SPORTSBOOK.COM Distributes Millions of Dollars of Bad Checks to Customers in U.S. and Abroad
(Dallas, TX, July 16, 2008) Sportsbook.com, a leading internet sportsbook/casino/poker website, has distributed millions of dollars in worthless checks to their winning clients in the United States, Canada and abroad over the last three weeks, and are currently holding millions more of processed winnings to thousands of U.S. clients.
Sportsbook.com, located in Costa Rica, is one of many internet gaming websites owned by Jazette Enterprises Limited operating out of Antigua and Barbuda. Sportsbook.com was first notified of the issue on July 3rd when their clients started calling to complain of bad checks written to them by Zip Payments, a major “withdrawal” processor of Sportsbook.com, located in Henderson, NV.
By Monday morning, July 7th, Sportsbook.com customer service reps, supervisors and managers became inundated with calls from angry clients who demanded answers. Sportsbook.com had no answers for them and said at the time they were trying to contact their processors to find the source of the problem.
Meanwhile, Zip Payments was also being berated by calls, and their “Help Desk” was instructed to patch calls to their overseas customer service operations. They in turn referred calls to the overseas service merchant for Sportsbook.com, a company called Graapa out of Barcelona, Spain. Graapa, a large international merchant processor for several online gaming companies, among many other industries, had no comment on the matter and referred all clients to Sportsbook.com.
By Monday afternoon, July 7th, online gaming message boards and online gaming forums were filling with massive complaints about Sportsbook.com, along with other online gaming/casino’s owned by the Jazette Corporation. Sportsbookreview.com, an online website that hosts these forums and rates online gaming companies, quickly downgraded the Sportsbook.com website to a “D- rating.” Hours later, hundreds of sportsbook.com clients were posting stories and details of the many bad checks and the charge-backs associated with them.
On July 8th, Sportsbook.com upper management confirmed that they had lost their major withdrawal processor in the U.S. (Zip Payments) and were in the process of trying to quote “recoup the funds.” However, customer service reps, supervisors and management for Sportsbook.com offered no explanation and no plan of action as to the re-issuance of the bad checks.
(more)
Sportsbook.com (continued- page 2)
Upper management at Sportsbook.com on July 8th estimated over 5,000 customers and an approximate amount of $4-5 million in bad checks were issued, but they had no clear way of knowing for sure.
According to JoAnna Martinez, customer service manager for Sportsbook.com, “Until the client calls us and tells us that their check has bounced, we have no idea how many checks over the last three weeks that were distributed were actually bad checks,” as we cannot confirm with our processor.”
By Tuesday afternoon, Zip Payments corporate office phones in Henderson and Las Vegas had been disconnected, and their so-called “Help Desk”, which is the phone number given on all of the bad checks, were quoted as “laughing and berating” those that called in questioning the bad checks issued by Zip Payments.
In addition to the worthless checks that were issued, Sportsbook.com also was dealing with clients who for the last month had been “expecting winning checks to arrive.” The normal time frame for Sportsbook.com to release a check once it has “been approved by processors” was two to three weeks. Those that had waited that long and more soon learned by the end of the day from customer service reps that without a withdrawal processor, absolutely no winning checks were going to be distributed.
Once word spread thousands more began to post messages on the online gaming forums citing their complaints and Sportsbook.com’s lack of communication.
A few select emails to specific clients were sent by Sportsbook.com apologizing and citing the issue as quote: “which would appear to be resultant of an error in the transmission of funds.” This statement and apology did little to satisfy the wandering minds of thousands of suspicious clients who were now wondering if Sportsbook.com was going under.
Sportsbook.com finally sent an official email out to their clients on Thursday morning, July 10th. For the complete transcript of the contents of this email, go to http://forum.sbrforum.com/sportsbook...-73395-p8.html and scroll down until you see the entire email message. An excerpt from this email reads:
“Since the UIGEA was passed almost 2 years ago it has had varied success
in clamping down on banking transactions involved with online gaming.
Unfortunately the easiest form of transactions to trace and tackle are paper checks sent out to you, our customer. As a result of this all of our current check processors' have found it increasingly difficult to get your checks to you.
At this point I would like to reassure you that a similar situation has
happened previously, and on a much greater scale.”
(more)
Sportsbook.com (continued- page 3)
Sportsbook.com customer service reps still refused to offer a timeline for settlement of these bad checks. They only commented that those that had bad checks in the amount of $5,000 and over could “possibly” receive their funds wired into their accounts for a fee. Reps went on to clarify though that quote “only 4-6 wire transfers could be done per day, and they were backlogged for 4-6 weeks already with requests.”
By Friday, July 11th, online message boards repeatedly told stories of berate clients who continuously received no firm answers and no firm timelines for the re-issuance of the checks. By Friday afternoon, customer service reps for Sportsbook.com were telling their clients different timelines. According to the message boards on sportsbookreview.com, some were told 5-9 weeks. Some were told 3-5 weeks. One blogger even reported Sportsbook.com had told him “it may be year before he would receive any funds.”
