Diamond Spade Club -- High-end, Miami-based VIP club for rich poker players, or scam?

This was brought to my attention today.

Behold, the Diamond Spade Club Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/diamondspadeclub/

Here's their website, which is pretty much just a login page: http://diamondspade.club

Diamond Spade Club is apparently run by Alain Vogel and Carl Pion. I haven't heard of either of them.

It's supposed to be a high-end VIP club, based out of Miami, aimed at rich poker players.

However, here's what RealGrinders (Facebook group) member Jonny Ferrari said about them today:

Quote:

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**TRUE SCAMMERS CAUGHT RED HANDED: DIAMOND SPADE CLUB/ALAIN VOGEL/CARL PION**

Ok guys I know everyone is aware of the poker criminal Carl Pion whom ripped off many poker pros (over 10 reached out to me). But don't forget the rat-faced scum that keeps saying "dm me if problem with Carl". Alain Vogel and his scam "company" diamond spade. It's going to fail anyway.

Common sense 101: if Alain Vogel was successful or legitimate in any way he would not be having con-men seek investors for a concept that everyone is to "prepay" $10,000 for a fake membership for, for fake events that will never happen.

Even with misusing the images of two pros his scam page has a mere 44 likes. No one here is stupid to fall for his nor Carl Pion's scams farther.

But if anyone asks about "Diamond Spade" scam, send them to me and in turn the 12-14 victims already out of pocket.

He tried to talk shit about me (nice try my legitimate business has been running since 2005) today to Gavin Smith and ol' G told him point blank his "business model" is retarded. R.I.P con-men schemes!

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Here is a Ripoff Report page on the situation (created today): https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports...lorida-1434335

Presumably Jonny Ferrari is the one who created the above Ripoff Report, so keep that in mind.

Andy Ansicar on RealGrinders said, "Carl scammed me out of 10k."

Apparently Daniel Cates and Patrik Antonius have been talked into being ambassadors for Diamond Spade Club. I'm guessing they know little about the guys they're representing:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...25&oe=5B2DD506


Here's an odd article from Alain Vogel on LinkedIn, entitled "What Sevices Do Wealthy People Expect?": https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-...ct-alain-vogel

Reportedly they are soliciting investment money from people. with promises regarding a bunch of great events coming up. Memberships to the club are said to cost $10,000. I haven't seen proof of this, but my gut instinct is to believe it.

Here is Carl Pion:

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images...m1_400x400.jpg

Apparently Carl Pion started something called "Global Poker Link" in 2015, which I don't think really went anywhere. I don't believe it's related to current online poker website Global Poker. Here's an article about it: https://calvinayre.com/2015/05/22/po...al-poker-link/





Here is Alain Vogel:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...12&oe=5B381523

One of them not sure who posted in realgrinders today proclaiming innoncence.

Yup, here's the RealGrinders statement by Alain Vogel:

Quote:

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Over the past week or so my company, Carl Pion and myself Alain Vogel, the CEO of Diamond Spade Club have been the targets of a very serious and malicious social media attack initiated by Marc McLay aka Jonny Ferrari.

We are extremely dumbfounded as to what set off such an attack that was hate filled, and full of unsubstantiated, slanderous, defamatory, and completely unfounded statements that included constant harassment of poker professionals that included Gavin Smith, Antonio Esfandiari, and Phil Laak.

It is apparent that Marc McLay's claims were intended to severely damage the reputations of myself, Carl and our Diamond Spade brand, but unfortunately those claims have been fully refuted by Gavin and Antonio, giving us full comfort and satisfaction that we have acted professionally and cordially at all times.

What I can say is this. Due to the incredulous actions taken by Marc McLay, which included the posting of Carl's home address, and more importantly the constant utterings of death threats sent to me personally by Marc by way of numerous audio files, we were forced to take appropriate action by involving law enforcement who have now made official contact with Marc regarding this matter.

In final, I would also like to clarify (which can easily be verified via a background check) that neither Carl or myself have a criminal record, and that the business model of Diamond Spade Club is founded on transparency and trust, so much so that our model is structured where all membership fees and/or players funds are placed directly with a 3rd party legally registered fiduciary.

We recognize that this personal attack has possibly caused tremendous damage to our reputations and our brand, and that we will have some work ahead of us to repair the damage as we get set to launch our brand globally. But rest assured that we will continue to vigorously defend our reputations and our brand against any and all unsubstantiated, slanderous, defamatory, and unfounded claims in the future.

Thank you for your support.

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Here was my response:

Quote:

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Alain Vogel, I am the owner of PokerFraudAlert -- the site which had the write-up of Jonny Ferrari's claims, as well as the radio show in which he appeared last night.

Please understand that I do not know you, Carl, or Jonny, and in fact I didn't know any of you existed until about 30 hours ago.

My site exists to expose the TRUTH about scams, shady companies, shady individuals, and fraudulent schemes.

