Changes on Merge cheat players out of rakeback

[Dan Druff]

Someone PM'd this to me. Perhaps affected players can add to this:

hey druff,

don't know if you are aware, but merge just stole a lot of money from their customers...been really busy so this is the first ive had to email you but I think it happened a month ago where they took the cash for points down from 20,000 points for $700 for their highest tier players to 10,000 points for $150 for their highest tier...I never received an email stating that this change was taking place so I wouldn't have been able to cash my points out at a higher rate...fortunately I only had 12,000 points at the time of this fuckery so it didn't affect me that much...it did affect the fact that the 30% rakeback that I earned via these points was slashed to 15%...fortunately it was for a minimal amount...

this is in addition to the exorbitant rake that merge charges and player pool segregation...and their forum on 2+2 just magically disappeared at the time that this change happened...

I think there is some shady shit going on, figured id give you a heads up just in case it might not be on your radar...

I believe here is what this guy is trying to say:

- Instead of direct rakeback on Merge, you now earn points that you later exchange for cash -- similar to the FPP system on Pokerstars.

- The best "points-for-cash" exchange rate allowed you to exchange 20,000 points for $700. This was available to the highest tier (most active) players. This was effectively 35% rakeback.

- They recently changed this to 10,000 points for $150 -- which means these players will now get far less than half of the rakeback they expected.

- This especially affects players who had ALREADY EARNED the points, believing it to correspond to 35% rakeback. They were essentially stolen from, as there was no grace period or warning about this.

- Merge (Carbon) also abandoned 2+2, as of September 19. This was around this change was made.

This guy suspects that Merge is having financial issues, and I have to agree.

This is very bad, and I would suggest avoiding Merge at this point, and cashing out ASAP.

[Dan Druff]

This is on Carbon's website http://www.carbonpoker.ag/rewards/

The Carbon Elite tier is exclusive and available via invite. Carbon Elite players have access
to great promotions and:

-35% Points for Cash Exchange of (1,425 VIP points for $50.00 instant cash)

-VIP tournament buy-in

- Access to poker training videos, cash bonuses, exclusive reload offers, tournament entry coupons
and much more.

So their website says you get $50 for 1,425 points, which translates to 19,950 points per $700.

If this is accurate, then nothing changed, but the guy who PM'd this to me is pretty reliable, so I doubt he just made this up.

[Dan Druff]

I was just told that "Carbon Elite" is not available to most -- it's invitation only.

Supposedly it's just for big fish and insiders.

I was told that most grinders only qualify for the next-highest level, and that's where the change took place.

[chinamaniac]

Someone PM'd this to me. Perhaps affected players can add to this:

hey druff,

don't know if you are aware, but merge just stole a lot of money from their customers...been really busy so this is the first ive had to email you but I think it happened a month ago where they took the cash for points down from 20,000 points for $700 for their highest tier players to 10,000 points for $150 for their highest tier...I never received an email stating that this change was taking place so I wouldn't have been able to cash my points out at a higher rate...fortunately I only had 12,000 points at the time of this fuckery so it didn't affect me that much...it did affect the fact that the 30% rakeback that I earned via these points was slashed to 15%...fortunately it was for a minimal amount...

this is in addition to the exorbitant rake that merge charges and player pool segregation...and their forum on 2+2 just magically disappeared at the time that this change happened...

I think there is some shady shit going on, figured id give you a heads up just in case it might not be on your radar...

I believe here is what this guy is trying to say:

- Instead of direct rakeback on Merge, you now earn points that you later exchange for cash -- similar to the FPP system on Pokerstars.

- The best "points-for-cash" exchange rate allowed you to exchange 20,000 points for $700. This was available to the highest tier (most active) players. This was effectively 35% rakeback.

- They recently changed this to 10,000 points for $150 -- which means these players will now get far less than half of the rakeback they expected.

- This especially affects players who had ALREADY EARNED the points, believing it to correspond to 35% rakeback. They were essentially stolen from, as there was no grace period or warning about this.

- Merge (Carbon) also abandoned 2+2, as of September 19. This was around this change was made.

This guy suspects that Merge is having financial issues, and I have to agree.

