Poker Stars "forced sit out in tourneys", zero support afterwards, i feel betrayed

[sl1201]

Yesterday it happened to me again, that I was forced to sit out in a tourney, for about 15 minutes, clearly due to a technical error in the pokerstars software, a button was always saying "you can reset your status soon"... But this took time, in a turbo tournament, shortly before the final table, and I lost blind after blind.

Exactly the same thing happened to me twice already a few weeks ago, too.

The support afterwards was awful, it repeatedly answered me "it's impossible to guess what the tourney outcome would have been without the error" and rejected any compensation.

So bad! They could have given me tourney tickets or something. Clearly their technical error and clearly my financial loss, I would have won a lot more in those three tournaments.

Too bad I like the mixed games on ps a lot, otherwise I would leave and play elsewhere

 

[Suns of Beaches]

Ok.
In the future try to keep a mobile version near and when something like this happens again, switch. At least like this u would have had the chance to continue to play.

 

[Joe]

Sorry to hear you've had these problems sl1201!

Seems very shortsighted of Stars to have stopped making any effort to pacify disgruntled players who have faced issues like this.

It's obviously not the only reason but things like that are a big factor in Stars losing a lot of it's popularity and traffic I believe.

Customer satisfaction is crucial and ignoring or doing little to nothing to appease customers who have had a bad experience is always going to negatively impact your company's image and repeat business.

It's amazing to me that Stars seems to think this doesn't apply to them or that they were too big for it to matter, which is the impression they give.

Pretty much all of my experiences with Stars 'support' in recent years led to further frustration and annoyance rather than less, until I essentially gave up even bothering contacting them.

Bit of a shame really!

 

[Andyreas]

Yesterday it happened to me again, that I was forced to sit out in a tourney, for about 15 minutes, clearly due to a technical error in the pokerstars software

Sorry, to hear about that!

Since you are from germany as well, I assume it's a similar issue to those I have experienced when I either switch from mobile to desktop or have been doing other things on mobile and the App being in background for too long.

Support has confirmed this happening when switching between devices or due to inactivity BUT it should take exactly 5 minutes. Not longer, not less.

I can confirm, it was always exactly 5 Minutes with me and whatever I tried, I was not able to shorten it. When I contacted support once, they simply reset my LUGAS status and that just reset the timer back to 0. 🙄

It's just an improper implementation of the German regulation.

Unfortunately I doubt you can do a lot about it without a lawyer but that's probably not financially attractive. But do you have the exact tournament snapshots before and after sitting out? Theoretically you can calculate your ICM chip value before and after and quantity the exact loss you experienced.

I can imagine if it should happen at the FT of a high roller tournament and some pro really makes a big buzz, then they'll react but before that, probably they couldn't care less.

The German market is less attractive for them due to the 3% tax and all the regulation but nothing we can do about it ourselves. 🥴

 

[Andyreas]

Ok.
In the future try to keep a mobile version near and when something like this happens again, switch. At least like this u would have had the chance to continue to play.

Unfortunately this is what I already tried and it simply doesn't help due to the regulatory systems in the background which just seem to have some sort of bug. 😵‍💫

 

[fundiver199]

As I have said before, we can not expect poker sites to compensate us for theoretical losses due to connection or other issues forcing us to sit out. The reason for that is the simple fact, that its not the poker site, which benefit from this but other players. So in a sense its sort of the same as a bad beat. One player win, and another lose, but for the poker site its neutral EV.

Also Andyreas has most likely identified the problem, which has nothing to do with PokerStars software but the german regulations. So if you want to complain about this, you should complain to the german regulators. PokerStars is suffering even more from the regulation, than you are, so they would likely cheer for you, if you complained.

And until german regulators get their s... together, the best way to avoid these problems seem to be to only play at one site at a time and to not switch devices during a session. In that way there is no way for the german "big brother" system to get confused about, how many tables you are on. Or you can play on unregulated sites like ACR, which dont need to follow all this stupidity.

 

[Goggelheimer]

Well here my efforts to inform the GGL that the LUGAS is not fully functioning. German text.
Oh nice it fully auto translated it.
Sorry for not a top down order since the conversation came this way.
So bottom first mail.

