iPoker exchange rates warning

[GaF]

A while ago, I set my dad a Bankroll building challenge on iPoker with strict bankroll rules on what STTs he could enter. He started with pennies and has played the 10c + 2c tables. His account is in GBP. Anyway - after about 200 games he was reporting to me a profit of about $4 and an ROI about 15%. That surprised me :tongue2 so I checked his balance :$ It was virtually unchanged since he started! HE MUST HAVE BEEN CHEATING!! and I told him so :$ He was adament he hadn't. So he must have made mistakes in his record keeping. He was adament he hadn't. I suspected maybe an exchange rate issue - so got him to query this with the support desk and they responded with:

please note that the exchange rate is based from the currency exchange rate in a real time basis as set by http://www.xe.com/ on that specific time.

Unlike other poker rooms, this Poker Network does not charge commission on currency exchanges.

The currency exchange is performed automatically each time poker chips are bought. The same applies when registering to a tournament, ending a tournament or leaving a table.

The exchange rate for a player in a tournament, as it applies to re-buys, add-ons and wins, remains fixed for the duration of the tournament - from the moment of registration until the player leaves the tournament.

We can guarantee that there are no hidden charges or unwanted fees being deducted to your balance once you leave or enter the table except for the Buy-In + Fee and re-buy or add-ons, if applicable.

So that's pretty categorical - he must have been cheating then :tongue2 Anyway - he spoke with the support desk and they sent him a spreadsheet with all his games - I looked at it and made very interesting reading. Exactly the same games as he had made of profit of $4 (ROI 15%) with had been converted into GBP as a 69p profit (for an ROI of 3.5%) - they'd screwed him over!!! It's not a lot of money, but the principal - it's pretty poor!! (especially after their adament assurances that there was no problem with their exchange rates). Looking game for game - the rate at which he bought his USD was always worse than the rate at which he sold his dollars (from the same tournament). On average, the exchange rate when he was buying USD was £1:$1.40. When he was selling US dollars, the average exchange rate was £1:$1.56. My spreadsheet was sent to them and they said they were passing it on to another department to investigate. This was 3 weeks ago! My dad has chased it up regularly and everytime he gets the same response:

we apologize for any inconvenience caused. However, we have not receive further updates from our Poker Management. We will send you the update as soon as we have received a response from them.

Thank you for your understanding.

For any further assistance, do not hesitate to contact us, we are available 24/7

3 weeks and no response !!! What I suspect was happening (I havent bothered looking at it any deeper to verify) is that when there are fractions of a penny, it is always rounded up or down in their favour. Not significant at "normal" stakes, but in a bankroll building exercise at 10c tables, extremely significant. So I suppose the "warning" in this thread only really relates to those of you using iPoker for a bankroll building exercise - simply - if your account is in GBP - then dont do it at iPoker!! (actually - you probably shouldnt play the microstakes at iPoker at all if your account is in GBP). I'll update this thread when (if) my dad finally gets a reply. PS I was taking him on and followed the same rules, but got an ROI of 45% on the 10c tables - so maybe he only has himself to blame :tongue2

[glceud]

Re: iPoker exchange rates warning Yep certainly something going on. Just left a FL table there with $15 and added it to one of my other tables and got offered $14.99 for my exchange. Might not sound like much but if they are doing it to everyone its scandalous.

[GaF]

Re: iPoker exchange rates warning If iPoker "steal" an average 0.5p from every buy in (from a non dollar account) on tourney AND cash tables and an average 0.5p from every prize, that probably amounts to hundreds of thousands of pounds per year - I can see why they'd do it - how many players would notice? For my dad though he's paying 20% rake and 10% exchange rate "tax" - he needs an ROI over his opponents of 30% before he breaks even on his bankroll :loon

[spannerjago]

Re: iPoker exchange rates warning It doesn't matter what stakes are being played. It's theft as far as I am concerned. iPoker doesn't seem to work on my PC anyway but if it did I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole after being told this. As a matter of principal I now only play on sites that don't charge for withdrawls or rip of the punters. If everybody did this these sites would have to wise up. They already make a fortune from players with rake, why they feel the need to get greedy I don't know. Cheers Gaf.