Betfair are crooks

[estreetb]

They suspended and then deleted my account after I won a wager stating that they had:

experienced a technical fault which resulted in deposits not being processed correctly. Although deposits that you attempted to make were credited to your Betfair account, the usual pre-authorisation checks were not carried out. As a result, we have either already received a ‘charge-back’ request from your payment method in respect of your deposits, or we are expecting to receive one shortly.

The bank was not going to send a 'charge-back' request as the funds were in the account. These funds are no longer in my bank account, they were deposited into my betfair account, the wager was won and now Betfair have deleted my account and I have no means of accessing my money. I have tried their help-desk on numerous occasions but told that there is nothing they can do. They have stolen my money.

[Hareeba!]

Ok, now give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

[estreetb]

Here's the truth:

I placed a wager on a t20 cricket game. Netherlands v Ireland. Netherlands to bat 2nd chasing 191. Odds 15.00. I place a £100 wager. Netherlands start strongly and the odds drop. I deposit using the same bank account (Natwest) I have used with Betfair since 2009 (no Moneybookers, Neteller etc) so that I can hedge the bet. I successfully hedge the bet. My account gets suspended and I am not told why. Seven days later and after numerous calls to their help-desk, I receive this email:

On 20 and 21 March 2014 Betfair experienced a technical fault which resulted in deposits not being processed correctly. Although deposits that you attempted to make were credited to your Betfair account, the usual pre-authorisation checks were not carried out. As a result, we have either already received a ‘charge-back’ request from your payment method in respect of your deposits, or we are expecting to receive one shortly.

As you are aware, we suspended your Betfair account following the above incident while we investigated the activity on your account.

We have now concluded our investigation and we have found evidence of unusual and suspicious depositing activity on your account. As a consequence of this evidence and in accordance with our Terms and Conditions, we have taken the decision to permanently close your account.

I have used the same bank account to deposit money for years. I am in the red with Betfair but never complained as this is obviously the risk you take. I have never received an email like this before. I have deposited many times, and with varying amounts. This day was not out of the ordinary. I deposited after I placed the initial bet so that I had a chance to hedge the bet. This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Please tell me what I have done wrong?

[tommygun]

There are no reasons for Betfair to steal your money, they actually profit when you profit, you do realise this right?

[tommygun]

Here's the truth:

I placed a wager on a t20 cricket game. Netherlands v Ireland. Netherlands to bat 2nd chasing 191. Odds 15.00. I place a £100 wager. Netherlands start strongly and the odds drop. I deposit using the same bank account (Natwest) I have used with Betfair since 2009 (no Moneybookers, Neteller etc) so that I can hedge the bet. I successfully hedge the bet. My account gets suspended and I am not told why. Seven days later and after numerous calls to their help-desk, I receive this email:

On 20 and 21 March 2014 Betfair experienced a technical fault which resulted in deposits not being processed correctly. Although deposits that you attempted to make were credited to your Betfair account, the usual pre-authorisation checks were not carried out. As a result, we have either already received a ‘charge-back’ request from your payment method in respect of your deposits, or we are expecting to receive one shortly.

As you are aware, we suspended your Betfair account following the above incident while we investigated the activity on your account.

We have now concluded our investigation and we have found evidence of unusual and suspicious depositing activity on your account. As a consequence of this evidence and in accordance with our Terms and Conditions, we have taken the decision to permanently close your account.

I have used the same bank account to deposit money for years. I am in the red with Betfair but never complained as this is obviously the risk you take. I have never received an email like this before. I have deposited many times, and with varying amounts. This day was not out of the ordinary. I deposited after I placed the initial bet so that I had a chance to hedge the bet. This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Please tell me what I have done wrong?

You do realise that you did not need to deposit more money to hedge your bet?
As long as your total liability doesn't go over $100 you can bet with money even though it says $0 in account, all you are doing is changing the position of the bet.

[thespeculator]

Betfair had deposit problems last week, it was all over their forum. I think it was for certain UK banks

[jjgold]

Betfair one of best books in entire world

Something fishy here

[estreetb]

There are no reasons for Betfair to steal your money, they actually profit when you profit, you do realise this right?

Completely agree. They took commission from the win. They legally profit from any profits I made and I have no issue with this. The issue is that they have terminated my account for no good reason, and kept the deposit as well as the winnings after commission. The reason for doing this was given to me in that solitary email, sent a week after the incident and they have been uncommunicative whenever I have tried to contact their help-desk. If there were no funds in my bank account then I can perhaps understand. They say their systems were down and allowed deposits that shoudn't have been allowed. Even then, that was a fault on their part. How was I supposed to know that their systems were down? That aside, even this explanation doesn't hold water because the funds have actually been taken out of my bank account, they have received them, and my bank is not requesting a 'charge-back' because I have used the funds to bet with.

