Betfred still withholding Cheltenham payments

[lightster]

Hi,

I went looking for the Cheltenham 2010 thread and couldn't find it. I also couldn't find a thread I'm sure I was reading a few weeks back about Betfred not paying some large withdrawals from Cheltenham.

Nevertheless... I phoned Betfred AGAIN today about this non-payment. They said that "some payments were being investigated for bonus abuse and are going through internal security reviews", whatever that means.

My Betfred statement still doesn't show the withdrawal (£900) as being processed. Which means it isn't being processed. When I phoned them once before, they said all large withdrawals from Cheltenham had gone to a security team in Gibraltar for review.

Whatever crap they're making up, I'm not alone in not having received withdrawals from Cheltenham, surely!? Any thoughts or experiences, anyone?

Cheers!

[J-B]

Having the exact same issues (or at least my Dad is- with me helping him out). Won on the £100 free bet on the 17th, withdrew after the festival finished on the 19th and then nothing. All the bets and transactions still show on the betfred statement but account balance is at zero. Have now sent 5 or 6 emails (to all the different fred addresses) asking for an update and only thing received was a holding email saying about high volume of cheltenham bonuses taking time to investigate and payout about a week after the request. Have also called a couple of times to be told someone from the Gibraltar office would phone back...again, nothing.

I'll be honest...given the T&C's etc which my dad didnt check properly, they could probably argue he shouldnt have got the bonuses however, how long is a reasonable time for them to consider this?! The winnings sat in the account for over 2 days and thats now 16 days since the withdrawal request with nothing made void in the account but more importantly / annoyingly / worryingly is the fact they seem to just be completely ignoring all requests for updates / discussion on what is going on.

[musicbox]

The offer thread is here: http://www.thegamblingtimes.com/boar...0-freebet.html but the only problems mentioned on TGT (as far I recall) involved the partial crediting of free bets rather than slow pay reports. The slow pay reports were mentioned in the email that went out on Friday but they referred to reports surfacing on other sites.

From their email last year: "With effect from 19 January 2009, when you access betfred.com in order to participate in its online betting services, (“Betfred Online Betting”) you are transacting with Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited (and no longer with Done Bros (Cash Betting) Limited). All such activities will be subject to the licence granted by the Government of Gibraltar and regulation by the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority." Hence, the security team in Gibraltar will be looking through these large withdrawals trying to identify those who have abused the promotion.

IMO, Fred was all over the shop on this particular offer from the promotion idea, the terms, the implentation of those terms, their CS responses and now it's seemingly ended with delayed payments for a number of people. I have little doubt that if McBookie had to pull its offer through multiple accounting (done so very professionally) then a more well known bookmaker offering a no-lose £100 free bet plus £25 for the first 1000 customers is going to suffer from a similar attack from the killer gnomes.

But you have to ask, if McBookie was able to leave players feeling positive about their pulling of an offer because of the actual way they were on the ball and communicated swiftly to players what the situation was, why were people who followed terms left feeling that Betfred was acting unprofessionally? Of course, this isn't to say that some of those awaiting payments or whatever haven't abused the offer but has everyone waiting for payments abused the offer? If not, then isn't it fair to say that perfectly legitimate players are not receiving a good standard of treatment from Fred? And although gnomers clearly have a role to play in that, it is up to the company to ensure that their promotion planning, systems and monitoring of offers and accounts won't end with legitimate players being poorly treated.

[lightster]

Thanks for your response musicbox. Forgive my ignorance, but what's a gnomer? (And what's McBookie?)

The thing is, here's the situation - I barely ever place sports bets, but when Cheltenham comes along and all the bookies are shoving offers down your throat, everyone who wants to place a bet on a horse should be paying attention. Firstly - that's the bookies doing their job, surely?

Then, bearing in mind the industry isn't short of competition, I choose a bookie and avail of an offer to place a bet on a horse. It romps home and wins - that's fantastic! But what can I do as a customer if the bookie decides not to pay out? Clearly I'm not impressed with the way they're handling things and I'll probably never use Betfred again, but I feel entitled to my winnings (I'm trying very hard not to swear!).

