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This is the actual letter:
We would like to thank you for being a member of PokerShare. We are writing to inform you that due to a policy change as of November 1, 2005 North American residents are no longer able to play in the PokerShare cardroom.
We have closed your account, cbexxxx. If you had a cash balance in your account we have initiated a withdrawal for you to refund these monies in full. Along with your cash balance we have converted any Tournament Entry Chips (TECs) and included them in the withdrawal of funds.
If you are owed money, you will be receiving a check in full for your entire account balance to your address on file. Balances in excess of $500 have been sent by FedEx. Smaller balances have been sent by regular mail.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Sincerely
Robert
This letter comes from Robert [email protected]
As far as I know, UB, Excapsa, Ecom-arts and Game Theory are all under one umbrella and essentially the same.
Ladbrokes don’t accept US citizens either – maybe it’s a legal thing….
Still shady business IMONo, it’s not at all like ladbrokes.
UB didn’t want to compete with Pokershare, that’s all. So they cut them off at the knees.
Received this email from Income Access. Seems they had no idea either.
As many of you may already know, all existing North American real money player accounts at PokerShare have been closed.
This news came as a complete surprise to us at Income Access. Just to let you know, the possibility of this had never been mentioned to us in any of our discussions with PokerShare.
Please know that as more details surrounding this announcement come to light, we’ll be sure to keep you all updated with as much information as possible. In the meantime, please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns regarding this change.
Regards,
The Income Access Affiliate TeamI don’t think we can hold Income Access responsible – although they should think twice about representing UB under the circumstances.
Without Income Access UB would be nothing, Income Access practically made UB from the start. For UB to make such a move, and even remove the Poker Share accounts without as much as notifying Income Access – really!
This act by UB and especially Ecapsa, who had the last word in this apparently, is as bad as Sportingbet as far as affiliates are concerned.
What were they thinking?
It’s a harsh assumption to say that “UB stabbed pokershare in the back”.
It’s understandable the stance that UB took, but the actions that Excapsa Software Inc. took were very unfortunate and questionable.
Pokershare just got too popular, too fast, UB reacted by complaining a lot to Excapsa, becuase pokershare was ultimately stealing their profits (by stealing the players and signups), Excapsa took horrible actions by forcing the North American account closures.
Maybe someone else will be smart and start a pokershare of their own
Pokershare wasn’t stealing UB’s players, quite the opposite!
Pokershare ended up not offering rake back, and sharing the same skin as UB. That opened them up to theft of their players by UB rake back affiliates.
UB was simply afraid to compete against Pokershare, because Pokershare had a business model both players and affiliates could embrace.
They were not going to steal UB’s players, they dared to try to compete in the open marketplace with all the other pokerrooms, including UB.
UB’s actions, or I guess rather Ecapsa’s at UB’s urging, put Pokershare more or less out of business and in the process screwed the affiliates out of their rightful income.
I call it stabbing in the back because they gave no warning, used Poker Share’s Ecom-arts email facility and wrote a letter appearing to come from Poker Share to deceive players. Then they went and removed poker share’s affiliate account from Income Access affiliates without even notifying them.
I do call that practicing deception and stabbing in the back and some unsavory things better not written in this forum.
I guess I meant that ‘stabbing in the back’ isn’t the best term. It’s generally used when referring to a business partner or friend screwing eachother over.
In this case, the companies are unrelated, with the exception of their skin provider. For the record, all of the affiliates’ “rightful” income, specifically, the income which they have already earned, will be paid in full.
The way that I heard it was pokershare got very popular very fast (and a lot of UB players went to PokerShare, becuase they offered so much more). Once that happened, they tried for a compromise where PokerShare would stop offering rake backs – this way, UB could offer the rake backs and Poker Share could offer the shares in hopes of equillizing the playig feild, so to speak.
It’s rummored that one of two things happened:
Rummor a: UB got impatient, feeling as though PokerShare was going to end up getting all of UB’s players by the time October 31st came, which was PokerShare’s deadline to stop offering rakes. Becuase of the lack of patience, Excapsa took drastic measures that we’ve fallen victim to.