[estreetb]

Betfair one of best books in entire world

Something fishy here

what's fishy about what I have said? I deposit the money from the account that I have been using for years with Betfair. I win the bet. They close my account. I cannot access my funds. This is basically what has happened.

[caveira]

They are crooks by 6,5% comission, not by to delete accounts for nothing.

[tommygun]

Completely agree. They took commission from the win. They legally profit from any profits I made and I have no issue with this. The issue is that they have terminated my account for no good reason, and kept the deposit as well as the winnings after commission. The reason for doing this was given to me in that solitary email, sent a week after the incident and they have been uncommunicative whenever I have tried to contact their help-desk. If there were no funds in my bank account then I can perhaps understand. They say their systems were down and allowed deposits that shoudn't have been allowed. Even then, that was a fault on their part. How was I supposed to know that their systems were down? That aside, even this explanation doesn't hold water because the funds have actually been taken out of my bank account, they have received them, and my bank is not requesting a 'charge-back' because I have used the funds to bet with.

I would get on the phone right now, ring the 1800 number. Their customer service is generally very good.

[estreetb]

I would get on the phone right now, ring the 1800 number. Their customer service is generally very good.

Tried many times this week, the customer service is appalling. Don't tell you anything. They cannot access my account as it has been closed. They say I have to email their legal team for further information. There is no phone number or address for their legal department. There is an email. Two days later and no response from their legal team. I requested a call back from a manager. No call came. I finally managed to get one of the customer service operators to pass me on to a manager tonight, and he gave me the exact same response as the service operator. Beyond his jurisdiction, he has no information, he cannot access the account, it must be very serious and sensitive. They are treating me like a criminal. I deposited some money from my bank. I won a bet. I had my account suspended. I had my account closed with no way of accessing the funds. I have done nothing wrong.

[tommygun]

Tried many times this week, the customer service is appalling. Don't tell you anything. They cannot access my account as it has been closed. They say I have to email their legal team for further information. There is no phone number or address for their legal department. There is an email. Two days later and no response from their legal team. I requested a call back from a manager. No call came. I finally managed to get one of the customer service operators to pass me on to a manager tonight, and he gave me the exact same response as the service operator. Beyond his jurisdiction, he has no information, he cannot access the account, it must be very serious and sensitive. They are treating me like a criminal. I deposited some money from my bank. I won a bet. I had my account suspended. I had my account closed with no way of accessing the funds. I have done nothing wrong.

This is all very strange....I've had a couple of issues with Betfair before, one was deposit related, and I rang them and it was sorted over the phone...
I hope you find a means to an end to work out why they wouldn't want you as a customer.
I can't find reasons, unless you have committed a charge back in the past?

[Hareeba!]

I can't explain what's happened in your case but to come out calling Betfair crooks is just way way over the top.

Compared with your single experience, I've been using Betfair for about 12 years and placed tens of thousands of bets and never once encountered an incident which would even vaguely suggest that they are crooks. Sure, from time to time there have been a couple of things go wrong as you have to expect when working with technology but they've always treated me fairly.

I can only guess at what's happened to you. I think we need to understand that Betfair, along with all wagering operators, are targets for the unscrupulous. So when a newly opened account shows up with a deposit irregularity it would be understandable that they would have measures in place to treat it as a possible fraud. What you also need to understand is that the laws under which they operate require suspect transactions to be reported to authorities. And once they've filed such a report they are precluded from passing any information on to the account holder. It seems to me that that may be why you have been experiencing the brick wall treatment. If so, I'm afraid you might have to wait quite a while for a resolution as there are probably thousands of such reports and enquiries to be dealt with every year. If you are clean, file a complaint with their regulator. It may speed things up.

Now it could be that you are 100% legit and just extremely unlucky to experience this first up in dealing with Betfair. One the other hand it could be that you've been caught out attempting to pull a swifty.

But Betfair crooks?

NO.

[estreetb]

This is all very strange....I've had a couple of issues with Betfair before, one was deposit related, and I rang them and it was sorted over the phone...
I hope you find a means to an end to work out why they wouldn't want you as a customer.
I can't find reasons, unless you have committed a charge back in the past?

Thank you for that and I hope it gets resolved quickly as well. I have never committed a charge back previously and this whole chain of events was initiated because of their system error. Yet, no apology, no real explanation, no communication. If I do not try and chase them up, it appears they are quite happy to keep my deposits and winnings. To be fair, I have been a customer with them for a number of years and I have never previously encountered a problem. If they had communicated with me to resolve this issue then there would not have been a problem. Systems fail, I can understand that. My real concern is that they are seemingly being as unresponsive and uncommunicative as possible. They stated that my bank was going to initiate a charge-back. I rang my bank. They weren't. My bank rang their fraud department to inform them of this. The debited amounts to betfair are on my account statement. I have refuted the only communication they have provided to me. I cannot see what the issue is, and yet when you try and explain this to their customer service team or their management team they simply tell me that they can understand my frustration but they are not privy to the details of my case. They then refer me to their legal team's email address, and thus far no reply. There is no one within Betfair who I can ring to actually discuss the problem reasonably. So, it has been over a week now and I am still none the wiser. It's very frustrating.