However, at the same time, I believe in equal time, and believe in giving everyone the right to defend themselves.

You are welcome to appear on our radio show next week to give your side of the story. I have already posted your above statement on our site.

In the meantime, I would like to ask you the following questions:

1) Do you believe that Carl Pion has scammed anyone in the past 10 years? If you don't, how do you explain the accusations from Andy Asnicar and others?

2) Diamond Spade Club has its office listed in the 1221 Brickell Ave building in downtown Miami. However, it appears to simply be a "virtual" office and mail stop. Does Diamond Spade Club have an actual office to itself in Miami or anywhere else?

3) Does Diamond Spade Club have any paying clients yet? If so, how many?

4) Would you be willing to prove Diamond Spade Club's liquidity to an independent auditor or third party?

5) Have you solicited investors to Diamond Spade Club yet? If so, would you be willing to share the sales pitch you have used to get these investors?

6) Are there any events planned for Diamond Spade Club which can be independently verified with the venues?

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If Jonny Ferrari's real name is Marc McLay, I don't know why he told us last night on the radio show that his real, legal name is Jonathan Ferrari.

Like, that's not a huge point, but I do find it mildly irritating when people come onto the radio show and lie to me. (Perhaps he's legally changed his name, though, so maybe he was technically telling the truth.)

Anyway, I do have to say that Diamond Spade Club looks suspicious in various ways, but as I do not have any proof of wrongdoing on their part, I can't be sure if any of these accusations against them are true.

Even if Alain Vogel is legit and is acting above board with Diamond Spade Club, it's a big problem if he's aligning himself with Carl Pion, if indeed it turns out that Carl has been scamming people. Alain can't simply wash his hands of that, unless he wants to cut Carl out of the business completely.

The plot thickens.

Alain Vogel answered my questions. My questions are in bold, and his answers are in regular type below:

Quote:

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1) Do you believe that Carl Pion has scammed anyone in the past 10 years? If you don't, how do you explain the accusations from Andy Asnicar and others?

I can’t confirm or refute those allegations as I have no evidence about it. But I’ve talked to Andy and a few others who had the same story about a High Risk Financial Business that went bad. Most of them told me exactly the same. They do not care about having lost some money but are angry because of Carl’s lack of transparency and not showing his good faith. Carl, also gave me his side of his story that makes sense and I proposed to the his ex-partners to discuss with Carl and straight things up as much as I can as I’m neutral in this story.


2) Diamond Spade Club has its office listed in the 1221 Brickell Ave building in downtown Miami. However, it appears to simply be a "virtual" office and mail stop. Does Diamond Spade Club have an actual office to itself in Miami or anywhere else?

True, I’m not US resident and as most business do, I have an address in the US as stated by the law.


3) Does Diamond Spade Club have any paying clients yet? If so, how many?

No, we are launching the company and as it seems our business model wasn’t fully adapted.

We are not willing to go on market until we are clear about how we want run our business.


4) Would you be willing to prove Diamond Spade Club's liquidity to an independent auditor or third party?

Any time if needed, All Financial side of Diamond Spade is handled by a Business lawyer in Europe.
I would like to add up that we are not handling any reservation fee, buy-in or else. We rely on a a third party for that.


5) Have you solicited investors to Diamond Spade Club yet? If so, would you be willing to share the sales pitch you have used to get these investors?

We have discussed with a few people, but we are not looking for investors at the moment.
If an opportunity arise, I will certainly look at it but I’m not in hurry.


6) Are there any events planned for Diamond Spade Club which can be independently verified with the venues?

I’ve suspended our scheduled Events, it doesn’t make sense to go on the market if we are not ready.


7) Would you please let us know WHY Jonny Ferrari is saying these things about you, Carl, and your company?

About your last question, Jonny had an argument with Carl and it seems that Carl asked him to leave his place. It seems that Jonny was disrespecting Carl, his wife and family using street language.

After that, I made my investigation about Carl and also Jonny. I’m not a jury and I wanted to know all side of the story. As I didn’t comply on Jonny’s request to fire Carl, he started to harass me with long whatsapp conversation and directly threated me of death and kidnapping by sending me audio files.
All the discussion and audio are available on request, but I think to make it public isn’t the way to go.

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The plot thickens more.

Matt Grisham claimed on RealGrinders that Carl Pion scammed him of $2k.

Quote:

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Carl is a fraud plain and simple. He robbed me of $2K. He knows it.

Carl Pion is a piece of shit and so are you for being associated with him. I’ve blasted him publicly plenty of times. He’s a scared little bitch!

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My conclusions thus far:

Nobody here appears to be completely innocent.

Carl Pion appears to have scammed people.

I haven't heard of Alain Vogel scamming anyone, but he appears too willing to just look past Carl Pion's likely transgressions and continues to be partners with him in this venture, which is NOT a good look.

I don't know what to believe right now.

Carl Pion has now also made contact with me on Facebook and sent me a shitload of messages I haven't read yet.

