My William Hill shafting

[djhearts]

Below, I will cut and paste emails regarding my personal problem with William Hill recently. I touched upon it in another thread but didn't want it to get lost in the other 2 posters threads or get into specifics. I didn't want to bring this to a public board until I was sure they were screwing me completely out of my winnings.

So I waited a couple of days as usual after a withdrawal at WH and no payment. A week goes by and something is wrong obviously. Go to log into acct. and acct. is suspended. Send an email and a week later they tell me to send ID and utility bill. No problem so I do ASAP. Everything should be fine, right? Another week goes by and thats when the crap hits the fan:


WH,

Again, thank you for a speedy reply. I see, I am "linked" to other accounts
that are played sometimes at a friends house but I don't have multiple
accounts in my name as thats what I thought they were trying to say or
imply.

So it was okay last year and I usually play the bonus like that every month
but now its a problem on my big win this year? Thats the frustrating part.
Bonus was given and now winnings are taken away on this occassion. This is
still not fair to me.

This appears to be cheating me out of my winnings especially when it was not
a problem in the past and I was paid before....simply not right. I can deal
with my account being suspended but not the rest of the money I'm due and
depending on. I've lost so much money gambling online and this win is
offsetting the losses. This is just not sitting right with me.

I propose just paying me whats due ($3xxx) and then suspending my account(I can live with that). Its not like I didn't finish wagering requirements
rolled over from past months as I completed that so the winnings should be
released. Once that is released, I can shut my mouth and not turn this into
a bigger problem and also not lose sleep over this...lol. Speaking of sleep,
I must do that now and hope they turn their judgement back in my favor.
Thanks again and I'll keep checking my neteller account for the rest of the
funds. Talk to ya soon,

me
acct-xxxx
__________________________________________________ ______________


Their reply:

This contravenes our terms as shown on General Promotion Terms And Conditions :

"Each promotion is available only once per end user. The identity of an end user will be determined on the basis of all or any combination of the following: name, mailing address, e-mail address, IP address, credit/charge card number, computer, and any other forms of identification which may be required."

Irrespective of whether you have been able to withdraw funds in the past, the above two factors clearly break the terms of our bonus scheme. Therefore, we are well within our rights to withhold any winnings from the bonus money :

"All Bonus promotions are converted into cash at the discretion of William Hill and do not necessarily equate to a monetary value"


You will therefore not be receiving any of the bonus money.


Regards,

WH
Casino Manager
William Hill PLC
__________________________________________________ ________________

My reply:

WH,

Thank you for getting back to me first off. We both make valid points and if I was in your shoes, I agree with the points you made. To avoid conflicts like this and bonus abuse, there are measures a casino can take to avoid these situations.

1)For example, my account should not have been eligible to recieve the monthly bonus if there was a pattern of abuse, simple as that. I know other casinos do that so maybe you should implement that to avoid future conflicts. It would makes things a lot easier for both parties and problems like mine would never occur. If I were you, I would also change your bonus scheme to making players wager their deposited funds first and then recieve a bonus. It would prevent players from taking advantage of just the $40 bonus every month and less bonus abuse for your sake.

2)Irrespective, of whether there was one account or hundreds of accounts from the same computer, the account should be suspended to prevent a situation like this when someone logs in.

So basically, William Hill put themselves in a win-win situation. I have lost ten's of thousands of dollars but I finally make a nice win and now I will never see it? I'm really hoping and praying you can reverse your decision. I would like to update xxxx with good news and put this to rest so he can assure other players that William Hill is still reputable.

Thank you for taking the time and dealing with this matter. I appreciate it and will let you ultimately decide and hopefully you can prevent situations like this in the future from occuring.

Best Regards,

Me


They aren't budging on this matter it seems to me. This kind of problem reminds me of problems at a rogueish RTG. For this to happen at a Crypto worries me a little. I'll keep my fingers crossed

[gfkostas]

They should give you back all the money you have lost with the incentive of bonuses and then they can be called fair because after all you weren't allowed to make those bonus claims either. To suddenly say you are linked" to other accounts therefore we aren't paying is lame. They should pay up and ban you from further bonuses.

[gfkostas]

And by the way are you 100% sure that nobody has opened any other accouns with the same IP?

[chuchu59]

There are 2 things that WH should consider. First they mentioned in their terms that each promotion is available once per end user and IP addresses and computer are only some of the methods used to determine whether this promo is complied with. The mere fact that sometimes computers/IP addresses or even mailing addresses are shared do not necessarily mean that it is the same end user that are claiming these promotions. If both my wife and I each had a separate account and we both claimed the bonuses this would not be a breach because the promotion is available only once per 'end user' and we are different end users. It's different from restricting a promotion being claimed only once per household or mailing address. So as long as it cannot be proved that djhearts received the said promotion bonus more than once, he cannot be acused of breaking the terms and conditions.