Rummor b: UB was threatened by the overwhelming response to PokerShare’s opening that the wanted something to be done so that their turf wasn’t completely compromised. Excapsa decided that PokerShare was to no longer offer Rake Backs to their players. They implimented this, but PokerShare continued to grow quickly and UB’s signups dropped drastically. Feeling very threatened, UB complained again to Excapsa, whom then decided that there was just no way for the two companies to balance out equilly in the North American market, and so PokerShare’s North American players were removed from their database and refused the option to signup again.
Either way, it makes UB look bad, but I’d be lieing if I said that I wouldn’t be pissed off or freaked out if I were in UB’s position.
All in all – Excapsa took the actions against PokerShare, not UB themselves; Income Access is safe to represent UB, even if they are a bunch of winers. UB still brings in the dough.
Unless I misunderstand the relationships here, Excapsa is the software provider for both UB and PokerShare. i.e. they’re both skins of Excapsa, and UB is not the same company as Excapsa.
And Excapsa was the company that pulled the plug on Pokershare and sent the email.
I have been told, and hence as far as I know, UB, Excapsa, Ecom-arts and Game Theory are all under one umbrella and essentially the same.
Excapsa appears to to be the company under whose umbrella all the ones above exist.
Excapsa never amounted to much before it had UB, and UB would be pretty much nothing without Income Access.
I am not sure how Ecom Access and Income Access relate to Ecom – arts.
So while these are all independently functioning, Excapsa appears to be the parent company and UB the favorite child.
In order to please UB, the main money maker, Excapsa seems to have no qualms walking all over everyone, and that includes the affiliates who made UB.
It seems that UB must have some big stick in order to drive Excapsa to hurt and antagonize those on whose backs they rose up.
It is very reminiscent of Sportingbet, except I don’t think Excapsa is as able to absorb the negative fallout from this.
I have been reading some poker forums and many players say they will boycott UB.
Glad I am not promoting them actively because of the rake back.
I guess Poker Share showed everyone what the better business model was – affiliate driven incentives or poker room driven incentives. Even after rake back was removed, which put UB in the better position within the skins, UB was still scared enough of Poker Share to have to attempt to kill it.
Am I missing something here? If this was done because PokerShare was getting too many players that would otherwise have gone to UB, why is it only North American accounts that have been closed?
Seems more like a legal reason to me, or maybe they just want it to appear that way.
Jarvi wrote:Am I missing something here? If this was done because PokerShare was getting too many players that would otherwise have gone to UB, why is it only North American accounts that have been closed?Seems more like a legal reason to me, or maybe they just want it to appear that way.
Because UB players are primarily North American players, and there are other Excapsa skins that operate in areas outside orth America already. UB does not care much about other markets, and figures the other skins cannot do any harm as long as they stay out of the main market.
I have talked to a couple of sources since, and they confirm that it happened exactly as described here – Poker Share was stabbed in the back because they developed a business model that put UB to shame and that players would flock to and all affiliates, rakeback or not, would feel good promoting. While not offering rake back anymore they were still offering plenty incentives through profitsharing and bonuses to make them a better deal for players than UB.
They had a business plan that would absorb these costs and still be profitable, and it scared UB. Pokershare was going to give them a run for their money.
I sure hope Pokershare will choose another skin and go ahead with it’s plans.
Meanwhile, UB has screwed Pokershare affiliates out of their rightful players.
Dominique wrote:Because UB players are primarily North American players, and there are other Excapsa skins that operate in areas outside orth America already. UB does not care much about other markets, and figures the other skins cannot do any harm as long as they stay out of the main market.Fair enough. I have no evidence to say where the majority of their player base resides.
Randy wrote:Unless I misunderstand the relationships here, Excapsa is the software provider for both UB and PokerShare. i.e. they’re both skins of Excapsa, and UB is not the same company as Excapsa.And Excapsa was the company that pulled the plug on Pokershare and sent the email.
That’s the assumption that I have. UB was just complaining to Excapsa, provoking the actions.
Far as I know Excapsa owns both the Software provider and UB and and and….