[estreetb]

I can't explain what's happened in your case but to come out calling Betfair crooks is just way way over the top.

Compared with your single experience, I've been using Betfair for about 12 years and placed tens of thousands of bets and never once encountered an incident which would even vaguely suggest that they are crooks. Sure, from time to time there have been a couple of things go wrong as you have to expect when working with technology but they've always treated me fairly.

I can only guess at what's happened to you. I think we need to understand that Betfair, along with all wagering operators, are targets for the unscrupulous. So when a newly opened account shows up with a deposit irregularity it would be understandable that they would have measures in place to treat it as a possible fraud. What you also need to understand is that the laws under which they operate require suspect transactions to be reported to authorities. And once they've filed such a report they are precluded from passing any information on to the account holder. It seems to me that that may be why you have been experiencing the brick wall treatment. If so, I'm afraid you might have to wait quite a while for a resolution as there are probably thousands of such reports and enquiries to be dealt with every year. If you are clean, file a complaint with their regulator. It may speed things up.

Now it could be that you are 100% legit and just extremely unlucky to experience this first up in dealing with Betfair. One the other hand it could be that you've been caught out attempting to pull a swifty.

But Betfair crooks?

NO.

I agree that the title was maybe too inflammatory but I am very frustrated with what has happened. I have been a customer for a number of years. This is not a new account. This is not a new deposit method. Just because there are many unscrupulous people about does not give them the right to treat their honest customers in the way that I have been treated. Yes, technology fails. Nothing's perfect. It is the fact they have closed my account, kept my funds, and not allowed me to communicate with them to sort the issue out that's the problem.

[SportsMushroom]

lets not kid ourselves, betfair are crooks, there are a lot of people that got scammed by them


the problem is that they are a monopoly and they know that, they know that no matter how crap they treat their players, they will keep coming back because they have nowhere else to go

[tommygun]

lets not kid ourselves, betfair are crooks, there are a lot of people that got scammed by them


the problem is that they are a monopoly and they know that, they know that no matter how crap they treat their players, they will keep coming back because they have nowhere else to go

who's been scammed?
there are other places to go, smarkets, betdaq, ladbrokes exchange.
your statement is both wrong and stupid.

[daringly]

There are no reasons for Betfair to steal your money, they actually profit when you profit, you do realise this right?

This isn't entirely true. They profit when money is circulated over and over. When big winners win a lot, they pull money out of circulation, and Betfair loses its earn. This is why they are so aggressive with premium charges and other countermeasures versus big winners.

[tommygun]

This isn't entirely true. They profit when money is circulated over and over. When big winners win a lot, they pull money out of circulation, and Betfair loses its earn. This is why they are so aggressive with premium charges and other countermeasures versus big winners.

Rather daft statement.

[RedDevil1974]

You have to be shitting us all right, they have done stuff like this for years. Especially when one of their major punters/layers has ****** up.

[RedDevil1974]

who's been scammed?
there are other places to go, smarkets, betdaq, ladbrokes exchange.
your statement is both wrong and stupid.

i like betfair for the most part but there have been numerous instances where they have scammed loads of punters because of some so called technical error.. or when one of their main layers etc has ****** up.

[alexwalstow]

Cant believe the amount of Betfair shills on this thread. The guy has come on here and written in clear English about his terrible experience with Betfair. And all of a sudden the Betfair crew leap to their defence.

If he has tried to scam them well then there you go but it certainly doesn't look like that. Moreover it seems that the main issue is that Betfair is at fault but yet now won't even communicate with the member.

[jjgold]

what is in it for betfair??? Lets be honest if your a live bettor Betfair is A MUST as every pro in the world is there

[beachlover5]

Betfair Casino is actually classed as rogue by the top casino rating site after they illegally stole funds from players during their infamous "happy hour" promo. The casino section is still nigh on rouge with quite bizarre terms and conditions that any normal punter could easily fall foul of (e.g. if you play for more than 2 hours during any promotional play they void all winnings).

There has also been numerous instances where customers have had their exchange funds emptied by someone else accessing their account without any knowledge from a different country via crazy bet (e.g. betting £3000 at 1.01 on an outsider in a non-liquid market) many strongly suspect these are inside jobs.

I for one have moved to smarkets and matchbook for most of my exchange bets (1% commission and 2% commission - no brainer).

