Belle Rock - Serious Complaint

[IanShore]

I am writing this complaint for two reasons. Firstly, I intend to take legal action against Belle Rock Entertainment, but am not sure what the process is for an online casino which appears to be registered in Gibraltar? Secondly, I am still hopeful that my issue can be satisfactorily resolved by the CSR Supervisor without the need to resort to legal action.

On the 22rd March 2006, The Aces High Casino erroneously credited $6,500 I had withdrawn from their site back to my casino account. I assumed that the money was part of my payroll and lost the money. As I expect most high-stakes gamblers do, I keep track of my online gambling by writing down whenever I make a deposit, withdrawal, or reverse a withdrawal. This is necessary as I gamble a lot of money. For context, I had already deposited $17,000 with Belle Rock Entertainment in the month of March. My personal gambling records therefore clearly showed that I had a withdrawal of $6,500 on its way to me, because I had made and noted a $6,500 withdrawal, and I had not reversed the withdrawal.

When I realized that Belle Rock Entertainment had made this error, I phoned their call centre (which I believe is located in South Africa). They acknowledged that they had made an error and told me that they would pass the details on to their customer relations department which would be dealing with the refund. I asked that the Aces High Casino account be suspended pending the resolution of the matter, which it was.

I then received a telephone call from the customer relations department on the 23rd March 2006 where it was explained verbally to me that the $6,500 would be returned to me, but that they were e-mailing me a form that had to be filled out for the record.

The email arrived, and included the following text, which I have retained for my records:

"We apologize for not informing you with regards to your withdrawal having been incorrectly credited back to your casino account. We have re-opened your account and you can withdraw the money again, however since you did make a query on your account we need you to return the PDF attached."

The PDF was a list of all deposit transactions I had made on my account, which I was required to sign to confirm that it was accurate.

This is the point at which the customer service deteriorated. I signed the form (although with hindsight I suspect that I should have refused to sign anything) and faxed it back. In fact, over the next several days, I faxed it back 5 times (and have retained copies of the successful transmittal confirmations for my records) and I followed up each time with a telephone call to the call centre. Each time, I was told that the fax had not been received. I eventually decided to scan the information and e-mail it to Belle Rock Entertainment. The scan was successfully received by Belle Rock Entertainment on 28th March 2006.

Today (31st March 2006) I was informed by a call centre representative that my case had been investigated by all the “relevant departments” and that Belle Rock Entertainment “management” had decided not to return my $6,500. The argument made by the call centre representative as to why they had decided not to return the $6,500 was very weak. Apparently they had contacted the online casino software provider and determined that some of the $6,500 they had erroneously credited into my account was subsequently withdrawn and reverse withdrawn by myself prior to being lost. Clearly, this has no bearing on the basis of my complaint, which centers around the fact that the $6,500 was originally withdrawn by me and never reverse withdrawn. I should also mention that I had to make the call to the call centre to get this information, nobody tried to contact me regarding the decision.

I demanded to speak to somebody from “management” but was told by the call centre representative that I could make a request to speak to someone if I called during their normal business hours but “management does not usually speak with players” and the decision was final. I therefore requested that the call centre representative notify Belle Rock Entertainment’s legal department that I would be commencing legal action.

There is one other piece of information which may or may not be relevant to this complaint. On 25th March 2006, I won $16,500 at another online casino owned by Belle Rock Entertainment, The Gaming Club. It was after this win that Belle Rock Entertainment determined that they were not going to pay me my $6,500.

[love2vegas]

Welcome to the forum, IanShore. Why don't you try to PM the management. The information is listed under the forum CASINO CONTACTS link. Hope everything works out- may be a misunderstanding between CS and management,

[jetset]

Good advice - I have also alerted a BelleRock contact to this thread - I expect this will be sorted out with a little more management interaction.

[Let_It_Ride]

I assumed that the money was part of my payroll and lost the money. As I expect most high-stakes gamblers do, I keep track of my online gambling by writing down whenever I make a deposit, withdrawal, or reverse a withdrawal.

wow your payroll must be huge if you don't notice an extra 6500, no offence but you say you keep records so you must have seen this. Sorry but I don't see how you can expect the casino to give you back money you played and lost.

[Simmo!]

The thing that may cause an issue here is the fact you played out the $6.5k that was returned to your account. Obviously this was put in the wrong place in error, but it was returned into your control, and in this instance you lost it.

In legal terms, wouldn't the law say well actually, you did receive your money, albeit not how you asked for it, and you had access to it and chose to play with it, subsequently losing?

I'm not apportioning blame here, just looking at the actual facts and the processes from a logical perspective. Would they not say the fact that exactly the amount you were expecting as a withdrawal was returned to your account would have been a clear indicator as to it's source?

My point is, it may just cause you more misery following a legal recourse. I would have thought that maybe BR could provide you an apology sweetener as an option as it sounds like they have accepted an error was made? If not, or they are sticking to their guns, maybe asking eCOGRA for some advice would be a better starting point at least.

[winbig]

I don't see any recourse in this...I think 99% of people that noticed a $6500 increase in their balance right after a withdraw of the exact same amount would immediately check the cashier section to see what's going on...or at the very least contact support.

Was it bad business practice to do what they did? Of course...but yet we hear all the time of casinos putting withdraws back into a players account without even notifying them.

