Backgammon Masters: hidden Terms, non-responsive

[maxd]

Although we've had some dealings with Backgammon Masters in the past things seem to have taken a turn for the worse recently as highlighted by the following:

A player came to us with a bonus compliant. In a freeroll tournament they had won $25 but when they inquired they were told is was a $25 Bonus with 50x playthrough and that they had to deposit $25 in order to claim the bonus. Apparently none of this had been specified in the freeroll Terms.

The player was then told that the WR for the bonus was 'sticky', that it would apply to the account balance even after the bonus + deposit was played and gone. When the player asked to have the bonus removed they were told that the bonus could not be removed but that it did have an expiry date: if the player let the bonus expire then it would be removed from their account and the account would revert back to it's previous status. Again, none of this was specified in the Terms.

The player waited for the bonus to expire. It did not. When the player inquired again they were told that not only did the bonus not have an expiry date but that it was impossible to remove the bonus from the account. The player tried to go on chat to clear things up only to be told that there were no chat operators available and there never would be. When the player tried to resolve the issue via email they were told that BM no longer offered Support via email.

The player's troubles continued but eventually they brought the issue to us. We submitted the complaint to BM and received an auto-reply promising a response in 24 hours. That response never came and although we tried again and again over the following weeks to raise the issue there was no further response of any kind.

Warning: Backgammon Masters is seriously mishandling player Support issues. They're making up bonus Terms & Conditions as they go along, refusing to cooperate with players to settle account issues, and ignoring third-party attempts to assist in resolving the problems. Players are advised to avoid Backgammon Masters.