If nothing else, if I thought the bookie wouldn't pay if I won, I would've placed the bet elsewhere. In terms of competitive practice within the industry; by enticing customers so they don't place bets with your competitors (through the use of promotions), then NOT paying winning bets - surely there's something criminal going on there, and on the face of it - that's what's happening.

Surprised I'm mad? It's not gambling if when you lose a bookie keeps your money, and when you win... the don't pay out. I am fuming, but I feel helpless!

[etherz]

McBookie is a Mc Bookie (Scottish bookmaker), Gnoming is to operate multiple accounts, usually with multiple identities.

[musicbox]

Gnoming = multiple accounting at a site through use of fake IDs (or different IDs at least) usually for the purpose of obtaining the bonus incentives multiple times.

McBookie is a bookmaker which I believe was set up 12+ months ago by two chaps who formerly worked for Tote. The reference by me in this thread is that when faced with multiple accounting of their offer during Cheltenham, they pulled their offer but did so in an exemplory way IMO - communication was swift and clear and they even threw in a goodwill gesture to players for having to pull the plug on it.

What can you do as a customer if a book decides not to pay out? Well, unless Betfred tell you that they are refusing to pay you then it is more likely you've simply been caught up in a security process - a process that is/may be currently overwhelmed with the numbers of accounts needing to be checked. Whether the time being taken is acceptable is another question but at this point there seems to be no suggestion that you aren't getting paid. More to the point, if you've done nothing wrong then there should be nothing to worry about although I appreciate that's easy for me to say when it's not my money stuck in an account there.

Beyond that, and on a more general level, what you can do should any book refuse to pay depends entirely on the situation. If you've done nothing wrong then you'll be looking at talking with management if customer service hasn't resolved it. After that you follow the complaints procedure set out on their website. It will usually involve dealing with passing the issue on to their regulator/IBAS who will expect you to have tried to resolve the problem with the book first. Other than that, there are third party sites where people can make complaints and the idea is that the negative publicity that would arise from a book being seen to be unfair acts as some form of regulation. That may be somewhat true but unless those dealing with complaints are truly independent then there will always be some sort of potential for a conflict of interest. If someone signing up through TGT links has an issue then I think Andy would do his best as an affiliate of that company to try and see if anything can be done. At the same time as seeing some form of conflict of interest in the use of third parties, you could say any 'official' body which is in any way funded by the industry it is regulating lacks independence anyway so it is what it is.

As a final point here, I believe now that through the Gambling Act 2005, that in certain instances (depending on the jurisdiction of the terms which form a 'betting contract') you may have the potential to take a company to court in order to get paid. It states: 'The fact that a contract relates to gambling shall not prevent its enforcement' and when Bluesq was refusing to pay people out last year (I think) during Cheltenham for an offer they ran, even though they were Alderney regulated, their terms stated they were subject to the laws of England and Wales and therefore once someone went along the lines of taking legal proceedings against them, they appeared to honour the bets that had been struck with them.

[chadders1966]

they even threw in a goodwill gesture to players for having to pull the plug on it.

Hi,
Just picking up on this point - what was this then? I don't remember anything.

[musicbox]

Hi,
Just picking up on this point - what was this then? I don't remember anything.

Hi Chadders,

McBookie updated their site (here) and an email went out (can't say it was directed to all accounts of course) offering customers the free £10: "Due to bonus abuse we have been forced to withdraw our Cheltenham Free Bet Offer to Tartan Club members. However, as a customer of McBookie who participates in the offers on a regular basis we would like to offer you a free £10 matching bet as an apology for pulling the offer."

[lightster]

What can you do as a customer if a book decides not to pay out? Well, unless Betfred tell you that they are refusing to pay you then it is more likely you've simply been caught up in a security process - a process that is/may be currently overwhelmed with the numbers of accounts needing to be checked.

True enough, I'll be patient. Thanks for the reply!

EDIT: In fact, what makes it so galling, is that my horse won with much better odds (due to best odds guaranteed) and I made loads of extra money as a result... which is what they're withholding. Well, it's loads to me.

[J-B]

My dads just phoned me to say that he has just received an email from head of customer services at betfred to say that his withdrawal request has now been approved and processed, apologising for the delay and thanking him for his continued patience. He is obviously delighted at the news but also pleased by the tone of the email received. Fingers crossed everyone else gets their payouts now as well.