This is very bad, and I would suggest avoiding Merge at this point, and cashing out ASAP.

They limited their cashout times from 8-11 weeks to 1 week and caught up everyone accept those with checks in que which come every 10 days.

All their ROW cashouts go out in 3 days or less (usually next day)

I don't think cash issues are the problem. I just think they want to make more money per player in poker and maybe force out some players they don't want.

[chinamaniac]

I was just told that "Carbon Elite" is not available to most -- it's invitation only.

Supposedly it's just for big fish and insiders.

I was told that most grinders only qualify for the next-highest level, and that's where the change took place.

It is invite only so if you play there is no guarantee you will make top tier. Also the pts thing did happen overnight

I think they pulled there forum because they felt it wasn't needed and was wasting money. There are still threads there in the internet forum on 2+2 but there are no official carbon reps.

Also by toning down the VIP they will need less support I would imagine

[glide234]

I think the fair way to do it would be to give everyone the value of there points in cash and then change the VIP program. So at the end of the month if you were tier 2 you would get all your points converted to cash based on your tier. They should have done this automatically and gave an email saying they had done this and that the VIP program has changed.

I personally don't think Merge is having money problems. I do get some inside information but not much from anyone working for merge. The payout times have drastically improved on merge so I at least know they don't have serious liquidity issues. I think the reason why we have seen things like rake increase, the elimination of basically all rebuy/add on tourneys, re entry for absurd amounts of time and a sports book (that's alot of shit now that I think about it) is basically because US poker for the most part is a money grab. The same stuff is happening on Winning Poker Network, they've basically increased the rake (with a rake race that players pay for with extra rake) and extended the re entry time as well.

I think these companies attempted to grow but they did not grow as big as they thought they would and now they know there time could be limited. If US poker catches on in a few bigger states they could see a huge decrease in traffic. So my guess is that these companies are just trying to make as much as they can off the customers before their days end. The effects of re entry and other promotions will take a while to before it cleans out the player pool and most players will not realize this is happening. They will think they are just going on a rough stretch but really they are paying more rake and in a tougher player pool.

I could get into more disccusion about WPN and Re entry in general but I think that is out of the scope of this thread.

[The PINO]

This change has directly affected one of my bigger grinders that I have tagged under me at Carbon Poker. He's been a VIP for years now and is most likely one of Merge's biggest rakers. He didn't realize it until recently since he now splits up a little bit of his time to play at Intertops....

He had 190,000 points banked and they went from being worth nearly $7K to half of that since they bumped him down one tier from Carbon Elite, where he had been sitting for nearly 2 years now. I've since been in touch with the higher ups at Carbon to see if this situation can be remedied but I'm not holding my breath at this point. I'm just hoping his loyalty to their brand will help him out going forward and maybe they can make a one-time exception and move him back to his proper tier.

It's extremely frustrating dealing with these US-facing rooms these days. They all seem to be doing something crazy to screw over players in the past year...with a site like Carbon I doubt these changes are a result from any financial problems, but it's still a shitty situation for USA players until more states start legalizing it. SMH.

[VegasJim]

I fucking HATE merge with a passion. When RPM decided to leave, I sent more e-mails than I can count asking Merge not to distribute the Affiliate money to them. The assured me everything would be fine and RPM would pay as usual. At this time RPM was getting fucked from merge themselves, so I naturally assumed that once they got paid from Merge at the end of the month that they would take all the money and never be heard of again. At this time I also couldn't get a single response from RPM Seth (who I have had problems with already with him stealing players of mine). So HE STOLE THE MONEY! as I expected and owes me over $1400 ( I took screen shots of affiliate page for proof ). I sent these screen shots to merge with several e-mails and everything got ignored.

I believe in Karma I'm sure scum bags like Seth with get his.

[Dan Druff]

This is really awful, and it is outright stealing.

Seriously, this is what I'd expect out of Lock Poker.

If someone told me this story and asked me to guess which US-facing poker site did it, I would snap-guess Lock. Sounds just like them. Yet it's Merge.

These are not simply promotional points.

Rakeback is a substantial reason that most active grinders play there. Without rakeback, many of the active customers there would not have been playing at all.

It is heavily used in Merge's marketing.

