ALIENS AT PARTY!

Once upon a time, on a dark stormy night, I had some trouble with Party Poker and their customer services. Without going into great detail, my play had been disrupted, mid-hand, by a check for bots, which subsequently folded my hand for me whilst I was involved in a big pot. Obviously, not too happy about the situation, I contacted Party demanding an explanation. What did I receive? An automated response about disconnections. Great. Thus followed numerous ignorant replies and useless emails. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, I got absolutely nowhere with a clueless customer service, blatently based abroad.

Onto yesterday's events, and it seems as though aliens have taken over at Party Poker!!!

Whilst logged on I noticed that I had $100 sitting in my bonus account. Out of curiosity, I contacted Party and asked them how I could get my grubby mits on this dosh.

The first segment of their email began as such:

Dear Adam,

To get the $100 bonus released to your real money account, you are required to play 700 raked hands by 02-DEC-2005 12:53 EST.

You have already played 458 raked hands. So, play the remaining 242 raked hands within the time specified.

What was the date of the email?? Yep, 03-DEC-2005.

I may stuggle to reach the 700 raked hands target within minus 1 day. Bit too tricky.

Yep, all sounds like typical Party Poker.

Just for fun, I sent a reply which read, 'How am I supposed to make the raked hands before yesterday?'

To my complete and utter shock, they responded with the following:

Dear Adam,

We apologize for the miscommunication in the previous E-mail.

We see that you had to complete playing the raked hands before the 02-DEC-2005 at 12:53 EST. However, as a courtesy, we have given a grace period of 24 hours for you to complete the raked hands requirement. But as even the grace period is over, we have gone ahead and released the bonus to your account as a courtesy.

Blimey! Aliens really have taken over!!!

How generous of them to credit my account with 100 bucks. Certainly not to be sniffed at. It was my fault, I should have checked the date previously, but they gave me the dough anyhow. What a shock, Party giving money away.

On top of that, they even spoke to me as if I was a human being. No automated response, and, most suprising of all, an apology. Wow.

So, maybe it was because they realised that I was a loyal customer, perhaps they were just in a good mood, or maybe aliens really were pressing the buttons that day! Either way, is this a sign that customer service at Party Poker has turned a corner?

Maybe, but I won't be holding my breath just yet...