*IMPORTANT* -- Regarding unclaimed freeroll/contest money

[Dan Druff]

Greetings Jews, Goyim, Muslims, and Atheists,

This week, DJ Chaps was getting noticeably angry because he wasn't paid $100 in contest winnings in a timely fashion. Some of this was his fault for not having a way to get paid, but some was my fault for not paying him as fast as I could, once China agreed to be an intermediary.

Then China also told me that matos claimed I owed him money from way back, which I still haven't verified, but plan to do so later today.

Then I recalled that over the past few months, some trolls attempted to allege that I was stealing unclaimed freeroll money. Their theory was that I knew a certain percentage of freeroll/contest money would go unclaimed (especially the smaller amounts), and that over time it would add up to something substantial (think Superman III or Office Space).

I thought about all of it this morning, and I realized that this finally needs to be addressed.

I will start out by stating that, yes, it is likely that over the past 6 years, various small amounts of money won in freerolls and contests were never claimed, and thus remain in my Jew wallet. While I am not intentionally doing this (and in fact wish it wasn't occurring), the simple fact is that a certain percentage of people will never bother claiming small prizes.

So, yes, it is true that I am holding freeroll/contest money which will likely never be claimed.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this. There would be only two ways to completely avoid this, and neither are desirable:

1) Stop allowing free contests/freerolls on PFA with real money prizes
-or-
2) Take on the extra burden of constantly auditing who won prizes and who hasn't been paid yet

I very much appreciate the fact that people generously donate their time and money to PFA contests, and would never want to end that.

At the same time, I only have limited time to devote to the administration of PFA, and I don't wish to add to the time burden by making myself responsible for keeping track of every $6 prize won here.

After some further thought about the matter, I have come up with a solution which I feel is fair and transparent.

I will create a new *OFFICIAL* thread to keep track of PFA prizes won which I need to pay out. In that same thread, I will post whenever I actually pay someone. This will allow any user to audit the situation at any time, and figure out who hasn't been paid.

I will also place a new 9-month maximum time frame to claim all prizes. After 9 months, the money will go into a PFA freeroll fund.

Again, I will not be keeping track of this. I will simply be posting all of the info to this thread. I will need a volunteer (or multiple volunteers) to go through it every so often, and post a report on who has not been paid. Once those debts become more than 9 months old, we will add it to the PFA freeroll pool and they will be re-donated.

This allows full transparency, while at the same time not introducing another record-keeping/administrative burden onto myself.

However, this only addresses the matter going forward. What about the past 6 years?

I have no way to figure out who is still owed what, other than engaging in countless hours of super-tedious work to figure it out.

Instead, I will simply donate $400 to upcoming freerolls to make up for this. At the same time, people are still welcome to retroactively collect any money owed to them for contests/freerolls which took place before April 17, 2018. Starting with the April 18, 2018 freeroll, there will be the aforementioned 9-month limit, and the transparent thread displaying all winners and payments.

Hopefully this will rectify the situation.

Finally, I do want to state that none of this was intentional, and even with any unclaimed freeroll money, I have never once showed a yearly profit from this site.

If at any time you would like to donate money to the upkeep of PokerFraudAlert, that would graciously be accepted. However, it is perfectly fine with me if you never donate. I'm just putting it out there that donations would be Jewishly accepted if you wished to lessen the small loss I take running this site every year.

Fuck you very much, and good night.

[duped_samaritan]

You could also just start making the tournaments more top heavy.

I always thought $6 prizes were silly and an unnecessary pain in the ass.

Fewer people to pay and they would be more motivated to get settled.

[Draymond]

This is mostly your fault Druff. You have all these free rolls going on, and claim how busy you are managing them. Yet you refuse to hire moderators to help with the burden.

I guess you can't have it both ways. Either cancel the free rolls or hire a forum moderator, even if its specifically to manage free rolls, they could even be given a 10% vig for doing so.

[wrenchjockey]

It's really too bad there isn't some type of computer program that exists to keep track of money comings and goings. On a sheet, all spread out. I'd call it a spreadsheet if I made such a program. It is also too bad there isn't a software/hardware/web search conglomerate that doesn't publish a free online-accessible version of this spreading of sheets, so anyone with the link could view, but only certain people could edit, like, say....Druff, Belly Buster....etc. If I were to make such a conglomerate I would probably call it Google.

And you know what? I'd just call that shit Google Sheets, because Google Spreadsheet sounds fucking stupid.

I get it though, you're too busy for computer scientisting

[JACKDANIELS]

how about instead of the $400 you donate $200 to pfa freerolls and we also get 10x $20 todgecasts ??

