Rudy Edwards

Now that I have publicly made a point of being dissatisfied with Full Tilt Poker's payment processing, I thought I would follow it up with how things have resolved so far.

Since I discovered that FTP had cancelled the Cash Pickup option, I've played exclusively at Pokerstars. The rumor that Stars had a cash pickup option seems to be just that, as I have not discovered one. I made a check withdrawal request on August 28th from Full Tilt, who make it clear that it can take up to 15 business days for your check to arrive. It has been my experience that you rarely recieve it much earlier than that. I made a check withdrawal request a week later from Pokerstars, on September 4th.

5 days later on the 9th of September, My Stars check had arrived. Today, September the 16th, 19 days after my cashout request, I received my FTP check. That's almost 4 times longer waiting for FTP than Stars. I will say that I am relieved to have received the Full Tilt money, but I find it hard to imagine a legitimate reason for this discrepancy. It's been this way as long as I've been playing both sites. I don't know if I can keep money on a site that is so cavalier with my money. Sure, I can get rakeback on FTP, but there are less players and the games are worse for that reason anyhow. I've always preferred a few small things about the FTP interface, it's always seemed more user friendly to me.

The only reasons I can conceive of for the discrepancy in payout time are as follows:
1. FTP just plain has a slow system, which doesn't prioritize timeliness.
2. FTP wants to squeeze out that extra profit from holding on to our money for a few weeks longer
3. FTP is in financial trouble, or keeps in funds in a bank that is close to insolvency.

None of these excite me, and even if it is just the first one, the reason they haven't solved it may be the second or third. The payment problems FTP has had over the past few months make me consider the third more than I otherwise would. It's a shame, because between rakeback and the interface, I would rather play on Full Tilt, but I just don't feel comfortable doing that now, and the timeliness of payouts is important to me.

Perhaps I will return to Full Tilt if they bring back Cash Pickup as a payout option, but as of today, it's still not available.

Full Tilt Poker's payment processing problems of the past few months have been a real hassle to those of us who play on the site regularly. Their checks have always been slower to arrive than Pokerstars checks have been, but over the last few months they'd become infuriatingly slow, and many players had reported getting checks that bounced. I should point out that I don't know anyone personally that it's happened to, but was widely reported on poker forums. My checks just never showed up. Twice I'd requested a check, and after the alloted time they sent me an email explaining it had been canceled, and gave me a bonus to make up for it.

Now, the bonus was not insignificant, and after everything was taken into account, I was perfectly happy with the extra money I had received for my inconvenience, assuming that I would be able to receive the money in some way, but until that happened, they could count me as a very dissatisfied customer. It was just pure luck that the two month delay in cash flow had not caused serious financial problems for me. Soon after my second bonus, when I was ready to request a third check, a great thing happened. They announced the "cash pickup" payout system.

It was incredible. I was allowed to request a payout of up to $2500, and the next day I was emailed the name of the cash transfer service (a very well known company that they only revealed in private correspondence so I will keep it private just in case they did that for a good reason) with multiple convenient locations near to me. I just drove down the street, and picked up my money in crisp American Dollars.

I was elated. My payment problems had me on the verge of switching back to Pokerstars exclusively, and now FTP had provided me with something that would make them by far the most convenient site to use. I even evangelized the new service to my friends to get them to switch over from Stars and Absolute. (I've since been told that Stars offers the service, which I will check up on soon)

As I grew my bankroll back up from my withdrawal, time to make another crept up on me, and I was disturbed to discover that the "cash pickup" option was canceled. Was it just a one time thing for the people who they had caused so many problems? I emailed customer support to be told that it was suspended as an option, although it was still listed on the website. I grudgingly requested a check payout, my recently won goodwill towards FTP cashed in with it, to wait the three weeks that my checks seem to average, hoping that it actually arrives on time.

I can't be the only dissatisfied customer that had been won over by the new service, and I'm somewhat bothered that it was taken away so quickly. They appear to have replaced it with some type of prepaid phone card thing, which it appears requires you to be charged 3% + $0.90 to use, and can't be as convenient as Cash Pickup was.

I think I'll be going back to Stars for a month, and see how I like it. I hadn't played there in a few months, and I've changed primary formats so it's worth toying with anyhow. Maybe during my time away, FTP will realize how easy it is to lose customer loyalty, and how hard it is to earn it, and make a return to what was clearly the best thing they've done with payment yet, the Cash Pickup withdrawal option.