Grand Mondial....

[sparkz]

hello all, i have played here recently and as usually i would like to explain my experiences

I joined there not so long ago after being refered by another forum from a link giving me free spins... the spins were credited nearly instantly and i had great fun playing them.

A few weeks later i was lucky enough to win a contest at the same forum and i was credited £10 real cash to my Grand Mondial account

The downside here was i noticed the minimum cashout is sadly £50 , but i played and won well over £50 so i cashed out, these funds were then confiscated as the £10 was recognised as a bonus (even though it wasnt) and i played a restriced game with it.

after a few days of emailing them and having excellent support off the other forums admins "Grand Mondial" checked into my account, but then to my horror the account was locked

i found out why it was locked... the reason being i had self excluded from a microgaming casino for 6 months a few years back and upon withdrawing money they detected this... i was told i would need to send a signed letter confirming i want my account re-opened.

So i write out this letter and sign it, i send it to them but then im informed it needs to be dated to be vaild, so i date it and send it back and sorted... my account is unlocked


im now informed that i need to make a £20 deposit to be able to withdraw my winnings (because i hadnt deposited before), so i deposit £40 and lose it playing (oops),

after contacting their live support about my "confiscated" winnings, they didnt help too much, i was waiting a while for them to reply and finally when they did they said they would have to email their other department so i would need to wait for a reply

i got in touch with mario and within 24 hours he put the confiscated funds back into my account, i played a bit with it and won about £20 more , now i have cashed out and mario has already said that as soon as i withdraw i can let him know and he will make sure the withdraw is processed


A few people have had rants about grand mondial but i can say they are a good casino, fair enough some of the customer support members need a bit more training maybe, but in general they have a solid and nice to play at casino and i cant complain with my winnings (when they reach my bank account lol)


Big thanks to Mario, certainly 1 of the best reps iv encountered. He replied to all my emails with 24 hours not with excuses but factual answers and things he had done to help me with the problems i encountered



thanks

[pevangel]

I must agree as far as Mario is concerned, he is 1 of the best cs managers, he always works out my issues, so i also say big thanks to Mario


pevangel

[chuchu59]

I dont mind repeating that although Mario is probably one of the best managers out there, the customer service provided by the other staff is pretty crappy. How can we always rely on poor old Mario to solve everything.

[winbig]

Yep, Mario is great, but only one man....can only do so much...

and wtf, restricted games? at a MG casino?? Doesn't GM use the clearpay bonus system??

[pevangel]

I totally agree chuchu59 and winbig with the both of you.

pevangel

[sparkz]

Yep, Mario is great, but only one man....can only do so much...

and wtf, restricted games? at a MG casino?? Doesn't GM use the clearpay bonus system??

im unsure what had happened concerning that, the £10 i was credited was contest winnings, and thus not issued as a bonus, once i had played and cashed out as mentioned the funds were listed as "confiscated", after other admins contacting them the conclusion that was playing blackjack isnt allowed...


i was suprised also because i thought the same that on all MG casinos bonuses could be used in any game (as i ahd done previously), maybe a mistake somewhere?


completely agree to, if all the staff were trained up fully then things would be easier, Mario certainly sorts it all out but although he does the best job at sorting things out that i have seen any casino rep do i think staff there needs sacking/training better, because hes doing all their work, they should know these things as its their job

[winbig]

If you ask me, GM/PlayShare should fire their entire support team and start over from scratch. It's blatantly obvious that they're set in their ways and they will never be able to "get up to par" with the rest of the industry when it comes to support...even if they received additional training.

[vinylweatherman]

im unsure what had happened concerning that, the £10 i was credited was contest winnings, and thus not issued as a bonus, once i had played and cashed out as mentioned the funds were listed as "confiscated", after other admins contacting them the conclusion that was playing blackjack isnt allowed...


i was suprised also because i thought the same that on all MG casinos bonuses could be used in any game (as i ahd done previously), maybe a mistake somewhere?


completely agree to, if all the staff were trained up fully then things would be easier, Mario certainly sorts it all out but although he does the best job at sorting things out that i have seen any casino rep do i think staff there needs sacking/training better, because hes doing all their work, they should know these things as its their job

Forum bonuses & prizes seem to be a very complicated issue with casinos - they shouldn't be. It is down to lack of internal communication between marketing teams dealing with the forums, and support staff and even finance.

If the MGS clearplay system is in use, whihc at Grand Mondial it is, then if the £10 was a bonus, it would clearly appear as such. I would then expect standard bonus rules to apply.
Unfortunately, most casinos simply don't list the rules that apply to certain forum bonuses, and it is thus down to the forum to specify the rules, and the casino to abide by them until they decide to alter the arrangement with said forum.

The self exclusion issue is another thing altogether. This seems to be getting used to confiscate winnings when it shouldn't. Maybe the data is being recorded incorrectly, and we have rights over this, and rights to see this data (for £10), and have it corrected. A 6 month exclusion is just that, for 6 months. If you have been "upgraded" to permanent exclusion, you should have been told provided you were still contactable.

