Donkfiliates and DonkSet Poker

Hello again fellow Manifestites, and welcome to today's blog entry. It's been a while since I've had a really good customer service type story, so this one fits in perfectly.

Last year I wrote about a short rakeback/prop player deal I had with JetSet Poker. You can read about it here. Well, a few times here and there I've been back on the site for one reason or another. The site has a pretty nice interface, as long as you turn off the character avatars. But, the real thing that gets me is the players. Overall, the players are horrible. That alone would be fine, since as a poker player, you really want to play against players worse than yourself. But the thing is, the type of player on this site just drives me nuts. It's like I'm back in the late 80's in high school, and the entire yearbook committee has taken over. It drives me nuts, so I'm constantly banging my head against the wall if I do play there, but when I'm not, I hear about how bad the players are, and how the site is a gold mine. On top of that, a few friends of mine are playing the larger tournaments there, and I like to stop in and say hi once and a while, and take note of some of the hands they play so I can ask them about them/discuss them/all out make fun of them for it later on.

Note that I haven't received any sort of correspondence from the affiliate that was supposedly handling my rakeback for over a year. I figured after what happened previously that he was no longer an affiliate with JetSet, and since I hadn't received any sort of rakeback payment since July 2005, he was either pocketing the money and not telling anyone (which is what he did originally), or he vanished.

Here's where our story begins. A few weeks ago I was on the site watching a friend play, and I noticed that my chat wasn't working. I wasn't receiving an error of any kind, but no matter what I typed, nothing appeared in the chat box. I found this odd. After talking with another friend who has played quite a bit there, I found out that he had the same issue, and had to work with their technical support because it was some technical issue on their end. I didn't receive any sort of communication telling me my chat was blocked, and I really don't remember any incidents that would have put my chat status in question. So here's where the emails start. Hang on, this may be a bumpy ride!

Hi, any reason why I can't chat on the tables? Thanks,

Morphy


Seems like a basic, straight forward question, right?


Dear XaQ Morphy,

We apologize for any inconvenience, but all account-related inquiries of this nature must be directed towards your affiliate manager. Please contact your affiliate manager for more information.

Please let us know if we may be of any further assistance.

Best Regards,

Pierre
JetSetPoker Support Team


Apparently no one remembers this problem when it happened to my friend previously. I also have no contact information at all for this so-called affiliate manager, so now what? Let's try another email:


Hi, I don't even know who my affiliate manager is, since I haven't had conversations with him for well over a year. Are you telling me that you are unable to answer a question such as this? It seemed like a pretty straight-forward question. Thanks,

Morphy


Dear XaQ Morphy,

We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused you. Unfortunately, we do not have your affiliate manager's contact information.

Please let us know if we may be of any further assistance.

Best Regards,

Pierre
JetSetPoker Support Team


Ummm, ok. We seem to have gotten side tracked here. I'm not looking for my affiliate manager's contact information. I want someone to do something about my chat here. The thing is, I must have been in a lousy mood based on the tone of my email. Note that Andrew is a support person that I've worked with in the past when this whole affiliate mess started. He is a senior level support person or the support manager (I'm not sure which.) He's a stand-up guy, and I'm sure if he read the first email, he wouldn't have just brushed me off the way Pierre did. I figured screw it, who needs this site anyway, so I sent this:


Dear JetSet "support" person,

Please delete my account. If you're not willing to answer a simple question, I have no interest in playing there, and if I can't chat, I have no interest in supporting friends that play there either. Please pass a note onto Andrew notifying him of your unwillingness to help out a customer of your site.

Morphy


So I didn't hear anything for a few days. I figured things had resolved themselves. Out of curiosity, I logged in, and sure enough, my account is still there and active. I also still don't have chat capabilities. I ignore it, but then this email comes in. It's like they are just asking for me to blog them, aren't they?


Dear XaQ Morphy,

JSPAdminAndrew has asked me to follow up with you directly with regards to your chat capabilities.

In light of your valued patronage, I have contacted your affiliate manager and he has authorized the return of you chat capabilities.

However, please note that as your account is associated with an affiliate program, all future account related request will need to be processed via your affiliate manager.

Please note that your affiliate manager is the person who remits your Affiliate Fees.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.