Clients also began to wonder if they had no way to disperse the winning funds, why were they still operating and taking in deposits and wagers from their clients? Martinez, customer service manager, stated that at that time only an estimated 5% of clients had been effected; however, on July 16th, “Gef”, a customer service supervisor under Martinez (he is not allowed to give out his last name- only managers can provide their actual names) said that “all three (3) ‘deposit processors’ for Sportsbook.com were still in place, and that we are currently searching for a ‘withdrawals’ processor.”
“Gef” also stated on Tuesday, July 16th that “over 8,000 customers were estimated to have been effected (significantly higher than Martinez had estimated the week prior.) “Gef” refused to provide an estimated dollar amount associated with these 8,000 customers who had now received bad checks, but that it was quote “in the millions.”
“Gef” then stated that the cause of the bad checks was now due to “the United States federal government finding out about the ‘Zip Payments’ accounts.” He continued that “it was the federal government that closed the Zip Payment accounts at the Nevada State Bank, and Sportsbook.com had still not recovered the funds.” Calls to Nevada State Bank officials to confirm this statement were unreturned, other than one return call from a marketing director named Sandi Milton who said she could not even find “Zip Payments” in their system. She then never responded after several repeated attempts to contact her.
(more)
Sportsbook.com (continued- page 4)
Message boards also confirmed that Sportsbook.com customer service reps were now using this new “federal government crackdown claim” as to the reason of the widespread bad checks, now reported to also be occurring to clients in Canada and to other online gaming/casino websites owned by the Jazette Corportation.
Sportsbook.com had a similar incident in 2007 with their processors, yet all clients eventually were paid, that according to Martinez. The email to sportsbook.com clients referenced this incident and assured everyone would eventually get paid:
“How is this reassurance? Absolutely every single one of our customers got their pending payouts. Admittedly it took a little time, and a lot of effort, but
we have never missed a payout and I assure you, we never will.
We also intend to put into practice the valuable experience we gained
during the previous situation. Our processors at the time gave us
timeframes after which they estimated situation would be resolved. We passed
these timeframes on to our concerned customers, only to have our
processors move the goalposts time and time again. This only served to
frustrate everyone involved.
While many customers are content to wait it out without a firm timeline, many others are suffering the hardships associated with large checks being charged back to their accounts. Sportsbook.com has agreed since day one to pay any of their clients’ ********** fees and returned transaction fees; however, this is of no help to one particular 23-year old client who threatened suicide with his post he made to a message board on sportbookreview.com. He posts as the name of “SBruinedmylife” and here is his message he posted:
“I’m only 23 years old i just bought my house and brand new car with my online poker winnings I’ve won over 80 k this year but it’s all gone now and I’m in debt, I’m completely screwed id go play in a casino but i dont have the stake and my family doesn’t help me out at all i hate my life and honestly contemplated suicide because of these ****s”. “do you understand what an overdrawn account, terrible credit a repossessed car and eviction means? I haven’t slept in a week.
When “Gef” (sportsbook.com customer service supervisor) was asked how he feels about his clients contemplating suicide because of the thousands of dollars of bounced checks owed to him, “Gef” simply replied “Sounds like he has a major problem.”
(more)
Sportsbook.com (continued- page 5)
While this particular client seems to be an extreme case, the message boards are filled with stories of charged back checks, and the quick needs of these people to receive what Sportsbook.com owes them. Hundreds of messages are also warning fellow players to stay away from Sportsbook.com, and many more are also advising their peers to steer clear of online gambling for good. Says one “sportsbooksucks” message:
“DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT SPEND ANY MORE OF YOUR MONEY ON AN ONLINE GAMBLING SITE- GET IN YOUR CAR, GO TO A CASINO, WIN YOUR MONEY, GO THE CASHIER AND WALK OUT OF THEIR WITH YOUR MONEY IN YOUR POCKET! not only are these online companies playing with your mind and your money, they are also collecting interest by holding your money as ransom for weeks upon weeks at a time.”
As of late Wednesday afternoon, July 16th, “Gef” stated that “All customer service managers and directors were absent from work, as they were in joint meetings in an attempt to find solutions to re-disperse the bad checks to these clients.”
Twelve days have now passed and other than one official email, there has been no further communication initiated by Sportsbook.com to their client base. Tempers are raging in the message boards, and the situation is likely to get much worse before it gets any better.
As the U.S. federal government continues in its efforts to limit and eliminate online gambling, Sportsbook.com, and the entire Jazette family of sportsbooks/casinos and online poker internet sites, among others, are likely to continue to encounter setbacks of this magnitude.