They are certainly not as white as many people on here seem to believe. The case does sound strange mind and I too am curious why you would need to make another deposit to simply "green up" if the market had moved in your favour?

[sd-tennis]

I think this is insane!

Estreetb says that has an old account and just deposited from his bank, from where always do. So, whats the problem? For me it becomes very suspicious that betfair doesn't give a clear reason for all this, and also don't even communicate with you to discuss the matter. This is someone's money my friends, and noone has the right to keep it like that, before explains in fully details where was the wrong, if any!!!

I am betfair trader since 2005, but I am very scared from stories I read like that, and I have decided to take my whole money from them.

[tommygun]

Cant believe the amount of Betfair shills on this thread. The guy has come on here and written in clear English about his terrible experience with Betfair. And all of a sudden the Betfair crew leap to their defence.

If he has tried to scam them well then there you go but it certainly doesn't look like that. Moreover it seems that the main issue is that Betfair is at fault but yet now won't even communicate with the member.

Betfair shill? I will take account that you are referring to myself and Hareeba.
I simply know that there is no reason for this book to not want your business. 0 reasons. betfair doesn't care if you win $1 or $1million dollars, infact they would rather you win as much as you can as they make commission of 100% of your betting activity. For betfair to deny this customer a deposit means they have some sort of inside industry information that they are not sharing with the customer.
As I said earlier, all he needs to do is speak to a manager at customer service and get this sorted.

[tommygun]

Betfair Casino is actually classed as rogue by the top casino rating site after they illegally stole funds from players during their infamous "happy hour" promo. The casino section is still nigh on rouge with quite bizarre terms and conditions that any normal punter could easily fall foul of (e.g. if you play for more than 2 hours during any promotional play they void all winnings).

There has also been numerous instances where customers have had their exchange funds emptied by someone else accessing their account without any knowledge from a different country via crazy bet (e.g. betting £3000 at 1.01 on an outsider in a non-liquid market) many strongly suspect these are inside jobs.

I for one have moved to smarkets and matchbook for most of my exchange bets (1% commission and 2% commission - no brainer).

They are certainly not as white as many people on here seem to believe. The case does sound strange mind and I too am curious why you would need to make another deposit to simply "green up" if the market had moved in your favour?

show me proof of this $3000 at $1.01 etc.

[jjgold]

Betfair one of best in business..I will keep posting this..every usa player would be there if they were allowed

[beachlover5]

show me proof of this $3000 at $1.01 etc.

Apologies I should have said allegedly and I was merely providing an example of what has been reported on various other forums. I have had no issue with the exchange per se but users on other forums I use have told of their dreadful experiences. I was however one of those who had funds taken from my exchange wallet after participating in happy hour (and transferring my fund from casino back to exchange). The fact I only played slots and kept to their terms and conditions were irrelevant to them, they simply kept quoting some obscure term that said they can void all winnings and deposits if they feel like it without having to provide any evidence or communication.

As you mention, they (frustratingly) have a monopoly in the exchange market and if you are a keen trader there simply is nowhere else to go, thankfully smarkets and matchbook (and daq once in a blue moon) provide good liquidity to allow for straight punting or laying at exchange prices.

[tommygun]

Apologies I should have said allegedly and I was merely providing an example of what has been reported on various other forums. I have had no issue with the exchange per se but users on other forums I use have told of their dreadful experiences. I was however one of those who had funds taken from my exchange wallet after participating in happy hour (and transferring my fund from casino back to exchange). The fact I only played slots and kept to their terms and conditions were irrelevant to them, they simply kept quoting some obscure term that said they can void all winnings and deposits if they feel like it without having to provide any evidence or communication.

As you mention, they (frustratingly) have a monopoly in the exchange market and if you are a keen trader there simply is nowhere else to go, thankfully smarkets and matchbook (and daq once in a blue moon) provide good liquidity to allow for straight punting or laying at exchange prices.

sorry to hear about the happy hour issue.
what forums did you read the $1.01 stuff on?

[kirkhvm]

this is very true

Try this for a technical error. £278000 deposited but only returned £273000 no contact from betfair promised the diferrencewill be sent. AbsolAbsolutely disguised. Ive got the Ibas involved and local papers involved so it speeds things up and help others in these situations.

[daringly]

That tennis player is still owed 3.5 million. That is still unresolved.

[shaunovery]

1.01 does get beat occasionally and why would you have 3k on a smAll markets with no liquidity

Been with bet fair for over 10 yrs never had a problem

Just started scalping learning the in/outs

[tommygun]

1.01 does get beat occasionally and why would you have 3k on a smAll markets with no liquidity

Been with bet fair for over 10 yrs never had a problem

Just started scalping learning the in/outs

10 years and only just started scalping/trading......wow