Best Regards,

Toby
JetSetPoker Support Management


Wow, so Andrew did get involved, and did exactly what I thought he would...fix the problem in a few minutes, and that's that. So here I am, staring at this message, and there are 2 obvious "open issues." 1) Why did I lose my chat in the first place, and 2) What is the deal with all this affiliate manager crap? It's times like these that separate the true donkey bloggers from all of the wanna-be's. I had a tough choice to make. Which road to choose, which path to follow? As a side-bar, I will say that up until this point, I have been impressed with the customer service provided by JetSet. Andrew has shown both me and others I've conversed with that he is willing to go out of his way to make his customers happy. I'm almost sorry for not ending the email thread here. But, apologies aren't funny, and what happens next is. So here we go:


Ok, I understand that my affiliate manager is supposed to deal with these issues. However, as I stated earlier, I have no clue who this person is or how to get a hold of him. Because I haven't received any sort of affiliate fees in quite some time, and because others who signed up through him haven't as well, we assumed that he is no longer an affiliate manager with JetSet. If he is, he has been withholding fees for the last 9 months or so. Is there any way to either remove him from my account, or to delete my existing account and have me create a new one, without the restrictions of an affiliate manager that is non-existent?
Thanks,

Morphy


Basically, I'm asking them to remove my link to the affiliate account. Why? Well, if this scum-bag is still out there and collecting fees but not paying out the rakeback that is promised to me, I don't want to have anything to do with him. There's still a chance that I will play on the site in the future, and I don't want this guy scamming benefits off of me.


Dear XaQ Morphy,

Thank you once again for your prompt reply.

Our records indicate that the third party affiliate program you were a participant in is no longer active. As such we have removed you from that program and set your account to normal functionality including full chat privileges.

As a token of our appreciation for your patience during our review of this matter please accept a credit to your account in the amount of $20.00 with our compliments.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.

Best Regards,

Gaston
JetSetPoker Support Management


The fuck??? So we couldn't get this answer out of the first nitwit that replied to my first email? Or possibly the 2nd reply when I stated I had no clue who my affiliate person was? Game on now. I started to form my plan. Meanwhile, I had $20 on a site that I wasn't planning on depositing on. You know what that means? RAMPAGE!

Well, let's just say that a site like JetSet isn't the best site to try rampaging your money on. Players see flops. That's all they do. Preflop raises don't matter, semi-bluffs don't matter, the players don't have a clue what position or pot odds mean, so most of the tricks of the rampager are taken out. I was left with having to hit a hand and get paid off on it. Typically this works to get paid off in these types of games, but when you're completely card dead, and can't connect with a flop, you tend to bleed money. After about an hour of this, I couldn't take it anymore. I saw A3o call a 3 way allin in a $50 pot. I saw K2o call a pot bet on a flop of J73 and catch a K on the turn and 2 on the river to bust AK. I saw my low pocket pairs and trashy low suited cards see flops of AKQ, and my big cards see flops of 345. Finally I started moving in a bunch. I got called a few times and doubled up back to just over my original $20, but eventually it came to a halt when I couldn't get A7 to fold on a board of 7JQ82. Since I couldn't beat 3rd pair myself, my trip was over. Now, for my plan:


Hi, can you send me another $20? The one you just sent me was defective. Thanks!

Morphy


Dear Adam XaQ Morphy,

Thank you for responding to JetSetPoker Support again.

Unfortunately, we are unable to ascertain the exact purpose of your inquiry, specifically, what you mean by "The one you just sent me was defective."

Our records verify that $20.00 was placed into at exactly 15:27:47 EST, which you then brought onto Tucker Ave and unfortunately lost through roughly 85 minutes of competitive gameplay.

Please expand your original inquiry in more detail, or let us know if there is anything else we can do to assist you.


Best regards,

Darren
JetSetPoker Support Team


So, Darren and Mr. Clue haven't met yet. This reply got me rolling, especially when I realized I wasted 85 minutes of my life in what he calls "competitive gameplay" and what I call "a big waste of time." So I couldn't resist, and had to reply:


Hmmm, I'll have to check my records, but 85 minutes seems like an awful lot of time. I seem to remember playing for just less than an hour and a half.

As far as defective, it's easy. That $20 didn't really win any pots. I've played with $20 on many other sites, and because I was able to win with various other $20's, I have to conclude that the $20 you guys sent me was defective. Does JetSet have a 30 day refund, or exchange policy of any kind? I did enjoy taking that $20 out for a spin, and it handles the curves pretty well, but I think I'd like to look at a $20 in another color perhaps. Thanks!

Morphy


Unfortunately for my faithful readers, here is where the journey ends. Our friend Darren, realizing that there's no possible way he could reply to get himself out of this situation, chose to ignore my last email completely, and did not grace my email box, nor this post, with a reply.

So there it is. Another blog entry comes to an end. Stay tuned for the next time, where we...ummm, well, I don't have anything planned, so you'll just have to wait!

Yours Donkily,

Morphy