###
NOTE: Zip Payments, Graapa, and the Nevada State Bank all refused interviews for this story.
(Dallas, TX, July 16, 2008) Sportsbook.com, a leading internet sportsbook/casino/poker website, has distributed millions of dollars in worthless checks to their winning clients in the United States, Canada and abroad over the last three weeks, and are currently holding millions more of processed winnings to thousands of U.S. clients.
Sportsbook.com, located in Costa Rica, is one of many internet gaming websites owned by Jazette Enterprises Limited operating out of Antigua and Barbuda. Sportsbook.com was first notified of the issue on July 3rd when their clients started calling to complain of bad checks written to them by Zip Payments, a major “withdrawal” processor of Sportsbook.com, located in Henderson, NV.
By Monday morning, July 7th, Sportsbook.com customer service reps, supervisors and managers became inundated with calls from angry clients who demanded answers. Sportsbook.com had no answers for them and said at the time they were trying to contact their processors to find the source of the problem.
Meanwhile, Zip Payments was also being berated by calls, and their “Help Desk” was instructed to patch calls to their overseas customer service operations. They in turn referred calls to the overseas service merchant for Sportsbook.com, a company called Graapa out of Barcelona, Spain. Graapa, a large international merchant processor for several online gaming companies, among many other industries, had no comment on the matter and referred all clients to Sportsbook.com.
By Monday afternoon, July 7th, online gaming message boards and online gaming forums were filling with massive complaints about Sportsbook.com, along with other online gaming/casino’s owned by the Jazette Corporation. Sportsbookreview.com, an online website that hosts these forums and rates online gaming companies, quickly downgraded the Sportsbook.com website to a “D- rating.” Hours later, hundreds of sportsbook.com clients were posting stories and details of the many bad checks and the charge-backs associated with them.
On July 8th, Sportsbook.com upper management confirmed that they had lost their major withdrawal processor in the U.S. (Zip Payments) and were in the process of trying to quote “recoup the funds.” However, customer service reps, supervisors and management for Sportsbook.com offered no explanation and no plan of action as to the re-issuance of the bad checks.
(more)
Sportsbook.com (continued- page 2)
Upper management at Sportsbook.com on July 8th estimated over 5,000 customers and an approximate amount of $4-5 million in bad checks were issued, but they had no clear way of knowing for sure.
According to JoAnna Martinez, customer service manager for Sportsbook.com, “Until the client calls us and tells us that their check has bounced, we have no idea how many checks over the last three weeks that were distributed were actually bad checks,” as we cannot confirm with our processor.”
By Tuesday afternoon, Zip Payments corporate office phones in Henderson and Las Vegas had been disconnected, and their so-called “Help Desk”, which is the phone number given on all of the bad checks, were quoted as “laughing and berating” those that called in questioning the bad checks issued by Zip Payments.
In addition to the worthless checks that were issued, Sportsbook.com also was dealing with clients who for the last month had been “expecting winning checks to arrive.” The normal time frame for Sportsbook.com to release a check once it has “been approved by processors” was two to three weeks. Those that had waited that long and more soon learned by the end of the day from customer service reps that without a withdrawal processor, absolutely no winning checks were going to be distributed.
Once word spread thousands more began to post messages on the online gaming forums citing their complaints and Sportsbook.com’s lack of communication.
A few select emails to specific clients were sent by Sportsbook.com apologizing and citing the issue as quote: “which would appear to be resultant of an error in the transmission of funds.” This statement and apology did little to satisfy the wandering minds of thousands of suspicious clients who were now wondering if Sportsbook.com was going under.
Sportsbook.com finally sent an official email out to their clients on Thursday morning, July 10th. For the complete transcript of the contents of this email, go to http://forum.sbrforum.com/sportsbook...-73395-p8.html and scroll down until you see the entire email message. An excerpt from this email reads:
“Since the UIGEA was passed almost 2 years ago it has had varied success
in clamping down on banking transactions involved with online gaming.
Unfortunately the easiest form of transactions to trace and tackle are paper checks sent out to you, our customer. As a result of this all of our current check processors' have found it increasingly difficult to get your checks to you.
At this point I would like to reassure you that a similar situation has
happened previously, and on a much greater scale.”
(more)
Sportsbook.com (continued- page 3)
Sportsbook.com customer service reps still refused to offer a timeline for settlement of these bad checks. They only commented that those that had bad checks in the amount of $5,000 and over could “possibly” receive their funds wired into their accounts for a fee. Reps went on to clarify though that quote “only 4-6 wire transfers could be done per day, and they were backlogged for 4-6 weeks already with requests.”
By Friday, July 11th, online message boards repeatedly told stories of berate clients who continuously received no firm answers and no firm timelines for the re-issuance of the checks. By Friday afternoon, customer service reps for Sportsbook.com were telling their clients different timelines. According to the message boards on sportsbookreview.com, some were told 5-9 weeks. Some were told 3-5 weeks. One blogger even reported Sportsbook.com had told him “it may be year before he would receive any funds.”
