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.