[MrTickle]

I foresee drama when someone is waiting to accumulate money for an offline payment, only to discover their old money was 9 months ago and they can’t get paid.

[hongkonger]

Just a suggestion. If you start a thread to keep track of who wins money, each post is like a spreadsheet entry. Then the same post can be edited to mark it PAID. That's what I would do so it's all public, and all the inevitable complaining dickweeds would have to STFU. HTH

[simpdog]

I agree definitely make use of the new technology. I think most of us can have our small children help us out. Perhaps BW could help input the info.

As for old money I don't feel it is necessary to have a freeroll. The site is ran at a loss.

[BeerAndPoker]

I suggest you hire Ken Scalir and offer him a free coachella ticket every year as long as he does the accounting.

You can pay for that in the unclaimed funds or money people win that give back saying it goes specifically towards covering it.

[YUUP]

The idiots on this forum who moan about the free rolls! Lol druffs playing 100/200 and thinking there was $6 not claimed!!! Jfc. Keep the $400 Todd.

[michael]

and that over time it would add up to something substantial (think Superman III or Office Space).

[GrenadaRoger]

a few questions:

how much unclaimed money is there?

who has been claiming money, how often have they asked for payment, and how much is being demanded?





it seems that if someone has gone a reasonable time without pressing a claim for payment, that someone has abandoned the money/made a gift of it to the site--1 year seems like a reasonable time to me...

(fyi; California state law is 7 years for abandoned property, and then the money has to be turned over to the state controllers office; the IRS requires a claim for refund of overpayment within 2 years of the return due date, the FTB 3 years)

given the circumstances, holding a freeroll seems like the best solution

and ideally only those long time members that claim non-payment should be allowed in -- don't know it that is possible

[SetofKs]

TODD IS GOD

[Dan Druff]

I can understand how this might look bad, especially to those who donate money believing it would be paid out to the users, and part of it sometimes (unintentionally) ends up in my pocket.

I am offering the $400 to show that I'm not attempting to profit from this situation, and also will be posting payments going forward so it's all transparent.

Regarding the spreadsheet suggestion, that still seems like a burden to me.

If someone wants to create a spreadsheet which makes the process very easy to quickly enter, then have at it, and I will use it if I like it. But right now I'm just planning upon posting it and that will be that.

[Dan Druff]

I am thinking that perhaps I won't add the $400 to radio freerolls, but rather will sponsor one or two separate contests or tournaments with it.

Still deciding.

[Draymond]

I can understand how this might look bad, especially to those who donate money believing it would be paid out to the users, and part of it sometimes (unintentionally) ends up in my pocket.

I am offering the $400 to show that I'm not attempting to profit from this situation, and also will be posting payments going forward so it's all transparent.

Regarding the spreadsheet suggestion, that still seems like a burden to me.

If someone wants to create a spreadsheet which makes the process very easy to quickly enter, then have at it, and I will use it if I like it. But right now I'm just planning upon posting it and that will be that.

You make this impossibly difficult. The reason these payments slip is because it's a pain in the ass to track. You say you don't want a Moderator, yet complain how difficult it is to track things because you run the site at a loss and are a one man show.

Sooooo, hire Michael (or another regular) and offer him a 10% VIG on all payouts to manage. Nobody will object, the stakes are so small it does not matter. But geez stop with the whining. You created this by insisting you never wanted a Moderator under any premise. Yet you complain it's too much work.

It's too much work for you, yet you always say you will always run this site by yourself. Rinse and Repeat.

[chinamaniac]

At the same time, I only have limited time to devote to the administration of PFA, and I don't wish to add to the time burden by making myself responsible for keeping track of every $6 prize won here.

After some further thought about the matter, I have come up with a solution which I feel is fair and transparent.

I will create a new *OFFICIAL* thread to keep track of PFA prizes won which I need to pay out. In that same thread, I will post whenever I actually pay someone. This will allow any user to audit the situation at any time, and figure out who hasn't been paid.

I will also place a new 9-month maximum time frame to claim all prizes. After 9 months, the money will go into a PFA freeroll fund.

Again, I will not be keeping track of this. I will simply be posting all of the info to this thread. I will need a volunteer (or multiple volunteers) to go through it every so often, and post a report on who has not been paid. Once those debts become more than 9 months old, we will add it to the PFA freeroll pool and they will be re-donated.

Collecting and paying out the $$$ and keeping track is a pain in the ass and I know this from running multiple stakes for myself /contests / bets etc... and currently helping run the PFA Spring Classic and also staking a dozen or so people at different times over the past 10 years.

