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bwin/party/gamebookers blocked my funds almost 6 months
I write to SBR, to complaint about bookmakers group bwin/partybets/gamebookers. On April/ May , my accounts of bwin partybets and gamebookers was locked without notice. The Gamebookers’ account balance was 12 744,98 EUR; the Partybets account balance was 15 621,25 EUR; bwin account balance was 41 218 PLN (+/- 10 000 eur0). I have called the support and the support informed me that is routine procedure of account verification and asked me to send a copy of some documents (bank statement, copy of a latest Utility bill, copy of a Self-certified government issued photo ID, my photo with visible ID). I have provided all of those documents immediately. All documents were verified positive by bookmaker, unfortunately bookmaker decided to close my accounts.
I am sorry to inform you that Bwin/Gamebookers/Partybets continues to deny to release my funds from the accounts. The only option of money withdrawal is a transfer to bank account , method which I have never used to deposit the money . I have always used skrill and neteller to do so and I don't own a bank account.
The reason I was given for closing the accounts was playing late bets. This is blatantly untrue - I have been bwin and gamebookers' customer for nearly 10 years - before even the companies started cooperating - and never there were any problems with my betting practices. This is no coincidence that the decision about closing of both of my accounts comes at the same time as some business decisions of Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment group and consequential shutting down many others accounts in this region of Europe. My betting was practically limited to live bets, placed in high quantities but for small stakes ( from 100 to 200 live bets per week, I can send screnshots of my bets history if SBR need it) . The win/loss ratio was in my favor and I believe that was not looked kindly upon by the Bwin.Party employees. For almost 10 years there were no complains about my conduct and I would like to present the real reasons behind my accounts closure .
In 2011 Poland updated the rules governing mutual bets online. According to the new law, bookmakers active on Polish market had to apply for a permit issued by the Finance ministry, the servers containing customers data had to be located in Poland and the companies were required to pay taxes in Poland. The new law also forbid gambling advertisement. None of the online bookmakers met the above criteria. Part of the companies stopped providing services in Poland, others, including partybets/gamebookers/bwin provided it without the required permit. In reality the legal situation was unclear - the new law was not inline with European Union policy of free flow of services and it still remains not approved by the European Commission. From the practical point of view, the Polish authorities still didn't take any actions to enforce the new law - neither toward the foreign bookmaking companies active on Polish market or toward their Polish customers. Because of that, many customers avoids bank transfers with
bookmakers, utilizing instead ewallets like skrill or neteller. Mid-April this year, the Bwin.Party group informed its business partners about its decision to stop any new registrations for many middle and eastern European countries, including Poland. The existing accounts could still be used. In practice, soon after that, the Bwin.Party group started blocking in large numbers the accounts which were bringing the company losses. The steps were the same in all the cases - account blockage without prior warning, very long and time consuming account verification by customer followed by account closure and limiting the money withdrawal options to using the bank accounts.According to the online gambling forums both Polish as well as English like SBR, this type of activity was wide spread and affected the winning customers of the Bwin.Party group bookmakers. Please notice, that it was not directed toward the dishonest customers breaking the bonus rules or opening multiple accounts, etc. Those new restrictions were targeted toward customers which the bookmakers didn't suspect of breaking the rules. More than likely the real reason behind their accounts closures was their lack of profitability to the bookmaker. The available information is pointing to new practice by Bwin.Party group - they are massively closing the unprofitable accounts from some countries.
Of course, the bookmaker has every right to close the account of the customer if it continues to bring loses to the company. However, I am asking, are the other actions like blocking the money justified as well? The money is sometimes blocked for many weeks - in my case since April on bwin and since May on partybets/gamebookers. In addition, the account needs to be verified again, in incredibly detailed way, including some demeaning methods i.e. submitting face pictures side by side with ID. Finally limiting the withdrawal method to using a bank account, which for Polish customer is absolutely the worse possible option, very risky and possibly threating legal consequences. Of course, Bwin.Party is perfectly aware of this - large part of the customers afraid of those consequences is delaying withdrawing money to bank accounts, or even gives them up entirely.
SBR, I am asking for your intervention. The only thing I asked Bwin.Party, repeatedly is to withdrawn my account balance to skrill or neteller. In no way I broke their rules, and the fact that I was able to beat the odds against the bookmaker and win, should not result in blocking the access to honestly won money and their withdrawal.
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Originally Posted by pellumb341
