Online Casino Cautions - Purepoker
Published: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
ONLINE CASINO CAUTIONS - PUREPOKER
Has the Purepoker mess finally ended?
After months of uncommunicative procrastination, and several attempts to short-change
players on what they were owed the saga of PurePoker.com may at last be
coming to an end.
PurePoker.com, a Futurebet-powered licensee abruptly closed without a by-your-leave,
allegedly because the original owner had done a bunk. Players were left pretty
much in the dark for weeks as behind-the-scenes negotiations between another licensee
and Futurbet took place. Eventually a rather hard-ass businessman known only as
*Pino* started telephoning players and offering them "settlements"
for considerably less than they were owed. Not surprisingly, many turned this
not-so-generous offer down and the issue escalated to the watchdog forums and
continued to drag on.
This week Online-Casinos.com & InfoPowa and others received assurances from
*Pino* that in private discussions all owed players had accepted unspecified payments
subject to 4 conditions, which were not disclosed. This presumably means that
Pino now operates PurePoker and that he has on board a happy and contented roll
of players despite the unseemly time this mess has taken to sort out, and the
regrettable attempts that were made to knock player demands southward.
Pino says that any player who has not been recompensed is welcome to email him
at Pino@Purepoker.com. The following recent post is the only public statement
to be issued:
"Notice to PurePoker.com customers.Pino has stepped in to help out all Purepoker
customers. If you have an outstanding balance and have not yet been contacted
send an email to Pino@purepoker.com. All players that had signed up and deposited
funds prior to February 7th, 2006 may withdrawal at anytime. Players that signed
up between February 7th and 17th will be paid out over the next 4 months with
few conditions. Players that signed up after February 17th can also withdraw anytime.This
agreement was only possible with help and co-operation of Futurebet Gaming Systems
(the software provider). Futurebet has made a huge effort to get his issue resolved
to everyones satisfaction."
Without knowing what the *few conditions* are pertaining to the withdrawals (which
presumably cover all monies in player accounts) it is difficult to assess the
fairness of this offer, and the 4months of instalments will not appeal to everyone.
If Futurebet and Pino have met all the PurePoker obligations to the legitimately
owed players (and time will soon enough tell if this is true) then the matter
is clearly resolved, although the delays and attempts to bargain players down
from what was owed to them will inevitably have damaged the PurePoker brand, and
by association that of Futurebet too in our view.
That is purely the fault of management in not bringing this matter to a fair conclusion
in a reasonable amount of time and with efficient and open communication.
Instead, we had players subjected to the stress of ignored emails, telephoned
"take it or leave it" offers and attempts to reduce monies owed, all
over many weeks without direct communication. That does little for trust, and
trust is very important from a player perspective.
If the new ownership of PurePoker is smart, it will look after the remaining players
and operate in an efficient and honest manner with timely payouts, solid communications
and respect for the players.
If not....we wouldn't bet on PurePoker's chances of surviving too much longer.