Dear ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for your informative messages.
If you've noticed a sound, it's up to you.
I've only reproduced what I've experienced.
I can't see any inconsistency, maybe you're a bit too delicately strung,
But if I've insulted you, which I can't tell in any way from what happened,
Perhaps you should seek professional advice, or if you have professional supervisors
This is the right point of contact for such problems.
Otherwise, you are welcome to take legal action, as if our courts did not already have enough to do.
categorical rejection of critical narratives, without verification, with blocking legal texts,
I think it's unreasonable.
Furthermore, I certainly have contact with other “addicts” who have described similar incidents.
I can read legal texts, even if, as in the case of the State Treaty on gambling, you in such
were written in legal jargon that you have to read them 10 times to understand them.
I would like to dispel your open, insulting allusions about gambling addiction from your side,
Because I find that unseemly, I watch my gaming behavior very carefully.

Don't expect friendly greetings from
XXXXXXXX

Dear Mr. XXXXX,

I hate your unrestrained tone.
The legal circumstances have been explained to you.
Is the problem still there? Can you explain further facts?

Note: Gambling can be addictive! Those affected can find help here:
https://www.gluecksspiel-behoerde.de/de/praeventionspielerschutz/gluecksspielsucht
Gambling Addiction — Joint Gambling Authority of the Länder (AöR) (gluecksspiel-behoerde.de)

sincerely
On behalf

XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX
email:
mailto: IT@gluecksspiel-behoerde.de
LUGAS@gluecksspiel-behoerde.de

Joint Gaming Authority of the Länder
(AöR)
Hansering 15 | 06108 Halle (Saale)
Internet:
http://www.gluecksspiel-behoerde.de/
www.gluecksspiel-behoerde.de

cid:image001.png @01D9D05D .E430A730

From:

Sent:
Friday, July 14, 2023 1:13 AM
To:
LUGAS < lugas@gluecksspiel-behoerde.de >
subject:
[EXTERN]Aw: {SpamCheck LSA} AW: [EXTERN] Faulty LUGAS system

Dear ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for your unacceptable answer.
Unfortunately, as always, a miscalculation.
Since I was locked out for over 40 minutes, but keep believing in your great system.
Respectfully

< lugas@gluecksspiel-behoerde.de >On 13/07/23, 17:26 LUGAS wrote:
[A]
Dear Mr. XXXXX,

The State Treaty on Gambling 2021 (see § 6h) provides that a player must deactivate after 30 minutes without input. There is also a waiting period of 5 minutes after inactivation. The system therefore works as required by law.

sincerely
On behalf



email:
Joint Gaming Authority of the Länder

Hansering 15 | 06108 Halle (Saale)
Internet:

From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sent:
Tuesday, July 11, 2023 5:46 PM
To:
Info < info@gluecksspiel-behoerde.de >
subject:
[EXTERN]Faulty LUGAS system

Dear ladies and gentlemen,
The LUGAS system is completely unusable because it is faulty.
I signed up early for 2 tournaments with bwin.
The software logged me out after 30 minutes.
I log in 2 minutes before the start of the first tournament and can't play a single hand.
Forever this error message:
cid:image002.png @01D9B5AE .D7D333A0
The same error message also starts for the 2nd tournament that starts half an hour later.
cid:image002.png @01D9B5AE .D7D333A0
The system is in urgent need of revision.
Kind regards

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

[Pokerpoet2]

Yesterday it happened to me again, that I was forced to sit out in a tourney, for about 15 minutes, clearly due to a technical error in the pokerstars software, a button was always saying "you can reset your status soon"... But this took time, in a turbo tournament, shortly before the final table, and I lost blind after blind.

Exactly the same thing happened to me twice already a few weeks ago, too.

The support afterwards was awful, it repeatedly answered me "it's impossible to guess what the tourney outcome would have been without the error" and rejected any compensation.

So bad! They could have given me tourney tickets or something. Clearly their technical error and clearly my financial loss, I would have won a lot more in those three tournaments.

Too bad I like the mixed games on ps a lot, otherwise I would leave and play elsewhere

I have had similar happen to me in the past and never even bother contacting "Support" because I know they will fob you off with some excuse or other, But this is why I never buy-in for more than I am willing to lose, There are so many things that can go wrong with On-line Poker either at your end or theirs, and to lose money when you are playing bad is one thing, but losing your money when the Power shuts off or the Internet goes off, then that really stinks!
I was playing one day and the Power went out, and initially I thought I will be ok my battery will last a good hour or so, but then I realised that my "Modem" does not run on batteries, So I spent the next 2 hours reading by Candlelight.
It really Sucks!

