A question on charge back

[virtualted]

Would like to know the players opinion on this issue. If a player deposits using an E-wallet option like Firepay or ACH, and wins from that deposit, but in the few days before they are paid by the casino, that charge comes back as invalid or Non Sufficent Funds, and the player contacts the casino to make good on the charge back is the casino obligated to pay the customer the win. In other words the player technically was playing with the casinos money, because they did not have it at the time of deposit, when they did win. Again we are talking more about a new customer and not one who you have a long history with, who might have the chargebacks every month, but always makes good on them.
Looking for all different types of input.
Thanks
Ted

 

[mitch]

Would like to know the players opinion on this issue. If a player deposits using an E-wallet option like Firepay or ACH, and wins from that deposit, but in the few days before they are paid by the casino, that charge comes back as invalid or Non Sufficent Funds, and the player contacts the casino to make good on the charge back is the casino obligated to pay the customer the win. In other words the player technically was playing with the casinos money, because they did not have it at the time of deposit, when they did win. Again we are talking more about a new customer and not one who you have a long history with, who might have the chargebacks every month, but always makes good on them.
Looking for all different types of input.
Thanks
Ted

Ted

I don't like saying this, but any Casino that doesn't take a very tough line on this sort of behaviour is eventually going to take a hammering.

There are enough 'cheaters' out there that if it ever became known you could do this and cash out your winnings with little trouble these 'problem players' would be all over the casino like a swarm of locusts. I am afraid the number of 'cheaters' would far outnumber the unfortunate innocent ones.

Mitch

 

[Vesuvio]

Well, Ted, I can't help thinking you're just trying to find yet another reason not to pay one of your players. Yes, ok, if there's evidence of mass fraud then you might need to take a hard line, but I'm guessing it's simply a case of a player making a mistake. Somehow I imagine that if he'd lost you'd have made every possible effort to claim the funds, and though I don't know much about these e-wallet options I imagine you'd have succeeded.

I know I'm taking a cynical attitude, but if you're honest I'm sure you'll agree it's not inappropriate given the history of your casinos.

 

[virtualted]

Yes, a bit cynical, but still appreciated. Remember if I was really looking to not pay the player, I would not have come here. The reason for my question was that in a case at the casino, the player used a bad phone number and name and e-mail address and will not be paid, because it was all fraudulent. I am talking about a player basically playing with an unauthorised marker or cash advance. Should they be entitled to a win from it if they make the unauthorised charges good, at a later date?

 

[slotchik]

you dont know if his intentions were good or bad though. He might have made a mistake. If he made good on it, regardless, you should pay him. In a land based casino, if you win and then your marker comes back NSF, they don't ask you for your winnings back. They just ask that you make good on the marker and then never extend you credit again. It's their decision. Since your casino used a third party, isn't it that parties problem? Meaning, isn't firepay responsible for taking the hit and leaving the casino without responsibility? I thought that's how they were working now.

 

[quber]

Hi Ted,

Personally i would say to pay him, main reason is he will think you are a fair casino and will be happy to play there again in the future, with all the rogue casinos around one that shows good faith will always get a customer returning.

just keep an eye on him for his next couple of deposits.

 

[nafanny29]

Yes, a bit cynical, but still appreciated. Remember if I was really looking to not pay the player, I would not have come here. The reason for my question was that in a case at the casino, the player used a bad phone number and name and e-mail address and will not be paid, because it was all fraudulent. I am talking about a player basically playing with an unauthorised marker or cash advance. Should they be entitled to a win from it if they make the unauthorised charges good, at a later date?

If a player used a bad phone number, NAME and email address then of course your not gonna pay him, I doubt any online casino would.

The original bit about a genuine player making a deposit by e-wallet (Whatever that is), winning and then the deposit being charged back.

1. If the player charged back then I wouldsay the casino has every right to close the account and forfeit the whole balance.

2. If the "E-Wallet" company charged back through insufficient funds this would be less clear cut IMHO. If it was a regular player then I would be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt once. If it was a new player, proberly not.

Anyway if "E-Wallet" authorised the payment to the casino dont they check that there are sufficient funds and earmark them If they dont then maybe with new players you dont let them use the funds deposited until they are beyond chargeback for lack of funds.

 

[spearmaster]

You need to find out whether the reason was NSF or was a mistake by the processor.

If it came back NSF, you should not be obligated to pay. Using any other reasoning, that would allow me to bounce a check of say $10K with you, beat the hell out of you and then offer to make good because I didn't know the check was going to bounce.

Can't allow that.

 

[Freudian]

Judgement call. If it's pretty clear this is a fraudulent player then you can probably get away with not paying him. But until that is shown, I would say you have a responsibility to pay him. You don't have to do it at once of course. Take your time to look into the circumstances.

Casinos have my full support for fighting player fraud. It is as bad as casinos defrauding players.

 

[Agamemnon]

If it came back NSF, you should not be obligated to pay. Using any other reasoning, that would allow me to bounce a check of say $10K with you, beat the hell out of you and then offer to make good because I didn't know the check was going to bounce.

