SportsFanatik

[Illusion]

SBR Bill Dozer reports: SportsFanatik (SBR rating D+) sends withdrawal to player via regular mail, adding a two week processing delay to what should have been an instant Neteller transfer. Accounting is unwilling or unable to rectify the error. This SportsFanatik complaint is one of many from Sportingbet Plc players that now reach SBR almost daily. IWager (SBR rating C-), a sister book, is very close to obtaining the same D+ rating. IWager has little control over its poker service, which has frozen yet another player account without valid reason. The player has waited for his funds or an explanation for almost two months.

[tacomax]

I'm wondering why this is put on the homepage of SBR but the 5dimes fiasco has never got a sniff of a mention from what I can see.

OK, sending money destined for Neteller by regular cheque might be annoying but it's hardly the crime of the century. But stealing thousands from innocent players backed by seemingly utter incompetance by CS in rectifying the situation - surely that's more worthy of a mention on the homepage.

[jentude]

So is this sportfanatik a sister company of iwager?

[Mudcat]

Yes, sportsFanatik and Iwager are both in the Sportingbet Plc group.

I would guess a factor in the 5 Dimes case is the fact that players partly brought the problem on themselves. They did deposits that were credited to their 5 Dimes accounts but weren't taken from their credit cards right away. If they had let 5 Dimes know, the corrections could have been settled immediately. But some of them just hoped to get away with it - and then when the charges came - along with the erroneous duplicate charge - that's when they started to freak out.

No doubt there were a few screw-ups from 5 Dimes' end - I'm not really arguing about whether or not the story belongs on the Home page - but it was a distasteful business all around.

[marc]

Tacomax,

You are correct that getting double billed, and having money withdrawn from your checking account without your apporval is far worse than getting paid by check versus neteller. But the other major difference is that in the case of 5dimes, this appears to be an isolated incident that we don't expect to see repeated. While in the case of Sportingbet sites, its an ongoing problem.

Players should note, if you do an encounter a problem with a Sportingbet site like sportfanatik, where CS screwed up, and caused you grief, if you send an email to Cs asking for compensation, they will often give you a $25 - $50 bonus if you have a legit greivence.

[tacomax]

I would guess a factor in the 5 Dimes case is the fact that players partly brought the problem on themselves. They did deposits that were credited to their 5 Dimes accounts but weren't taken from their credit cards right away. If they had let 5 Dimes know, the corrections could have been settled immediately. But some of them just hoped to get away with it - and then when the charges came - along with the erroneous duplicate charge - that's when they started to freak out.

Ah. I wasn't aware that that was the case - maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to the threads.

What was the timeline with this? Was there a long period between the original genuine deposits (which weren't debited) followed by the double-charges?

[Mudcat]

Original deposits were done at the end of August. I don't think I ever heard an exact date.