it - we instantly told people what had happened, compensated them, and gave them the option of changing their userids.

I have apologized to the people who were hurt by this, and I have apologized to my co-workers at PokerStars for bruising our well-deserved reputation for care with our customers' privacy. Believe me, this isn't going to happen again.

Best regards,
Lee Jones

PokerStars Poker Room Manager

[1] Alert readers will recall that I r00led over that event last month, which was Terrence Chan's final appearance as a PokerStars staff member.

[Toro]

To err is human, to forgive divine. I hope everyone will forgive you for this honest mistake. In no way should this detract from the humanitarianism that you and Pokerstars exhibited. Bravo for your efforts.

[samfromseattle]

Here, in Lee Jones post, is my basic problem with a multi-tasking information system sending me my hole cards, And then Lee Jones mentions FPPs and I think how does that have anything to do with odds. But Lee Jones's honesty saved the day for pokerstars as far as this thread is concerned.

[elric]

I am suffering from severe mental anguish over this ordeal.

A generous donation of $1,000 in my PokerStars account would definitely help me get over this breach in security.

No you say...Allright, allright then we would all be willing to settle for a RELOAD BONUS.