Waiting till the first withdrawal to check against the self exclusion database is plain wrong, it is NOT what self exclusion was intended for, it was intended to prevent PLAYERS from weakening and gambling again, NOT to provide casinos with yet another excuse to take the money without comment, and pull this out of the hat when you win & cash out.
Casinos should be checking against the self exclusion database as soon as a player registers an account, and lock that account, or at least the ability to deposit, until it is clear the player is NOT currently self excluded.

This MGS flawed self exclusion system is going to DETER players from using the 6 months cooling off option, another thing NOT intended as part of the spirit of the system, and very bad for problem gamblers.

MGS are even classing players as "problem gamblers" merely for closing accounts for reasons such as poor service, which deprives players of the ability to express their disatisfaction with the service of a specific casino by closing their account and going to a competitor.

I have NEVER used "self exclude". If the service is poor, I uninstall the offending casino, and maybe install a competitor. Naturally, this means the casino does not know why I have done this, and this might mean they are unable to use player feedback to it's fullest capacity.

[sparkz]

Forum bonuses & prizes seem to be a very complicated issue with casinos - they shouldn't be. It is down to lack of internal communication between marketing teams dealing with the forums, and support staff and even finance.

If the MGS clearplay system is in use, whihc at Grand Mondial it is, then if the £10 was a bonus, it would clearly appear as such. I would then expect standard bonus rules to apply.
Unfortunately, most casinos simply don't list the rules that apply to certain forum bonuses, and it is thus down to the forum to specify the rules, and the casino to abide by them until they decide to alter the arrangement with said forum.

The self exclusion issue is another thing altogether. This seems to be getting used to confiscate winnings when it shouldn't. Maybe the data is being recorded incorrectly, and we have rights over this, and rights to see this data (for £10), and have it corrected. A 6 month exclusion is just that, for 6 months. If you have been "upgraded" to permanent exclusion, you should have been told provided you were still contactable.

Waiting till the first withdrawal to check against the self exclusion database is plain wrong, it is NOT what self exclusion was intended for, it was intended to prevent PLAYERS from weakening and gambling again, NOT to provide casinos with yet another excuse to take the money without comment, and pull this out of the hat when you win & cash out.
Casinos should be checking against the self exclusion database as soon as a player registers an account, and lock that account, or at least the ability to deposit, until it is clear the player is NOT currently self excluded.

This MGS flawed self exclusion system is going to DETER players from using the 6 months cooling off option, another thing NOT intended as part of the spirit of the system, and very bad for problem gamblers.

MGS are even classing players as "problem gamblers" merely for closing accounts for reasons such as poor service, which deprives players of the ability to express their disatisfaction with the service of a specific casino by closing their account and going to a competitor.

I have NEVER used "self exclude". If the service is poor, I uninstall the offending casino, and maybe install a competitor. Naturally, this means the casino does not know why I have done this, and this might mean they are unable to use player feedback to it's fullest capacity.

I completely agree with you there,

1st off the self exclude thing i couldnt agree more with, end of...no excuses... if you say you wanted to exclude for 6 months, then simply you should be allowed to, and once the 6 months is up you should be able to play again (of course as you say, unless then see its a bigger problem the player is having and exclude them for longer/good)


the thing that annoyed me was i did sign up at aspinalls also, instantly before i could even deposit they locked my account, and sent an email explaining that i had self excluded before so they have locked it just in case im not ready to play again but if i wanted to i could email them back and say i wanted my account re-opened in full.. which is 100% acceptable and fair in my opinion, but in this case i could of freely deposited, however checks were only made once i had requested a withdraw (which for many "compulsive" gamblers isnt good enough because rarely do they make a withdraw but instead end up losing it all before it gets to that point)


for me personally uninstalling the casino once i deceide not to play anymore or for a while isnt good enough for me since i have read in many terms at casinos saying that if an account is left open for a certain amount of time without any activity, then they can charge for this, so i always exclude or close the account for good just to make sure no charges can occur


the payout department should of certainly picked up on that £10 because it was issued in "cash" not "bonus" so the wagering requirements as such didnt exist (apart from me needing to get to the minimum withdraw amount of £50 to cashout)



certainly there is especially 1 staff member who needs to be gone or at least get more training, because once i contacted live support (after my account was unlocked) i was left on hold for about 15-20 mins, then he only came back with the reply telling me it would take 24 hours for my account to be unlocked (when it already had been unlocked lol), the next question was concerning my "confiscated" funds, 10-15 mins later he said i would need to make a deposit of £20 to "unlock" these funds and have them back on my account, i did that but still no funds, so after talking to him again i was waiting for a further 15 mins and he came back and said hes emailed another department and they would reply soon... although to this day there is no reply and mario sorted that issue within 10 hours of me contacting him


certainly im not havinga dig at grand mondial, in my opinion they deserve respect because they are a paying casino and in this day and age thats an ever growing problem that isnt happening with all casinos

[AussieDave]

im not havinga dig at grand mondial, in my opinion they deserve respect because they are a paying casino

Credit where credit is due...I've never experienced any issues with being paid winnings by the Play Share Group of casinos.

My beefs have always been when dealing with CSR's who can not understand simple English. From a player perspective I only contact support if I have an issue. That issue is generally made worse and causes endless frustration when the CSR does not understand my concerns.

However I received an email the other day about their new VIP support system. Combine this with a toll free Australian phone number & hopefully the past comms issues will be exactly that, worries of the past.

We shall see


Cheers
T