Ladbrokes - Keep an eye on deposits!

**KamCan** · 29th December 2011, 11:41 AM

Hi Everyone!

I have been a long time customer with Ladbrokes, using their bingo and odds. I have used their casino previously as well, but didn't use it for a while. I accidentally made a deposit into my casino account instead of the gaming account - this started a very long and confusing support conversation. I have previously worked for an iGaming company that uses Microgaming, so I know how the bonus system works.

When I made my deposit into the casino, my casino balance was €0 - meaning there should not be any wagering for my deposit since the bonus wagering for any previous bonuses should be reset.

However, my €35 deposit turned into €23.25 in real cash and a bonus amount of €11.75. I contacted support since I wanted to move it to the gaming account. They told me I could just transfer the funds and ignore the warning that I would lose my bonus. So I did. It only transfered the €23.25 over obviously, but they told me they would look into the bonus issue.

I received an e-mail from support 2 days later, telling me that the bonus was removed since I hadn't met the wagering requirements. I wrote them back saying that it shouldn't have been a bonus to begin with etc. and why €11.75 of my deposit turned into bonus cash. Once again, they gave me that generic answer.

After quite an extensive amount of e-mails and a long explanation from me, they told me that I still had unplayed play through requirements from a bonus that I received in 2010.

So this is a warning to everyone to keep an eye on your deposits turning into bonus cash. I have given up on chasing this, and thank god it was only €11.75 that I lost.

**Nate** · 29th December 2011, 12:11 PM

This is a common MG error seen at various operators. The Bonus could be of a result of unfinished games or even a game that may still be in 'Session'. Once a balance zeroes out, it is unethical for the Casino NOT to refund the bonus balance back to cash.

The question is, how many people have been 'cheated' by MG and have just brushed it off without complaining?

Nate

**KamCan** · 29th December 2011, 01:09 PM

Exactly, a zero balance should result in a flushed wagering requirement. At least that would be the standard practice...

Apparently Ladbrokes doesn't see it that way. I have been hunting on their website and their T&C for casino bonuses, but can't seem to find the place where it says the wagering will be flushed if balance reaches zero.

**mn001** · 29th December 2011, 01:35 PM

Happened a few times for me aswell at ladbrokes. Live chat is the solution and then repeat and repeat and repeat to them till they give up and credit the money. Takes an hour or so sometimes to get them to understand what you mean.

**KamCan** · 29th December 2011, 03:24 PM

I have been dealing with customer support since the 3rd of December when that thing happened, so I am quite fed up with talking to them now - and everytime I contact them I have to repeat everything over again and the whole explanation process begins one more time.

This was merely a warning about it, just in case some people were not aware

**vinylweatherman** · 29th December 2011, 03:55 PM

This is getting beyond a joke. This is the SECOND time an MGS casino has stuck to it's guns and confiscated part of a CASH DEPOSIT from a player despite it surely being easy to look at Cashcheck and determine that said deposit was made on a zero balance.

Both times, players eventually gave up because they met an immovable brick wall with CS, and in the previous case, even taking the issue all the way to the LGA and Microgaming themselves made no difference.

This kind of behaviour is rogue with a capital R, and they are hiding behind "it's how the system works" rather than using common sense when dealing with the issue. This goes beyond arguments about wagering, bonus abuse, and "spirit of the bonus", it is arbitrary confisactation of CASH justified just because "computer says yes".

I bet things would be different if the system started making these errors in favour of the PLAYER, such as arbitrary conversion of all or part of a bonus to cash because a player EXCEEDED WR from a previous bonus.

If their is an unfinished game, tell them to PROVE IT! If they can't, they have to admit to there being a bug, and this could be a MAJOR embarrassment to Microgaming since they have been robbing players of deposited cash rather than taking a proper look at the problems when reported.

Microgaming have ALREADY been embarrassed earlier in the year when similar instances of cash deposits turning to bonus on a zero balance was found to be a bug introduced with Multi player Wheel of Wealth, yet Microgaming are now claiming it is now "impossible" for this to be the case now that this one bug got patched, yet further incidents are being reported.

I ROUTINELY find part of my cash deposits turning to bonus funds when the balance is zero, but the amount tends to be small compared to the amount deposited and my intended amount of wagering, so I do tend to "let it go". I have sometimes found an unfinished game from long ago in the system by accident at a later date when I go to play, but this is not always the case.

The Viper client now detects unfinished games and displays the information in the "pitboss slider" after login, and before you have a chance to launch banking to make a deposit. With this, further such incidents are almost certain to be down to a bug, rather than an unfinished game.

The only possible complication is where both Flash and Viper are used, and the unfinished game is in Flash, but the fresh deposit is made through the Viper client. It is likely the Viper function will not detect this, but the bonus system will.

The only way a player can be 100% certain they have been shafted is to open EVERY game in both Flash and Viper, and check that there is no unfinished game present.

**KamCan** · 29th December 2011, 04:54 PM

Hmmm, after looking at my account now, it seems like they have credited my account with €11.75....

They must have seen this thread or something!

I agree with vinylweatherman - This is absolutely rediculess. Should not be possible that the system converts cash into bonus cash from a fresh deposit on a zero balance, and then having to give up on your own funds when trying to get the error corrected.