[sirius]

Hi,

The only reason they offered to give you the $6500 back was that they could see that you are a worthwhile player for them to keep. They wouldn't normally do that because you played and lost the money. Why they reverse withdrawels sometimes by mistake (this happens quite often) is a mystery but usually it only happens if a bonus is involved and they think the wagering requirements weren't met. Was there any bonus in your case?

I read somewhere that they are the second largest casino group by revenue and they have advertising on my site so they must be reputable as I blacklist more casinos than anyone else and only advertise the good ones.. but they have grown so much that they have many thousands of players and need to employ more staff in my opinion.

By the way, I have a newish feature on my site which lets players keep track of deposits and withdrawels and works out their net win and loss overall for their casinos. No need to write everything down like you do now. No one has been using it much except for adding casinos they joined (nobody has been using it to record their play) but I think it's a good idea because you can set your spending limit etc. and it works everything out for you as usually it can be hard to manually keep track of losses or wins.

[thelawnet]

Hi,

The only reason they offered to give you the $6500 back was that they could see that you are a worthwhile player for them to keep. They wouldn't normally do that because you played and lost the money. Why they reverse withdrawels sometimes by mistake (this happens quite often) is a mystery but usually it only happens if a bonus is involved and they think the wagering requirements weren't met. Was there any bonus in your case?

I read somewhere that they are the second largest casino group by revenue and they have advertising on my site so they must be reputable as I blacklist more casinos than anyone else and only advertise the good ones.. but they have grown so much that they have many thousands of players and need to employ more staff in my opinion.

That's a major understatement. Their support is undoubtedly the worst in the business - there are other casinos with more problems, but those ones are actually trying to rip off the players, Belle Rock are just useless.

[thelawnet]

I am writing this complaint for two reasons. Firstly, I intend to take legal action against Belle Rock Entertainment, but am not sure what the process is for an online casino which appears to be registered in Gibraltar? Secondly, I am still hopeful that my issue can be satisfactorily resolved by the CSR Supervisor without the need to resort to legal action.

On the 22rd March 2006, The Aces High Casino erroneously credited $6,500 I had withdrawn from their site back to my casino account. I assumed that the money was part of my payroll and lost the money. As I expect most high-stakes gamblers do, I keep track of my online gambling by writing down whenever I make a deposit, withdrawal, or reverse a withdrawal. This is necessary as I gamble a lot of money. For context, I had already deposited $17,000 with Belle Rock Entertainment in the month of March. My personal gambling records therefore clearly showed that I had a withdrawal of $6,500 on its way to me, because I had made and noted a $6,500 withdrawal, and I had not reversed the withdrawal.

When I realized that Belle Rock Entertainment had made this error, I phoned their call centre (which I believe is located in South Africa). They acknowledged that they had made an error and told me that they would pass the details on to their customer relations department which would be dealing with the refund. I asked that the Aces High Casino account be suspended pending the resolution of the matter, which it was.

I then received a telephone call from the customer relations department on the 23rd March 2006 where it was explained verbally to me that the $6,500 would be returned to me, but that they were e-mailing me a form that had to be filled out for the record.

The email arrived, and included the following text, which I have retained for my records:

"We apologize for not informing you with regards to your withdrawal having been incorrectly credited back to your casino account. We have re-opened your account and you can withdraw the money again, however since you did make a query on your account we need you to return the PDF attached."

The PDF was a list of all deposit transactions I had made on my account, which I was required to sign to confirm that it was accurate.

This is the point at which the customer service deteriorated. I signed the form (although with hindsight I suspect that I should have refused to sign anything) and faxed it back. In fact, over the next several days, I faxed it back 5 times (and have retained copies of the successful transmittal confirmations for my records) and I followed up each time with a telephone call to the call centre. Each time, I was told that the fax had not been received. I eventually decided to scan the information and e-mail it to Belle Rock Entertainment. The scan was successfully received by Belle Rock Entertainment on 28th March 2006.

Today (31st March 2006) I was informed by a call centre representative that my case had been investigated by all the “relevant departments” and that Belle Rock Entertainment “management” had decided not to return my $6,500. The argument made by the call centre representative as to why they had decided not to return the $6,500 was very weak. Apparently they had contacted the online casino software provider and determined that some of the $6,500 they had erroneously credited into my account was subsequently withdrawn and reverse withdrawn by myself prior to being lost. Clearly, this has no bearing on the basis of my complaint, which centers around the fact that the $6,500 was originally withdrawn by me and never reverse withdrawn. I should also mention that I had to make the call to the call centre to get this information, nobody tried to contact me regarding the decision.

I demanded to speak to somebody from “management” but was told by the call centre representative that I could make a request to speak to someone if I called during their normal business hours but “management does not usually speak with players” and the decision was final. I therefore requested that the call centre representative notify Belle Rock Entertainment’s legal department that I would be commencing legal action.

There is one other piece of information which may or may not be relevant to this complaint. On 25th March 2006, I won $16,500 at another online casino owned by Belle Rock Entertainment, The Gaming Club. It was after this win that Belle Rock Entertainment determined that they were not going to pay me my $6,500.

You need to sort this out with Belle Rock, and hope that they are nice to you. No court will entertain you. You wagered and lost the money out of your own free will. They certainly cannot be obligated to refund your money, because if you had won out of that $6,500 you wouldn't be complaining now.

They did not take the money, you lost it.

[lnspin]

That really sucks , But how do you mistakenly reverse withdraw that amount and not notice?

To be honest with you you will never be able to sue them in Gibralta and even if you do they now have that signed paper showing that you acknowledged that you reverse withdrew the money and it was put back into your account.