Second, if as djhearts has mentioned, he lost money in the tens of thousands range and was consistently deemed as breaking the terms and conditions of the promos every month, they casino should also take a hard look at his deposit pattern. With such losses, there must have been many instances where the player had deposited without being awarded bonuses. If not, then WH must ask themselves why they continue to award the bonuses as if nothing had happened. Surely once they discovered this, they should have fired an e-mail to djhearts banning him from receiving bonuses in future. To allow this to continue till a big win is hit smacks of a poor attitude where the customer can only 'lose' but not 'win'.

DJhearts,
Can you kindly tell us more specifically how much you deposited in total and how much of it was matched with bonuses. This will give an insight into why WH could be wrong in using these terms as an excuse for not paying you.

[djhearts]

gfkostas,

No one has opened accounts at the same ip but others have played at the same ip in the past. Never has there been a problem recieving the $40 monthly or getting paid on past wins. I know cryptos like Intercasino only allow 2 members per ip or computer to recieve their monthly for example. The bonus should never have been given if it was already claimed at that ip IMHO. I agree, they should just pay up and keep my acct suspended and I would be perfectly content with that.

chuchu,

I haven't lost tens of thousands at WH specifically, I meant overall gambling online. Sorry for the bad wording I guess in the email not clarifying that. Overall, I usually deposit once a month for the $40 bonus and am not a frequent degenerate depositing player there. The most frustrating part of all this is that I have been paid on winnings at WH in the past. I am definately up on them and I guess they decided enough was enough. Would have been much easier for them to just pay the winnings and leave my acct. suspended but of course not.

[chuchu59]

DJhearts,

You will then only be able to argue on the meaning of 'end user'. If other people had played at the same computer, can you prove they are different people by their deposits eg credit card/neteller. If different c.cs or neteller accounts had been used, this should go some way to identifying you as different people. Thye have not mentioned that there is a maximum number of 'end users' that can play at the same computer so you can argue on this basis.

The more complicated solution would be to argue whether you had used the bonus to generate winnings. You started with $80, half of which is the bonus. If your first bet did not exceed $40 and subsequent bets did not dip into the $40 bonus balance, you can prove that the winnings are generated from your deposit alone but that would need a thorough scrutiny of your game logs.

[Leon_Lilhauge]

Let`s get to the core of the case:

1)For example, my account should not have been eligible to recieve the monthly bonus if there was a pattern of abuse, simple as that. I know other casinos do that so maybe you should implement that to avoid future conflicts. It would makes things a lot easier for both parties and problems like mine would never occur. If I were you, I would also change your bonus scheme to making players wager their deposited funds first and then recieve a bonus. It would prevent players from taking advantage of just the $40 bonus every month and less bonus abuse for your sake.

If William Hill just did what DJhearts suggests, they
would have their right to exclude a player if they see a patterne of bonus abuse. So instead of stealing the players winnings they should exclude him before he wins....

[happygobrokey]

an analogy comes to mind, albeit not a perfect fit. say someone somehow got access to your bank account. they had been making small purchases that went unnoticed for ~4 months. then a fairly large purchase shows up that certainly shows someone else is using your account. you just close the account and start a fresh one to stop the thief? you wouldn't want to reclaim the large sum that the villian took?

another one. if you rob a bank and have a bag with a million dollars in it, then spend some, buy a new tv, car, furntiure, jewellery, etc. then the cops raid your house. not only do they cut off your access to the dirty money in the bag, they also take any assets that the illicit funds produced ie all the stuff you bought.

i just like to be devil's advocate, i'm not saying who's right.

[soflat]

The whole 'end user' thing is kind of vague. Do they mean person? Or maybe Household? Or do they mean anyone using the same computer counts as one end-user?

Is the IP Address just one method to aid in detecting multiple accounts from one person, or is each IP Address a separate end-user (regardless if there are different people using one Address)?

[TheGooner]

The whole one end user / ip address / computer thing is to protect casinos and poker rooms from the endless streams of multiple ID scammers that go around.

Depending on the type of internet connection you have - you probably don't even have permanent IP addr anyway - so the issue really comes about when multiple accounts login from the same PC - which is easily detectable thanks to the footbprints the software leaves.

In this case the whole agruement seems bogus anyway - and it seems to be a frequent cop-out at William Hill (based on the complaints here anyway).

Are you able to take this to IBAS - as I think you'd probably get a favourable ruling - I don't think that an independant arbitrator would agree that using a "friends" computer is materially abusing their policy.

However, even if you win - you're done with William Hill - as I'm sure that they won't have you back ....

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However - how many times have we heard tales similar to this now?
And while the player appears to be knowledgeable they never seems to know about the single account rules ?
And it's always a "friends" computer that must be the issue ?

We've all read the posts and indignant diatribes from the scammers - claiming that they didn't do it - it wasn't them .. etc.

no wonder the helpdesks don'rt believe anyone anymore ...


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Good luck with it mate - and let us know how it turns out.