I have always been very fond of Ladbrokes, but then again, I have never needed their customer support before now.

I don't use the Viper Client since I am on a Mac, so I wouldn't have a chance to see wether or not I have unfinished games in my account either so I would never have noticed that I had bonus cash instead of real money if I had not tried to transfer it to a different wallet.

**Flyer187** · 29th December 2011, 05:06 PM

I had an unfinished game problem at 2 mg casinos - just found out what they were and the bonus turned to cash

**vinylweatherman** · 29th December 2011, 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by KamCan

Hmmm, after looking at my account now, it seems like they have credited my account with €11.75....

They must have seen this thread or something!

I agree with vinylweatherman - This is absolutely rediculess. Should not be possible that the system converts cash into bonus cash from a fresh deposit on a zero balance, and then having to give up on your own funds when trying to get the error corrected.

I have always been very fond of Ladbrokes, but then again, I have never needed their customer support before now.

I don't use the Viper Client since I am on a Mac, so I wouldn't have a chance to see wether or not I have unfinished games in my account either so I would never have noticed that I had bonus cash instead of real money if I had not tried to transfer it to a different wallet.

You wouldn't be able to use the Flash either surely, so how could you have EVER played in the casino, let alone have an unfinished game.

It should not have needed the glare of publicity for them to correct this error. You spent a month getting nowhere, accepted the loss, and then posted your experience. All of a sudden, they quietly slip the money back into your account after spending nearly a month saying you were in the wrong and were not due this money.

This is STILL rogue behaviour, as they should be treating ALL their players fairly, not just those with a voice, and who know where best to use it.

CS should have referred the matter up the chain, but the outcome suggests this didn't happen, and this public fuss is the first the "right people" have heard of this.

They have now given the money back, but they have NOT said WHY this happened in the first place. If it was found to be a bug, it needs to be addressed with Microgaming, NOT swept under the carpet by dealing with players via a manual correction, only for it to keep happening to other players. Even this manual correction had to be dragged out of them, so many players will NOT be getting treated fairly over this.

EVERY incident should be traceable to an unfinished game, and once done, this should be forwarded to the player as justification for what happened. The recent two cases suggest that neither incident could be traced to a specific game by the operator nor Microgaming, yet both still presume this MUST be the explanation, and that they have simply not been able to find the game in question during their investigations.

Incidents of this type have been occurring for YEARS, and fair treatment for affected players has been hit & miss. SOME incidents have been traced to specific uncompleted games, but some have never been explained properly. Players have also found uncompleted games themselves after seeing this occur, and have not contacted CS about it.

**KamCan** · 29th December 2011, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by vinylweatherman

You wouldn't be able to use the Flash either surely, so how could you have EVER played in the casino, let alone have an unfinished game.

It should not have needed the glare of publicity for them to correct this error. You spent a month getting nowhere, accepted the loss, and then posted your experience. All of a sudden, they quietly slip the money back into your account after spending nearly a month saying you were in the wrong and were not due this money.

This is STILL rogue behaviour, as they should be treating ALL their players fairly, not just those with a voice, and who know where best to use it.

CS should have referred the matter up the chain, but the outcome suggests this didn't happen, and this public fuss is the first the "right people" have heard of this.

They have now given the money back, but they have NOT said WHY this happened in the first place. If it was found to be a bug, it needs to be addressed with Microgaming, NOT swept under the carpet by dealing with players via a manual correction, only for it to keep happening to other players. Even this manual correction had to be dragged out of them, so many players will NOT be getting treated fairly over this.

EVERY incident should be traceable to an unfinished game, and once done, this should be forwarded to the player as justification for what happened. The recent two cases suggest that neither incident could be traced to a specific game by the operator nor Microgaming, yet both still presume this MUST be the explanation, and that they have simply not been able to find the game in question during their investigations.

Incidents of this type have been occurring for YEARS, and fair treatment for affected players has been hit & miss. SOME incidents have been traced to specific uncompleted games, but some have never been explained properly. Players have also found uncompleted games themselves after seeing this occur, and have not contacted CS about it.

Actually, it is possible to play flash on Mac - you just need to have firefox. But I didn't use the casino for a long time, except for xmas freespins they had mid november. Won a few dollars with those freespins and then played the balance to zero.

After posting this thread, I sent Ladbrokes an e-mail informing them that I had given up on the issue and informed about this thread. Only 4 minutes later, the funds were credited. I haven't received any form of e-mail from them though as to why they decided to suddenly credit the money.

With the whole behaviour and giving me the run around, I lost interest in getting the funds back. I was originally not going to do anything about it, but the more I thought about it, the more the case bugged me, hence the thread.

I do understand that CS can sometimes be misunderstanding the customer and errors occur, but in this case it was so obvious they were not listening to what the issue was. In every single e-mail I had to explain exactly what I meant, like a teacher would explain math to a classroom, and then I received the rules for bonus cash and wagering requirements, and several explanations about why the bonus cash was removed.

In my original complaint to CS, they said they had to contact MG to check the case. So obviously either MG has checked and determined that "nothing was wrong" or they never escalated it further.

It is very alarming that customers are expected to follow terms that are sometimes so far away from reasonable, only to have casinoes run away from responsibily when they are in the wrong.