Hello everyone,
I know I'm digging up an old thread and the issue has already been addressed. The result was unfortunate for the player as he got himself banned from these forums, and from our casino. But he was paid his winnings. I believe the reason he became so angry was because he actually won over $1k with the free signup chip, but as you all know, these bonuses have high restrictions, so the max cash-out on this promotion was rather low, causing a large portion of his winnings to be removed when the promotion was completed.
Affiliates play a part on what the players are offered when they sign up, as these deals are negotiated with us. Some affiliates are therefore able to offer much better promotions than others.
However, I would like to explain how our support department works, and what our link with Rival's player classification is.
Like Superior stated, we do all our CS in-house. We have representatives in a couple of different countries, according to our player's needs. So when there's a big influx of players from a specific country (or language), we look for representatives that are native to the language so player issues can be resolved without language barriers. At the present time, we offer support in these languages: English, Spanish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Portuguese, and a couple reps also speak more languages - I personally speak French, Spanish, English and have good command of Italian. Of course, not all reps are available 24/7, it all depends on the influx of players speaking a certain language. Right now, for instance, Swedish players are not very common, so there is no Swedish support. Plus most Swedish players speak perfect English, so there is hardly a need. But anyway, I'm going on a tangent here.
So, there are players classed as "Rival-wide banned" - most of these have been banned from other Rival-powered casinos for whatever reason, and they are automatically banned when their data matches this database, so they're not allowed to deposit or even claim a promotion. We have little control over the banning parameters, but we can lift a ban on a case-by-case scenario, and we do. The way I see this is Rival gives us a heads up when a player is known to exhibit an abusive behavior. As with any human-driven decision, there is room for mistakes. This was likely the case with this particular player. Also, sometimes these bans don't happen right away. For instance, if a player signs up in our casino, claims the signup offer and plays it, and afterwards does the same on more Rival-powered casinos, he may become banned after signing up with us, but from this point on he will be banned from signing up on other Rival-powered casinos.
We do have a connection with Rival support, but that's an internal link - we can ask them for advice regarding a specific issue, usually related to configuring a promotion, or setting up a Class Act, so basically software-related issues. They don't deal with players directly.
I would like to add that we don't ban players because they try to cash out. That would definitely be grounds for one of those "worst of 2012" awards! There is, in my experience, always an explanation and it should be sought out before making assumptions.
Anyway, just adding a couple things to this thread. If there are any questions, or someone thinks I left something out, please let me know and I will do my best to give them a satisfying answer. Sorry for such a long post, I hope this sheds some light on the casino's reputation.