Hey ONM
Ad "any games that do run seem to be populated by employees of the site" :
Bit-Exo has no employees. Site has two owners who have their real lifes - same as any of us and therefore can't be on the site 24/7.
Moderators on this site are not employess and are not paid in any way. Therefore you were actually refunded by one of the site player just like you.
It is because we have a strong and close community and Staxxd wanted to ease your situation and help you out with the accidental issue that was not caused by us.
All I know is the only two people, besides me, who were willing to pony up any money to play poker on the site had tags of "mod" and "admin". So clearly they are associated with the site in some capacity. That gives off an odd appearance.
A close community is great, but as a poker player I don't care. All I care about is an honest game that's easy to get decent volume in on. I can't speak to the former, but from first impressions it seems like the latter isn't happening on B-E. It's great that people have lives, but when you're running a poker site your first priority should probably be that somebody is around to fix issues that arise. If you don't...you get a ghost town.