But it gets more complicated and frustrating and time consuming ( for me anyways) and more screwups occur when more people are involved in this type of accounting where you are doing all of the collecting and paying out.

Even if people volunteer to do this , my guess is they either stop at some point or it just will not work properly. There are too many chains of command to go thru here for it to work properly IMO. It may work this way but my money is against it working.

There is just going to be too much figuring out who /what / when/ how to get paid between multiple parties and it will be even more time consuming and more of a pain in the ass that just doing it yourself once or twice a week.

Here are my suggestions to make this all work in the best ways possible and be the very least time consuming.

1. Use a spreadsheet (either private or public) and update it twice a week , once the day after radio and then when you make the radio thread the following week. It can't take more than 5 -10 minutes a week and will be less confusion. ( or alternatively you can use a thread here on PFA )

2. 9 Months is WAY TOO LONG, WAY WAY TOO LONG unless it is like a Masters or March Madness contest

Any radio freeroll prizes that go unclaimed between 2 radio shows should go back into the freeroll the next week. So if you win a radio prize tonight for $17 and do not claim it by next week it just rolls into the next contest. If this is stated clearly up front then nobody has a right to complain. They can either collect it or not. This will solve any backtracking and everything stays up to date weekly and you can never fall behind and have to backtrack. If users miss the cutoff date then too bad, they can take another shot at the freeroll.

This way every week the balance owed from freerolls returns to 0 before every radio show

3. Always have Bitcoin on hand, not everyone has the same banks or e-payment methods but everyone in the world can receive bitcoin. If someone does not have the same bank or e-payment method as you have available then they either signup for a bitcoin wallet and take it that way or they donate it to the next radio show. Again this will eliminate a backlog of any owed payments etc..



All of this may not be perfect but just my 2 cents from what has worked for me doing this type of stuff in the past

[Dan Druff]

At the same time, I only have limited time to devote to the administration of PFA, and I don't wish to add to the time burden by making myself responsible for keeping track of every $6 prize won here.

After some further thought about the matter, I have come up with a solution which I feel is fair and transparent.

I will create a new *OFFICIAL* thread to keep track of PFA prizes won which I need to pay out. In that same thread, I will post whenever I actually pay someone. This will allow any user to audit the situation at any time, and figure out who hasn't been paid.

I will also place a new 9-month maximum time frame to claim all prizes. After 9 months, the money will go into a PFA freeroll fund.

Again, I will not be keeping track of this. I will simply be posting all of the info to this thread. I will need a volunteer (or multiple volunteers) to go through it every so often, and post a report on who has not been paid. Once those debts become more than 9 months old, we will add it to the PFA freeroll pool and they will be re-donated.

Collecting and paying out the $$$ and keeping track is a pain in the ass and I know this from running multiple stakes for myself /contests / bets etc... and currently helping run the PFA Spring Classic and also staking a dozen or so people at different times over the past 10 years.

But it gets more complicated and frustrating and time consuming ( for me anyways) and more screwups occur when more people are involved in this type of accounting.

Even if people volunteer to do this , my guess is they either stop at some point or it just will not work properly. There are too many chains of command to go thru here for it to work properly IMO. It may work this way but my money is against it working.

There is just going to be too much figuring out who /what / when/ how to get paid between multiple parties and it will be even more time consuming and more of a pain in the ass that just doing it yourself once or twice a week.

Here are my suggestions to make this all work in the best ways possible and be the very least time consuming.

1. Use a spreadsheet (either private or public) and update it twice a week , once the day after radio and then when you make the radio thread the following week. It can't take more than 5 -10 minutes a week and will be less confusion. ( or alternatively you can use a public thread )

2. 9 Months is WAY TOO LONG, WAY WAY TOO LONG unless it is like a Masters or March Madness contest

Any prizes that go unclaimed between 2 radio shows should go back into the freeroll the next week. So if you win a radio prize tonight for $17 and do not claim it by next week it just rolls into the next contest. If this is stated clearly up front then nobody has a right to complain. They can either collect it or not. This will solve any backtracking and everything stays up to date weekly and you can never fall behind and have to backtrack. If users miss the cutoff date then too bad, they can take another shot at the freeroll.

3. Always have Bitcoin on hand, not everyone has the same banks or e-payment methods but everyone in the world can receive bitcoin. If someone does not have the same bank or e-payment method as you have available then they either signup for a bitcoin wallet and take it that way or they donate it to the next radio show.

