Wam Bam, No Thank You Mam
Seems the Bammer is frustrated. And this time Pebs isn’t the culprit. It is all about the straight jacket that is online poker and its support. Who’d a guessed?There is this thing called TOS or Terms of Service. You know the one you didn’t read that was full of lawyer-speak. It could be reduced to a single sentance: When we want to screw you, we can and will.
If your name is zjustin or such, exceptions are made. If you combine hand info against the TOS and win over a million, that calls for an oops and a naughty-naughty. For all the rest , it comes with strings — lots of string … ropes and chains even.
If you are some schlep that is looking for some poker enjoyment, we’ll smack you down in a heart beat. That also teaches you not to make fun of people with minimum wage jobs and the skills to match.
What went wrong? In one word or what passes for one in Washington, it was the UIGEA. When that hit there were skins galore. They were engage in a thing called competition. Sites actually competed for your play. Then, the UIGEA hit and there went the competition. Power moved into the hands of a couple of sites. These sites were believers in Barnum’s line: There is a sucker born every minute.
In those good old days, they had honest to goodness promotions. Pokerroom ran 3 freerolls each day that gave out 3-grand each. Look at what’s available these days. If you didn’t play on a site for a while, they’d give you a 10-spot to lure you back. Redeposit bonus, remember those? You could flit from site to site clearing bonus. Smart players even had a term for it — bonus whoring. Today’s best offering is a ticket to nowhere, right Bammer?
Where has all that gone? Right to the site’s bottom line. No passing go or collecting $200.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the government just screwed up our poker enjoyment. But they do it at every turn. They create regulations that go far beyond poker. Regulation stifles competition. Those regulations also mandate certain standards that add to the cost. The UIGEA has done the nation’s poker players a service by pointing out just how well-meaning politicians (oxymoron?) interfere with folks just living their life.
It isn’t just poker my friends. It is everywhere you look. Government intervention is an example of unintended consequences. From credit cards to warranties, it is something that they all game against those consequences. They depend on our frustration finally just saying, “Well, screw it. This ain’t worth it.”
Now we could blame those evil corporations but that’s hardly valid. Regulation reduces competition. Marshal Field said, “Give the lady what she wants.” and meant it. In that era you could say, “I just don’t like it.” and they’d make it right because there was competition.
Welcome to the club, Bammer. It is big and it is growing.
ADDENDUM:
Well, Full Tilt finally accepted that I am who I say I am. So, I should be back to playing there, right? Wrong. Now they have a whole new list of demands. Looks like I’ll be out about a hundred.
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“Indian outsourcing firm Radiant Info Systems has found yet another way to lower wages — hiring data entry clerks from a local prison. Some 200 inmates will be paid $2.20 a day to handle manual data entry tasks for Radiant’s BPO deals in a pilot for the scheme.”
No related posts.
IMHO the truly sad part is, customer service just doesn’t exist. There is no ‘way around’ to keep a satisfied customer, merely cold hard laws to abide by. At least that’s how it is in my case. I would’ve taken almost any other option available to me. Split them into some cash and we’ll see if we can get you into one of the remaining events, why not? Transfer the tickets to T$, sure I’m in! How about we let you just cash out the tickets and do what you want with your hard earned prize? How about we leave it all on P*’s then I’d say, because of good customer service!
You’re right Ken, with no competiton it’s always the customer that gets it in the end and mine, well it feels a little tender right now!
Linda tell her story of an underwater loan over on her site. This was my reply. Seems to fit in with the discussion.
I watched the 60-minutes one that discussed this very topic. It is a sin where honest folks have to go against what they were taught and how they wish to act. The end result of all this damages all parties.
BoA isn’t unique. It is just an indication of what “consolidation” brings. We just chatted about my problems with Full Tilt. I won’t even enter a Walmart after them costing me over $600. My mortgage is now BoA after Countrywide went belly up.
In ‘the good old days’ we both remember, the banker was down the street. He might not give us everything we wanted but when there was a problem we could man up and sit down with a human being who had some authority to make a decision for us. And, usually both parties ended up profiting.
Today, it is all a bureaucracy where those we can ‘talk to’ are bound by policy and penalized for adversely affecting the bottom line. That old banker could see that a little flexibility led to a profit down the road. That is ignored in today’s environment.