Fedor Holz and others claim Alex Dreyfus, CEO of Global Poker League stiffed them in $20k currency exchange, due to being broke
I think this is going to be a huge story. Just broke today. If it doesn't become a huge story, it should.
I've always been critical of Alex Dreyfus. He always came off as a snake oil salesman. Always seemed to be big on promises, big on vision, big on hype, and low on actually delivering anything of value.
Dreyfus has been involved in controversy before. Recall this situation from just 15 months ago, when Alex Dreyfus was accused of stiffing players who won WSOP seats via a GPI contest.
The whole ending to the 2015 WSOP seat story was very unsatisfying. Dreyfus treated it like a misunderstanding, and made the accusers look like they were crazy. In reality, he clearly reneged on his promise, and rebuffed the players' attempts to handle it with privately in a reasonable fashion.
Surprisingly, despite being such a slippery character, he managed to score a prime partnership with the WSOP regarding their player of the year standings, and more notably, got his oft-criticized Global Poker League (GPL) off the ground.
You guys might remember how I repeatedly criticized the GPL, stating that it had no chance of succeeding, was destined for financial ruin, and would be the Epic Poker League all over again.
Looks like I was right.
While the GPL has not yet collapsed, CEO Alex Dreyfus was so poor over the summer that he arranged 20k "currency exchanges" with various poker players, only to fail to pay his end of the exchange. When confronted, Dreyfus allegedly told them that the GPL had been failing badly, and he was too cash poor to complete his end of the exchange!
While apparently these players had been paid after telling Dreyfus they were going public, this does NOT look good for him.
The three players are "ValueH" (a high limit player on 2+2, don't know his real name), BBVisbadforme (another high limit player on 2+2), and yes, Fedor Holz.
Here are their stories: (bolded parts are my doing)
Quote:
Originally Posted by ValueH
After thorough deliberation and discussions with multiple parties, BBVisbadforme, Fedor Holz, and I have decided to raise awareness in regards to our recent dealings with GPL CEO Alex Dreyfus. For context, BBV and I have been very active in the SHR staking scene for the past few years.
I met Alex for the first time in person in Vegas this summer where we had long conversations regarding the GPL. BBV and I attended the first Cube match featuring Aaron Paul upon Alex's invitation. A few days later Alex approached me again asking if I could trade him $20k USD in Vegas for a Euro bank transfer. We agreed because BBV needed bank Euros. We met up, I gave him the cash, and Alex said he would send the same day. BBV and I put the issue out of our minds because we were accustomed to dealing with multitudes of transfers during WSOP.
Five weeks later after leaving Vegas and doing accounting with BBV we realized he never received the transfer, despite Alex stating he would send the same day and not mentioning for the duration of the summer he had not. We promptly contacted Alex to which he replied that he never had the intention not to send, but the GPL was struggling and he could not pay at this point. He asked for an extension until the end of August and offered to pay interest. I made it clear that receiving the money on time was more important than interest. He had asked for a trade, not a loan.
A week ago when we still hadn’t received the money I sent him a reminder of the deadline to apply pressure. He claimed he was waiting on a 150k transfer and will pay us back once it cleared. Around the same time at EPT Barcelona I reached out to a few close friends asking for their opinion on the issue. We weren’t sure at this point whether it was better to inform the public to ensure that no one else gets taken advantage of by Alex, or if we should just treat it as a single misstep that shouldn’t have such a dire impact on his public image.
We understand that the future of the GPL as well as the people involved with it, whose work we respect, are all somewhat dependent on Alex’s reputation. However, almost everyone we spoke with agreed we should make the whole story public, drawing the conclusion that the way Alex treated the problem made it likely it wasn’t an isolated misstep. After hearing that Alex had done the same thing to Fedor we had no choice but to take action to make this post. We would not have come out unless we felt it was necessary.
Three days ago Alex sent me a copy of a transaction receipt showing he wired the money to BBV's bank account with an added 5% interest. The money cleared yesterday. We gave Alex a Heads-up on thursday that we will be making this post on 2p2.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fedor Holz
Hello 2+2 Community,
My name is Fedor Holz and after deliberate consideration with Hendrik and ‘BBVisbadforme’ I feel the necessity to share my recent dealings with Alex Dreyfuß and my thoughts on it with you.
On 3rd June 2016, Alex approached me and asked for 10,000$ cash in Vegas to trade for a euro bank transfer, stating that “he spend 50k$ [in the] last few days for [their] studio” now “reaching his daily limits”.
The same day I send him my bank details via e-mail and he responded with “Thanks will be proceed current next week”.
I was very busy in Vegas and didn’t do my accounting until end of July/beginning of August assuming that he wired me the money in euros when this message reached me on 28th July 2016:
"I just wanted to tell you, that I'm a bit late re: the transfer of 10k, as I spent a lot of resources last 6 weeks due to our vegas investment, and I'm in the middle of strategic/financing deal, which - if you allow me - to have few weeks more (end of august, early september) to process the Eur, bank transfer (with interest), would be highly appreciated. I apologizes for delay. Not my style, just Entrepreneur life. Hope it is fine for you."
I responded that “it’s okay, [but] I’d like to get it out of the way as soon as possible”.
I already didn’t feel comfortable with the situation but I had a lot of other stuff on my plate and didn’t spend too much time thinking about it until on 27th August 2016 in Barcelona I randomly find out that he also owes money to Hendrik for a similar timeframe. This is the point where I start to question my decision to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I send Alex a message demanding my money and he says he will put in a wire on 31st August.
I received 9,500€ worth in euros on 2nd September 2016.
____
The reason why I post this story is not out of personal interest. I don’t have any reason to harm Alex Dreyfus nor do I in any way profit from posting this (quite the opposite).
The reason why I post this story is because I strongly care for poker and its community and how we get presented to the outside.
In my personal opinion in our two cases he knowingly mislead us to get a 3-months loan out of a declared trade without communicating it in any way for the first 7 weeks.
He represents poker to the outside, so he represents us as a community to the outside.
I think the above story is very questionable behaviour as a serious entrepreneur and a showing of missing integrity.
I really do hope that this was a single misstep.
Fedor