Clients also began to wonder if they had no way to disperse the winning funds, why were they still operating and taking in deposits and wagers from their clients? Martinez, customer service manager, stated that at that time only an estimated 5% of clients had been effected; however, on July 16th, “Gef”, a customer service supervisor under Martinez (he is not allowed to give out his last name- only managers can provide their actual names) said that “all three (3) ‘deposit processors’ for Sportsbook.com were still in place, and that we are currently searching for a ‘withdrawals’ processor.”
“Gef” also stated on Tuesday, July 16th that “over 8,000 customers were estimated to have been effected (significantly higher than Martinez had estimated the week prior.) “Gef” refused to provide an estimated dollar amount associated with these 8,000 customers who had now received bad checks, but that it was quote “in the millions.”
“Gef” then stated that the cause of the bad checks was now due to “the United States federal government finding out about the ‘Zip Payments’ accounts.” He continued that “it was the federal government that closed the Zip Payment accounts at the Nevada State Bank, and Sportsbook.com had still not recovered the funds.” Calls to Nevada State Bank officials to confirm this statement were unreturned, other than one return call from a marketing director named Sandi Milton who said she could not even find “Zip Payments” in their system. She then never responded after several repeated attempts to contact her.
(more)
Sportsbook.com (continued- page 4)
Message boards also confirmed that Sportsbook.com customer service reps were now using this new “federal government crackdown claim” as to the reason of the widespread bad checks, now reported to also be occurring to clients in Canada and to other online gaming/casino websites owned by the Jazette Corportation.
Sportsbook.com had a similar incident in 2007 with their processors, yet all clients eventually were paid, that according to Martinez. The email to sportsbook.com clients referenced this incident and assured everyone would eventually get paid:
“How is this reassurance? Absolutely every single one of our customers got their pending payouts. Admittedly it took a little time, and a lot of effort, but
we have never missed a payout and I assure you, we never will.
We also intend to put into practice the valuable experience we gained
during the previous situation. Our processors at the time gave us
timeframes after which they estimated situation would be resolved. We passed
these timeframes on to our concerned customers, only to have our
processors move the goalposts time and time again. This only served to
frustrate everyone involved.
While many customers are content to wait it out without a firm timeline, many others are suffering the hardships associated with large checks being charged back to their accounts. Sportsbook.com has agreed since day one to pay any of their clients’ ********** fees and returned transaction fees; however, this is of no help to one particular 23-year old client who threatened suicide with his post he made to a message board on sportbookreview.com. He posts as the name of “SBruinedmylife” and here is his message he posted:
“I’m only 23 years old i just bought my house and brand new car with my online poker winnings I’ve won over 80 k this year but it’s all gone now and I’m in debt, I’m completely screwed id go play in a casino but i dont have the stake and my family doesn’t help me out at all i hate my life and honestly contemplated suicide because of these ****s”. “do you understand what an overdrawn account, terrible credit a repossessed car and eviction means? I haven’t slept in a week.
When “Gef” (sportsbook.com customer service supervisor) was asked how he feels about his clients contemplating suicide because of the thousands of dollars of bounced checks owed to him, “Gef” simply replied “Sounds like he has a major problem.”
(more)
Sportsbook.com (continued- page 5)
While this particular client seems to be an extreme case, the message boards are filled with stories of charged back checks, and the quick needs of these people to receive what Sportsbook.com owes them. Hundreds of messages are also warning fellow players to stay away from Sportsbook.com, and many more are also advising their peers to steer clear of online gambling for good. Says one “sportsbooksucks” message:
“DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT SPEND ANY MORE OF YOUR MONEY ON AN ONLINE GAMBLING SITE- GET IN YOUR CAR, GO TO A CASINO, WIN YOUR MONEY, GO THE CASHIER AND WALK OUT OF THEIR WITH YOUR MONEY IN YOUR POCKET! not only are these online companies playing with your mind and your money, they are also collecting interest by holding your money as ransom for weeks upon weeks at a time.”
As of late Wednesday afternoon, July 16th, “Gef” stated that “All customer service managers and directors were absent from work, as they were in joint meetings in an attempt to find solutions to re-disperse the bad checks to these clients.”
Twelve days have now passed and other than one official email, there has been no further communication initiated by Sportsbook.com to their client base. Tempers are raging in the message boards, and the situation is likely to get much worse before it gets any better.
As the U.S. federal government continues in its efforts to limit and eliminate online gambling, Sportsbook.com, and the entire Jazette family of sportsbooks/casinos and online poker internet sites, among others, are likely to continue to encounter setbacks of this magnitude.
###
NOTE: Zip Payments, Graapa, and the Nevada State Bank all refused interviews for this story.
