What's up with Bellerock???

[venetian]

Has anyone else had this happen recently? I logged in last night to play my monthly loyalty bonus and went to deposit a bit more from Neteller and found that they have changed their minimum deposit amount from $20 to $50! I play somewhere every day and RiverBelle has been my best place to win for over a year. I was up $6000 at the end of September and got killed in October so I stopped playing there so much. Now this. I got an email from them last month that said 3 or 4 of their cainos were taking off the instacash feature. What's the deal? They go on TV and forget about their old loyal players? I usually make an under $50 deposit to 'test drive' how VP is playing that night. It has worked great for me for years. Is it just me or has anyone else had this happen?

[samoas]

I noticed this the other day when I signed on to play at Jackpot City. I was quite surprised at the $50 minimum, since I follow the same format as you when playing VP.

I did receive the letter that Bellerock was removing the Instacash option for Neteller but it was never mentioned that the minimum deposits were being changed too.

I have defended Bellerock in the past, alas, no more. I am so disappointed in the points conversion, the auction points/idea is awful IMO and the bonuses and promos have become less than appealing.

What a shame. I had some great runs there.

[spearmaster]

Re: Instacash, I think I am going to take Belle Rock's side on this one for a couple of reasons:

* While a convenient method for players, the casinos are absorbing the 8.9% charges for this facility, when it was actually originally the players that were supposed to pay these charges.

* I don't particularly like the facility because it basically provides an easy way for gamblers to lose their money - even land based casinos are only likely to accept smaller amounts, and at high fees to boot. This is particularly dangerous for someone who is a compulsive gambler.

The two solutions I see to this problem are:

1. Keep money in your Neteller - it costs you nothing, it costs them nothing. I find this to be a very convenient way to manage my gambling funds for the month, or week, or whatever.

2. Ask Belle Rock to reinstate the facility if you are willing to absorb the 8.9% service fee.

[bellerock]

Hi All,

Spearmaster, you have hit the nail on the head with this one, thanks for the input.

We have raised the minimum purchase level to 50 for a number of reasons, and we are aware that this may have impacted some players who prefer to purchase in smaller increments. To make up for this we have aligned all our promotions with the minimum purchase level allowing people to take advantage of them. The reasons for the change range from fewer transactions going through the banking servers thus allowing for a faster smoother player experience, through to reduced deposit rejection rates resulting from a lower number of transactions.

Best regards,

Belle Rock

[vinylweatherman]

I have E-mailed BelleRock CS Twice with no reply this week, EXCEPT for this autoreply "Crap" - not even an intelligible message, just a load of barely indecipherable gobbledygook----
The text that I can make out is worrying, as "Banking" has been down all week, as has the ability of CS to actually reply beyond the autoreply (which confirms you have received the message).
No point arguing about Instacash, minimum deposits - if we cannot WITHDRAW is there?


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[venetian]

We have raised the minimum purchase level to 50 for a number of reasons, and we are aware that this may have impacted some players who prefer to purchase in smaller increments. To make up for this we have aligned all our promotions with the minimum purchase level allowing people to take advantage of them. The reasons for the change range from fewer transactions going through the banking servers thus allowing for a faster smoother player experience, through to reduced deposit rejection rates resulting from a lower number of transactions

.

What???? No offense but that sounds crazy. If I have a business I will cater to everyone the big spender and the little ones as well. I would think that you could care less about the amount of transactions as long as you have satisfied players. Will your server really 'bog' down and my experience be altered if I get to deposit the amount that I want to??? Oh, maybe I'm missing the point. Your servers will be fine and the players experience will be fine...because you will have fewer players to deal with.

[vinylweatherman]

.....The reasons for the change range from fewer transactions going through the banking servers thus allowing for a faster smoother player experience, through to reduced deposit rejection rates resulting from a lower number of transactions.

Belle Rock

I wonder why you are overloaded with transactions? (rhetorical)

From the Belle Rock Buddy 'extra ways to earn auction points'

"Deposit using your wallet/alternative deposit option 110 1x daily "

So thus encouraging players to deposit small & often (once daily) in all their linked accounts; regardless if they intend to play on that day - this is a lot of free auction points! 7 casinos at £20 (now £50) per day for 770 free aution points daily without any play required. If this were changed to one auction point per $10 net deposit (say) rather than points per transaction this should mean a deposit of $100 at the weekend would be no better for the player than 5x $20 through the week to play at the weekend. Changing the way this worked should cut back the load on the banking servers and allow the reinstatement of a $20 option for small players.

[bellerock]

Hi All,

The problem with velocity lies mainly with the banking gateways and fraud prevention. Very often purchases are flagged as potentially problematic if too many for the same value, at the same merchant take place in a specified period. Thus if your spend for the week is $100, and you purchase $20/day, you may find that by day 3 your purchases get rejected. A problem you would not have had if you had purchased $50 twice, or a single $100 purchase. In some instances the number of purchase per card, per period, are limited, and again this is beyond our control.

Vinylweatherman; I am looking into the email that you received. Also thanks for the input re the Buddy. You will only get 110 points per day regardless of how many of the brands you purchase at, thus the total amount of points would be 770 for a week. That said however your point regarding this driving more smaller purchases is well taken and we will look at the options.

Best regards,

Belle Rock

[spearmaster]

The problem with velocity lies mainly with the banking gateways and fraud prevention. Very often purchases are flagged as potentially problematic if too many for the same value, at the same merchant take place in a specified period. Thus if your spend for the week is $100, and you purchase $20/day, you may find that by day 3 your purchases get rejected. A problem you would not have had if you had purchased $50 twice, or a single $100 purchase. In some instances the number of purchase per card, per period, are limited, and again this is beyond our control.

I am going to assume this has to do with credit cards, and not Neteller - because 95% of my purchases are for the same amount, sometimes 20-30x a day, and all of them go through Neteller. I can, however, see this happening with a credit card processor - but it occurs to me that perhaps the $50 minimum need not be applied to Neteller purchases (notwithstanding Instacash, of course, where I might even think about a minimum of $100).