They have a right to change the program at any time, but they also have to retroactively make good on the previous rate on any previous points earned, even if the customer hasn't reached the "level" yet to redeem them.

Let me give you an example to show how dishonest/shady this is:

Say I decide to open up a neighborhood bar.

However, I notice that the more established bar down the street has all of the area's business, and my bar is a ghost town.

Desperate, I come out with a staggeringly good promotion. The promotion states that, after 200 drinks purchased, I will refund 90% of the money the customer spent back to him. This gets tracked electronically on a card for each person.

Now, let's say you LOVE this promotion, and abandon that other bar and start drinking at mine. You come to my bar regularly for months, and quickly rack up drinks, knowing you will get 90% of your money back very soon. After 3 months, you've ordered 195 drinks. Then you come one final day, expecting to drink 5 times and get your 90% cash back, and find out some bad news.

I've changed the promotion. Now you only get 10% cash back. So once you get 5 more drinks, I will only be giving you 10% back on your 200 drinks purchased, instead of the 90% originally promised.

When you complain, I tell you that this was just a "promotion" and that you have no right to anything.

Could I get away with this?

No.

I would be legally responsible to give you at least 90% back on those 195 drinks -- the number you had ordered prior to my ending of the promotion. I cannot simply say that I can change it all retroactively, simply because you haven't met the 200 redemption milestone.

Why?

Because the promotion substantially changed the value of what you were purchasing, and clearly affected your decision to purchase the items. Thus, it's a bait-and-switch, and is illegal.

You cannot make false promises for a discount based upon certain actions/purchases, and then change the terms retroactively when a customer attempts to redeem it.

That is illegal in all 50 states.

Now, Merge is not a US company, so legally you can't do much to them.

However, these actions would be ILLEGAL in the United States, and are highly unethical. Simply put, they are stealing.

F them.

[BeerAndPoker]

I've never been a fan of many choices Merge has made but at least their payouts have finally got better.

According to Pokerscout Merge is currently the #27 poker room online. They were once in the Top 10 before the split with Revolution but I thought Carbon would have enough alone to keep them up more spots then this.

For sites serving USA customrs here is the current rankings:

#09 - Bodog
#20 - Winning Network (ACR/BCP)
#24 - Chico Poker
#25 - Revolution
#27 - Merge
#36 - Ultimate Poker (NV Only)
#38 - WSOP (NV Only)

Their are others down the list that still accept Americans but most of them are the bitcoin sites.

[The PINO]

The writing on the wall is pretty clear to me that they seem to be leaning towards a Bovada-type model minus the anonymous tables thing. Basically, Carbon is looking to draw in the recreational crowds and weed out the bigger grinders that have been swallowing up the fish over the years.

Carbon is trying to convince their bigger players that they can still make up the difference in lost rakeback through their monthly promos, reload bonuses -- but goddamn I would be surprised if any smart player is buying any of that non-sense.

[BeerAndPoker]

I wouldn't be surprised if Carbon is hurting.

Any site that is offering a new player 200% bonus up to $5000 screams desperation.

You get $1 per 150 points you earn which once you get 1500 they put the $10 into your poker account and you have 90 days to clear this before it goes away. That means you need to get 750,000 points in 3 months.

I can't imagine how long that will take to get that many points as you must be a sick grinder to clear all that before the time is up and I find sites offering something that barely anyone can come close to clearing a bit shady even offering such a thing.

[haleylh]

I wouldn't be surprised if Carbon is hurting.

Any site that is offering a new player 200% bonus up to $5000 screams desperation.

You get $1 per 150 points you earn which once you get 1500 they put the $10 into your poker account and you have 90 days to clear this before it goes away. That means you need to get 750,000 points in 3 months.

I can't imagine how long that will take to get that many points as you must be a sick grinder to clear all that before the time is up and I find sites offering something that barely anyone can come close to clearing a bit shady even offering such a thing.

It's about one point per dime of rake contributed, according to my experience, though I may not be in the top tier of eligibility. So if you rake $75,000 for the site, they'll give you $5,000 of it back via that offer. Damn generous. And I've historically been a fan of Merge, but what I've been seeing the past few weeks from them is horrendous.