Great.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Carl Pion has now also made contact with me on Facebook and sent me a shitload of messages I haven't read yet.

Great.

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Let me know what that ballsack chinned faggot has to say about this mess. Did u see that post alain made today? What a fucking shit show

I've been talking with Carl Pion. He sent me a lot of stuff, and am still trying to make sense of all of it.

In the meantime, he also sent me an official statement to post here:

Quote:

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As a former business owner of 2 successful uniform companies in Ontario, Canada where we manufactured and delivered apparel to the majority of law enforcement, security, fire, paramedic and transit services across the country, I like millions of others became infatuated by the game of poker.

Being a member of the poker community since 2004, I as an Entrepreneur naturally wanted to seek out opportunities that would or could be beneficial or of value to the community at large.

Over the past 10 years I have most certainly presented ideas and concepts to many players in the industry, including those of high profile. Other than Global Poker Link which I founded and exited in 2015, which was renamed StakeKings by the new ownership, I have never at any time gotten to a point where a concept was as close to launching as Diamond Spade Club.

And let it be known that the DSC concept which is majority owned by the founder Alain Vogel will very soon establish its official business and operating model, and it may or may not one that is suitable to or accepted by all.

There has been a lot of garbage being tossed out by Marc McLay aka Jonny Ferrari that we intend to steal or scam membership fees from those wishing to join our Club, well because Alain and I believe so deeply in transparency, our model is founded on the principal that all funds get placed into Escrow via a fully registered Fiduciary service. What tgis means is that at no time until any of our games are officially over will we see our share of the gross profits. All balances and winnings will be directed from the fiduciary to the players first.

In final, I have provided Todd Witteles with a plethora of factual evidence that will undoubtedly vindicate me and any thoughts of me being a scammer or a conman, which in all honesty has been the furthest from the truth.

I will end this by saying I was once in a far better situation financially, but my wealth is nowhere near as important to me as my family and there well being and protecting them from harm is my number one priority.

And to you Marc McLay aka Jonny Ferrari. I as well as my partner Alain and my spouse are at a complete loss as to what has set you off on this most vicious and heinous attack on our reputations and our business, but regardless of what it is, you will not escape without facing the consequences. You are extremely unstable, you are fraudulently posting comments here using aliases, using the names of other legitimate people, and you are uttering a bevy of falsehoods and death threats.

You have been asked by the Region of Peel Police to stop, yet you continue to ignore their advice. We will not stand for this any longer and we will do what ever necessary to ensure that you are charged wherever possible and pay for your actions.

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While reading Carl's statement I could not stop thinking "this guy definitely scams".
Lots of information completely unrelated to the situation attempting to frame himself as both successful and a "great guy".
Counter accusations against his accusers (which may be true, but insignificant to the situation), and threats of legal action against his accuser.

He included no information relevant to his "new venture" other than that the funds he receives AND allocates as "player funds" will be escrowed via an unnamed fiduciary under unknown pretenses.

I don't know anyone involved in this thing, but wow I had to respond to that insane statement of innocence.

My read on the situation -
Carl has done a lot of scamming via shady business ventures in the past and even if he is not planning to do it again, the past will repeat itself - especially given high likelihood that this venture will not be successful due to lack of demand.
His partner is going to get caught in the middle of it and not get out soon enough for him to claim ignorance.
Johnny/Marc or whoever is a guy with some things in his past he's not proud of, hence stupidity using a false name. The guy seems kind of manic and was probably taken advantage of by Carl with some big idea - didn't do his due dilligence (bc of being manic, or being a degen or w/e). He saw Carl's new business, wanted to make sure his past was known (for revenge) and came forward in a sloppy way, which makes it easy for his accusers to call the the actual accusations into question.

Fuck this Carl guy though, we've all met people like him in the Poker World (and/or real world)

So... I really didn't feel like getting in the middle of the "Carl Pion scammed me on an investment" story, but here I am.

He sent me some convincing-looking (though not verified) statements showing that he really did invest money that was sent to him, and the money was simply lost due to bad trading (which is fine, if true).

I had to agree NOT to post that stuff out here, as it contains some personal data, whatever. So I'll keep my promise there.

But I have reached out to the claimed victims of Pion to get their response.

From what I can tell thus far, Alain Vogel seems like a bit of a huckster, but doesn't seem to have scamming in his past, so this Diamond Spade thing looks more like a shot-in-the-dark business idea, rather than a scam.

Would I sign up for it or give them any money? No. But I also don't have evidence that it's a scam, and I'm now leaning more toward it simply being a poker-related business proposal which may or may not work out.

Carl Pion has a number of people accusing him of being a scammer, so that's never good. It is rare in the poker world that someone is falsely accused of scamming by multiple people. Huge red flag. But I'm still looking into it.

IS Teddy The Iceman Monroe involved in Diamond Spade as the number 1 N pt champ?