Someone should bring this to the attention of Effel/Palansky/Stewart. While the WSOP itself isn't at fault for any of this, they should know about the shadiness of their new partner Global Poker Index (GPI).
Here is a long writeup of the situation: http://www.bigcockpoker.com/?p=408
Below is a summary of the situation.
In June 2014, GPI put out press releases regarding their "Challenger Cup", a ranking system for low and mid stakes tournaments. They announced that the top ranked players in Asia, North America, and Europe would each receive a 2015 Main Event seat (for a total of 3 seats).
Here are two such press releases:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...262862261.html
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2014/0...-cup-18504.htm
Erwann Pecheux finished 2014 as #1 in Europe (and the world), while Aaron Massey (the author of the blog linked above) was #1 in North America. Each should have received 2015 WSOP seats for this.
Interestingly, Massey didn't even known about this throughout 2014, but that didn't matter. He was still entitled to it.
Erwann Pecheux contacted Massey to both let him know that he had won, as well as inform him that it seemed GPI was stiffing them of the seats they won.
Apparently Alex Dreyfus (CEO of GPI) then tried to severely change the terms when he was discussing the prize with Erwann:
So basically it changed from a free WSOP Main seat to a 35/65 staking deal (that is, 65% for the player) which also required wearing patches and doing media interviews.Originally Posted by Aaron Massey
The change was cited as a "terms and conditions" matter, but no such terms were posted on the website throughout 2014, and in fact still hadn't been posted yet when Dreyfus informed Erwann about them.
Dreyfus also changed the 65% to 55%, seemingly on the fly. From two different e-mails to Massey:
Originally Posted by Alex DreyfusOriginally Posted by Alex Dreyfus
The problem is that these "terms" were added on June 10, 2015. They did not exist on the website before that.
From GPI's own page, notice these two screen shots -- one from before Massey was e-mailing with Dreyfus, and one after. You'll notice in the "before" there was no hyperlink to the Terms and Conditions page, whereas in the "after" screenshot, suddenly there is. That's because Dreyfus invented the terms and conditions on June 10, 2015 -- almost 6 full months after the contest was over!