 

[aissam18]

I usually keep my mobile next to me so if it happend to me i would go to play in mobile

 

[almir nicolau]

Poker sites are totally focused on the security part, and any suspicion of attacks or errors they actually pause all tournaments, this is one of the online points that they affect, but this does not happen with a monthly frequency.
I've been through this a lot and I'm sure that at any time this can happen.
If your tournament is canceled they refund you in chipev your tournament described in the rules of the sites.
But it sure is a very boring situation.

 

[sl1201]

Sorry to hear you've had these problems sl1201!

Seems very shortsighted of Stars to have stopped making any effort to pacify disgruntled players who have faced issues like this.

It's obviously not the only reason but things like that are a big factor in Stars losing a lot of it's popularity and traffic I believe.

Customer satisfaction is crucial and ignoring or doing little to nothing to appease customers who have had a bad experience is always going to negatively impact your company's image and repeat business.

It's amazing to me that Stars seems to think this doesn't apply to them or that they were too big for it to matter, which is the impression they give.

Pretty much all of my experiences with Stars 'support' in recent years led to further frustration and annoyance rather than less, until I essentially gave up even bothering contacting them.

Bit of a shame really!

So true, everything you write! It was so frustrating to chat with the customer service, I won't do it again, too. And yes, after having played only on pokerstars for long years, I now also play on gg and less on ps

 

[pep12343]

It happened to me, 2 hours of the tournament and the software stopped working for 30 minutes, obviously at the rate I was going I lost my position, and a lot of chips. His answer was that it's a mistake with my internet, clearly I had internet for 30 minutes and I was in other applications, only PS failed.

 

[sl1201]

As I have said before, we can not expect Poker sites to compensate us for theoretical losses due to connection or other issues forcing us to sit out. The reason for that is the simple fact, that its not the poker site, which benefit from this but other players. So in a sense its sort of the same as a bad beat. One player win, and another lose, but for the poker site its neutral EV.

Also Andyreas has most likely identified the problem, which has nothing to do with PokerStars software but the german regulations. So if you want to complain about this, you should complain to the german regulators. PokerStars is suffering even more from the regulation, than you are, so they would likely cheer for you, if you complained.

And until german regulators get their s... together, the best way to avoid these problems seem to be to only play at one site at a time and to not switch devices during a session. In that way there is no way for the german "big brother" system to get confused about, how many tables you are on. Or you can play on unregulated sites like ACR, which dont need to follow all this stupidity.

True, only other players have benefited, not pokerstars. No, Andyreas has not identified the problem for my issue right, I only play on one laptop. And it may have to do with the new regulatories, But normally i get my hourly warning "you play for one hour" without any problems. These times not I think, and the "in the money"-animation was always blinking. And it took at least 15 minutes every time. Clearly a software bug.

 

[userX]

No one is immune from technical failures, but if they start to repeat themselves, then this is already a systematicity that such popular sites as PokerStars do not have the right to.

 

[Jamil]

Sorry, to hear about that!

Since you are from Germany as well, I assume it's a similar issue to those I have experienced when I either switch from mobile to desktop or have been doing other things on mobile and the app being in background for too long.

Support has confirmed this happening when switching between devices or due to inactivity BUT it should take exactly 5 minutes. Not longer, not less.

I can confirm, it was always exactly 5 Minutes with me and whatever I tried, I was not able to shorten it. When I contacted support once, they simply reset my LUGAS status and that just reset the timer back to 0. 🙄

It's just an improper implementation of the German regulation.

Unfortunately I doubt you can do a lot about it without a lawyer but that's probably not financially attractive. But do you have the exact tournament snapshots before and after sitting out? Theoretically you can calculate your ICM chip value before and after and quantity the exact loss you experienced.

I can imagine if it should happen at the FT of a high roller tournament and some pro really makes a big buzz, then they'll react but before that, probably they couldn't care less.

The German market is less attractive for them due to the 3% tax and all the regulation but nothing we can do about it ourselves. 🥴

Yes, your words are very realistic👍🏻👍🏻

 

[Highfish]

German regulatory frenzy probably causes such problems. The state wants to protect its sheep from evil.
But you can play as much as you want in the state lotteries, or buy scratch tickets without any restriction .

Who finds irony may keep it.

 

[jormun]

This problem is still ongoing 15 months after it was mentioned here the first time. Happened to me twice this week. Just wanted to let you all know how incompetent Pokerstars really is. 🤬 (And no, the problem is not the regulation. It's the shitty implementation of it. They could have at least put a countdown clock from 5 minutes like many betting sites. )