1) Still not sold on the spreadsheet idea. Still seems like a burden -- far more than just posting the freeroll winners once a week and quickly posting in the thread when I pay someone. That's about the extent of the burden I want. If it's much more than that, I don't want it. If someone wants to create an efficient, easy-to-use spreadsheet and prove me wrong, I'm open to using it.

2) I'm willing to come down on the 9 months, but 2 weeks is way too short. I have people asking me all the time for payments from 1-2 months ago.

3) It used to be a pain in the ass for me to buy bitcoin, but I've rectified that. So I have bitcoin to pay nowadays. In the past, people either jerked me around regarding having bitcoin to sell (they'd claim they had it, but in reality I would have to wait until a cashout hit or something), or people would try to gouge me on the price. But now I can get it easily and fairly, so there's no more of that nonsense. Anyway, I do have bitcoin to pay people now. The only time I wasn't paying in BTC was when the fees were ridiculous. I refused to pay $15 in mining fees to send a $30 prize. Now that the fees are pennies again, this is no longer an issue.

[chinamaniac]

Collecting and paying out the $$$ and keeping track is a pain in the ass and I know this from running multiple stakes for myself /contests / bets etc... and currently helping run the PFA Spring Classic and also staking a dozen or so people at different times over the past 10 years.

But it gets more complicated and frustrating and time consuming ( for me anyways) and more screwups occur when more people are involved in this type of accounting.

Even if people volunteer to do this , my guess is they either stop at some point or it just will not work properly. There are too many chains of command to go thru here for it to work properly IMO. It may work this way but my money is against it working.

There is just going to be too much figuring out who /what / when/ how to get paid between multiple parties and it will be even more time consuming and more of a pain in the ass that just doing it yourself once or twice a week.

Here are my suggestions to make this all work in the best ways possible and be the very least time consuming.

1. Use a spreadsheet (either private or public) and update it twice a week , once the day after radio and then when you make the radio thread the following week. It can't take more than 5 -10 minutes a week and will be less confusion. ( or alternatively you can use a public thread )

2. 9 Months is WAY TOO LONG, WAY WAY TOO LONG unless it is like a Masters or March Madness contest

Any prizes that go unclaimed between 2 radio shows should go back into the freeroll the next week. So if you win a radio prize tonight for $17 and do not claim it by next week it just rolls into the next contest. If this is stated clearly up front then nobody has a right to complain. They can either collect it or not. This will solve any backtracking and everything stays up to date weekly and you can never fall behind and have to backtrack. If users miss the cutoff date then too bad, they can take another shot at the freeroll.

3. Always have Bitcoin on hand, not everyone has the same banks or e-payment methods but everyone in the world can receive bitcoin. If someone does not have the same bank or e-payment method as you have available then they either signup for a bitcoin wallet and take it that way or they donate it to the next radio show.

1) Still not sold on the spreadsheet idea. Still seems like a burden -- far more than just posting the freeroll winners once a week and quickly posting in the thread when I pay someone. That's about the extent of the burden I want. If it's much more than that, I don't want it. If someone wants to create an efficient, easy-to-use spreadsheet and prove me wrong, I'm open to using it.

2) I'm willing to come down on the 9 months, but 2 weeks is way too short. I have people asking me all the time for payments from 1-2 months ago.

3) It used to be a pain in the ass for me to buy bitcoin, but I've rectified that. That's why I've stopped asking for it out here. In the past, people either jerked me around regarding having bitcoin to tell me (they'd claim they had it, but in reality I would have to wait until a cashout hit or something), or people would try to gouge me on the price. But now I can get it easily and fairly, so there's no more of that nonsense. Anyway, I do have bitcoin to pay people now. The only time I wasn't paying in BTC was when the fees were ridiculous. I refused to pay $15 in mining fees to send a $30 prize. Now that the fees are pennies again, this is no longer an issue.

If people are still asking for payments from 1-2 months ago that seems like where the biggest burden would be for me. 1 week or 2 weeks max would eliminate all of that, everything is efficient and up to date and there is no backtracking and there is always a 0 or close to 0 balance. As long as you make that the new policy then there can be no complaints.

One other suggestion is to keep peoples bitcoin addresses on file. My guess is a lot of the same people are playing the freerolls. If you have their BTC addresses on file you can just fire out payments to them the day after radio because the same address is good for life etc...

[Dan Druff]

Please do not clutter this thread with junk or troll posts.

This is actually an issue I want to solve, and don't want this to degrade into the usual nonsense and trolling which is commonplace around here.

TY