SIA wager grading issue: protocol, advice please

[China Willy]

Background: I have been a customer at SportsInteraction for about 6 months now and never had a problem with them. I like a lot of their square lines when betting dogs and have gotten good value line-shopping w/them in the mix. I have carried a balance anywhere between $200 initially and $4k, and have never had a complaint. Then on Dec 23rd, I get this email:

Dear China Willy,
We have received notice that a recent bet placed on your account was processed incorrectly. Where you were paid $840.00, that wager should have been a loss. Since then, you have placed 2 wagers with the funds which were incorrectly credited to your account. You may verify this in your account statement. Because these winning wagers were placed with funds which should not have been credited to your account balance we have had no choice but to put the winnings on hold until you take one of the following actions;
1. Deposit the amount of $990.00. This is the total amount of your 2 last wagers which were made with erroneously credited winnings.
2. Have both of these wagers voided out and winnings removed from your account balance.
Please reply at your earliest convenience and we will move forward as per your request.
Please take note of Sports Interaction's terms and conditions:
If an amount is wrongly credited to a member's account, it is the member's responsibility to inform Sports Interaction immediately. Any future winnings that occur directly or indirectly as a result of this credit will be void, regardless of any delay between the time the amount was credited and notification of the error. If an amount wrongly credited is subsequently withdrawn or placed on losing bets Sports Interaction reserves the right to recover any amounts due.
Best regards,
Amanda

Sports Interaction Support Supervisor

My question is -- what is the protocol on a wager misgrade like this and what advice might any of you have? For the record, I did not realize their error when I made my bets (and wouldn't have w/o them pointing it out.) However, I would not have had enough in my account to cover both late game bets -- though the account was not empty, it had a couple hundred bucks in it.

Thanks in advance for replies,
-CW

[China Willy]

A couple of quick additional details --

1) I can log into my SIA account and the balance shows the theoretically correct amount (the incorrect $840 win was reversed, and/but both of the other two winning wagers were credited), HOWEVER the balance is frozen and when I try to make a bet it won't allow me to.

2) I responded with the following (copied below) on December 23rd. I have yet to hear a reply from them, despite 5 additional emails in addition to the one copied below asking them wtf was going on. It has been nearly two weeks since they contacted me and they're not responsive at all to my attempts to communicate with them.

Amanda,

I have reviewed my account statement and understand the matter your email pertains to. Looking at the record, I can see the error that was made by Sports Interaction in grading my wager yesterday. That being said, I don't understand why you feel that I should have to deposit to rectify your error.

As you can easily see by reviewing my account, I make a high volume of wagers and transactions at your site. And in the instance of the wager you misgraded, I didn't realize your error -- I simply logged onto my account to bet on the late basketball games. But those wagers were made in good faith, and I feel like they should be honored in that same good faith.

Simply put: I didn't know you had ****ed up, but now that the error is clear, I don't understand why it's my obligation to make a deposit to "make it right." (If I had lost the subsequent wagers in question and my account balance was negative, I could see asking for a deposit to cover the balance.) I have given substantial action to Sports Interaction since signing up, and continue to do so. And I have generally been pleased with my experience at your book. At the same time that it's not my preference to make an unnecessary deposit, neither am I interested in forfeiting what are legitimate winnings on my two most recent wagers. Are you suggesting these are the only options? I would suggest that given the nature of the error and the substantial volume of my play there that you might simply take responsibility for misgrading the wager and move on.

I'd prefer to discuss this further on the phone with the sportsbook manager if you feel further discussion is warranted. Please let me know.

Thanks,
China Willy

[Ruifgalmeida]

what a joke, they simply dont want your business anymore good luck with your case

[Chopsticks]

Did you have a balance at all that didn't come from the "winning" wager when placing those bets?

If you really had no balance then they should lower the amount they require you to deposit as this is a huge inconvenience to you, and it was their mistake and you acted in good faith. If not possible, they should give you some time to come up with the funds. $990 isn't something they can expect you to cough up over night. But I like that they are willing to let you keep the winnings if you deposit the stakes from your two winning bets. Not all bookies would give you that opportunity as they have the rules on their side. Class act, really.

I don't expect them to just give you the full amount. That wouldn't be right and it would set a dangerous presedence.

[China Willy]

Did you have a balance at all that didn't come from the "winning" wager when placing those bets?

If you really had no balance then they should lower the amount they require you to deposit as this is a huge inconvenience to you, and it was their mistake and you acted in good faith. If not possible, they should give you some time to come up with the funds. $990 isn't something they can expect you to cough up over night. But I like that they are willing to let you keep the winnings if you deposit the stakes from your two winning bets. Not all bookies would give you that opportunity as they have the rules on their side. Class act, really.

I don't expect them to just give you the full amount. That wouldn't be right and it would set a dangerous presedence.

The additional $990 isn't that big a deal to me, I'd send it to them without hesitation if I felt 100% sure these guys are legit. But this is their error and I have given them a lot of business since I signed up. It seems like they'd give the benefit of the doubt to me for their ****-up.

But more importantly, they have been totally non-responsive since their initial email and freezing my account. Not exactly the kind of thing that makes you want to cough up $1k to "correct" their error.

[China Willy]

The additional $990 isn't that big a deal to me, I'd send it to them without hesitation if I felt 100% sure these guys are legit. But this is their error and I have given them a lot of business since I signed up. It seems like they'd give the benefit of the doubt to me for their ****-up.

But more importantly, they have been totally non-responsive since their initial email and freezing my account. Not exactly the kind of thing that makes you want to cough up $1k to "correct" their error.

And yes, I had a balance (as I posted initially.) It was only a couple hundred bucks though and wouldn't have covered both wagers.

[Thremp]

So lol.

[tomcowley]

If they claim they would come after you if the bets had lost- and they do claim this- then they are stating that they considered the bets to have action regardless of your insufficient balance. They would try to collect if the bets had lost... but they don't want to pay (without unnecessary bullshit) now that the bets have won. It doesn't work that way. Action is action, win or lose. File a complaint. There's no reason for you to have to deposit more money.

[RickySteve]

SIA is f cking with me at the moment because one of their processors apparently has gone under and never delivered one of my deposits.

[Tomato]

SIA is f cking with me at the moment because one of their processors apparently has gone under and never delivered one of my deposits.

How the hell are you allowed to play there?

[cantin]

geez, what game was this and what was the line?

[RickySteve]

How the hell are you allowed to play there?

My account is now closed that's why I'm trying to get paid.

[Tomato]

Tomato had his account closed but a check came in the mail a week later.

[China Willy]

UPDATE: SIA acknowledges error, credits account

After a couple weeks of general non-responsiveness to my repeated harassing emails, I finally got a supervisor on the phone 48 hours ago. They seemed generally perplexed about the situation, but said they would "reopen" an investigation and get back to me.

So then they re-reviewed the entire situation and this morning called me to notify me they had concluded they were in error, my bets were made in good faith, and that they would be credited as such and all restrictions on my account would be lifted. (No random extraneous deposit required.)

Overall, I don't think this was the model of fair and speedy customer service (this took 3 weeks to resolve), but ultimately the person that called me was apologetic regarding the time it took to get a resolution, and she was contrite about their error and the fact it had happened in the first place.

I figure since I bitched about SIA in a public forum, I gotta give credit where credit is due when they do the right thing.

-CW