Bait and Switch - An Open Letter to Carbon Poker

Dear Carbon Poker,

I made a deposit at your site in February and eagerly started playing to work on my 200% deposit bonus, only to find out that, most of the time, I couldn't find the games and limits I wanted, so it would be extremely hard to actually earn the points required for my bonus in a reasonable amount of time. The only games that are consistently available enough on your site to actually play 4-6 tables are micro-limit NL games (up to about $.10/.25), and from there it's pretty much sparse or non-existent. Because of that, I decided to go back to PokerStars in April, where I can ALWAYS find ANY game and limit I want to play (and even picked up a decent re-load bonus at the time).

However, in May you came out with the MayDay promotion, which enticed me to come back to Carbon (mission accomplished for you, or is it??!?); after all, I still have a good chunk of my initial deposit bonus remaining, anyway, and combined with the MayDay deal that might actually make it worth my time at .10/.25 NL.

Here is the "task list" for the promo:
1 10,000 CP's $10 2 Win a 10 Seated Bounty SnG $15 3 25,000 CP's $25 4 Win a pot at showdown on a Bad Beat Table $50 5 Play 3xSunday Guaranteed's in May $60 (Satellite) 6 50,000 CP's $100 7 100,000 CP's $150 8 Caribbean Stud: Win with 3-of-a-kind $250 9 150,000 CP's $500 10 250,000 CP's $1,000

• Task 1: easy; 10K in points should be doable in about a week.
• Task 2: should be easy, too, although I don't usually play SnGs; but, here's where the trouble starts -- HEED THE FINE PRINT!!!
• Task 3: 25K should be doable in 2-3 weeks
• Task 4: done -- had to play at the (ONLY) available bad beat limit of .50/1 NL for a session or two, which is fine, but I don't like the extra rake and the jackpot is a measly $35K . . . (but I did have two nicely profitable sessions )
• Task 5: well, there are four Sundays in May . . . better not miss the first two weeks, huh?! (I bet that's what you're counting on . . .)
• Task 6: will require at least 3-4 hours of 6-table play a day, and even then it's very much pushing it
• Task 7: practically impossible, because there aren't enough higher limit games available where the points would conceivably add up fast enough, and there simply aren't enough hours in the day to make it at the lower limits
• Task 8: never played it, probably never will -- it's a non-issue, anyway, as Task 7 will never get completed
• Task 9: see Task 7
• Task 10: you're kidding, right? (see Task 7)

Now, let's get to my real quarrel in regards to Task 2 (which, I should mention, HAS to be completed before any subsequent task bonuses are awarded). The task simply states that you have to "Win a 10 Seated Bounty SnG" -- so, I go to the SnG tab, and the only ones that are filling up within less than, say, 15 minutes, are at the $2 level . . . I don't particularly like SnGs anyway and $2 is definitely a waste of time, but what the heck, I gotta do it, so I play about 8 or 9 and finally win one. DONE! (Right? WRONG!) After I didn't get my "check mark" within a few minutes I went to look in the fine print of the promo and found this: "Task 2 requires you to win a 10 seated Sit'n'Go with a minimum buy-in & fee of $5.50." You BASTARDS! I just wasted a couple of hours of perfectly good playing time on $2 SnGs to complete this task, only to find out that the $2 level doesn't qualify??? Why didn't you put that up top in the first place??

Ok, after I calm down I look at the $5 SnGs, and they take a while to fill up, but it's not too bad, so I play 5 or 6 of them (took 2nd in my first one . . . grr), win one, and I'm . . . DONE! (Right? WRONG!) I STILL don't get the check mark, even after waiting over night, so I contact live chat support, who rudely points me to the "terms & conditions" of the promotion (which I've already read several times by now) and then finally drops the ultimate bait and switch red herring bull#$@* clause on me:

CS Gerald: you have to play in a $11 bounty
CS Gerald: only the $11 bounty has a buy-in & fee of $5.50.
BillyTheBooll: what??
BillyTheBooll: um . . . the $5 SnGs have a fee of $.5, so that's a buy-in and fee of $5.50
CS Gerald: no, the buy in for that is only $2.50
CS Gerald: and $0.50 for entry
BillyTheBooll: you don't count the bounty money as a buy in????
CS Gerald: to meet the terms and condition, Task 2 requires you to win a 10 seated Sit'n'Go with a minimum buy-in & fee of $5.50.
CS Gerald: no

HA! They don't count the "bounty" as part of the "buy in"! Nice promotion, dudes . . . that has to be one of the worst cases of "dangle the carrot" EVER! Can you believe this?? Do the lawyers always draw up the promotions at Carbon? The whole promo is basically worthless if you can't get past Task 2, so they make it as ambiguous and nasty as possible -- and you know what, Carbon Poker? I would've been playing $10 SnGs all along had I known this in the first place, so you're just costing yourself money . . . besides the fact that the $10 SnG take an eternity to fill up . . . wonder why. Jerks. By the way, if you want to increase you player base at the site, this is NOT the way to do it, ok??!!

So, long story short -- this sucks!! But, am I gonna play a few $10 SnGs to finish Task 2 and continue on through at least Task 5 anyway to collect $160? You bet! And then I'll have to think about ever playing on your site for real money again VERY HARD, even if I'll still have a chunk of my deposit bonus pending. In the words of Borat: Great promo, guys . . . . . . . NOT!

Sincerely,
BillyTheBooll (on Carbon Poker, but increasingly less often. . . .)

Wow I actually read all of that and it seems like it is complete BS!
That said, Stars FTW!!

[X] Thought I was going to be in it

[x] Title misleads me

LOL . . . so if you're the switch, who's the bait?

I worked in a bait factory once. I was an Apprentice baiter, but I never made Master.

Thats not what I heard, I heard you were the master.

*rimshot*

Just another storry: I typed my email wrong when I registred at their site. Over af period of 2 1/2 months I wrote 7 e-mails both normal e-mails and the once you can send to support when you are logged in. After 2 1/2 month they finally replied!

By the way - it is very interesting post by BillyTheBull

wow.... i hope the people there see this post... sorry dude