Respectfully Spearmaster I disagree,
The operative phrase here is "bounce a check". Accepting a check practically means extending credit since one is in effect accepting private money. Casinos either should not accept checks-i.e. extend credit- or should avail themselves of whatever legal redress after the fact. Either way the funds in question, the winnings, are beyond the initial transaction.
The fact that there is an electronic character to this whole issue is what seems to complicate the issue for most people: Had the player in question been in a land based casino and after having cashing in his chips the casino found that the check bounced, he would not have anyone try to grab the funds from him.
Legal proceedings could take place by the casino BUT strictly regarding the earlier transaction. Under no circumstances would it affect the resulting funds.
The difference here is that the internet casino holds in trust the funds for the player. In effect it holds your wallet. It should not pick it.
Incidentally this is my professional opinion legally. I am certain this would hold up in most common law jurisdictions.
This is not of course to say that it affects operators currently or that it would be applicable under their licences.

Notwithstanding the above however, I echo the sentiments of all involved in understanding that internet fraud is a problem.
No credit means no such problems.
If the charge doesn't come through don't let them play.
Players are - rightfully- subjected to scrutiny when withdrawals are made.
Deposits are made in about 2 minutes flat.
Why?
Casinos should excercise appropriate due dilligence in both occassions.
The solution in conclusion therefore lies in making sure that the proverbial (and actual) money is in the Bank before going for the wallet.

That's my 2 cents Anyway.

 

[casino employee]

Remember, Virtual Ted is referring less to checks and more to Firepay/Citadel. It can take up to 9 days from the time of the deposit for those services to cover the deposits.

I would say that as long as the unpaid deposit is NSF and not an actual charge-back (disputed charge), the player should be released his winnings upon paying his deposit.

I know some here were saying that paying such a player is tantamount to encouraging online fraud for those who don't pay, but keep in mind that unpaid debts do hit players' credit reports - and since Firepay/Citadel are only available to American players, that stick is certainly an effective one.

We can't judge the player's "real" intentions to pay from the NSF itself, but the deterrent effect that damaging remarks on his credit report will have should sway casinos to be forgiving with those players who do pay their bills to keep their winnings.

 

[spearmaster]

Had the player in question been in a land based casino and after having cashing in his chips the casino found that the check bounced, he would not have anyone try to grab the funds from him.

Legal proceedings could take place by the casino BUT strictly regarding the earlier transaction. Under no circumstances would it affect the resulting funds.

There's only one problem with this scenario. Land-based casinos do not accept checks. A third-party processor accepts the liability and extends the credit to the player, NOT the casino.

Under this scenario, the third-party processor would automatically be responsible for paying the casino - and the issue would not arise in the first place.

However, in the online scenario, the third-party processor does NOT accept responsibility for NSF as far as I know. This means that the casino is left holding the bag because the processor did not pay the funds.

Now whose fault is it?

One can hardly blame the casino for being upset in such circumstances. And one can't fault the third-party processor for not taking on the liability.

The player bears the onus of making sure that funds are available to cover the cost of his transaction. He is the only one who can take any blame in the situation.

Furthermore, the last thing any operator or portal operator wants is to see a player playing down to the last of his money - whether or not this is true is debatable but an NSF is a damn good sign that the person is not responsible with his money (trust me, been there done that).

I therefore submit (and NOT from a legal standpoint, but a very practical one nevertheless) that if the transaction is NSF all play is void.

I know some here were saying that paying such a player is tantamount to encouraging online fraud for those who don't pay, but keep in mind that unpaid debts do hit players' credit reports - and since Firepay/Citadel are only available to American players, that stick is certainly an effective one.

We can't judge the player's "real" intentions to pay from the NSF itself, but the deterrent effect that damaging remarks on his credit report will have should sway casinos to be forgiving with those players who do pay their bills to keep their winnings.

CE, this in my opinion is completely irrelevant. The casino does not, and should not, care whether the player's credit reports are affected or not. It should care only about being paid what it was entitled to.

Intentions are also not the problem here - I could have the best intentions of depositing $10K and only had about $9K in the bank because of a transaction which I somehow overlooked (been there, done that too) - but if the payment does not go through I should accept responsibility for my own actions and not expect the casino to allow me to do a make-good.

All "emotions" and "biases" need to be kept out of making decisions like this - there has to be a very clear-cut line and the simple fact of the matter is that an NSF means the inability to honor a debt/transaction - under which said transaction should be null and void.

 

[virtualted]

I want to really thank all of you who are participating here; the feedback for me is awesome. I hope everyone is starting to see it is just not cut and dry on the casino side.
For a little more insight, as casino employee said, Citadel and Firepay take about a week till the casino is notified, and Credit Cards can take up to 6 months. So at times when players are saying a casino is slow paying, there are sometimes reasons. Do not get me wrong Neteller is great and chargebacks are rare from them, but in my case Neteller is only about 40% of the deposits in my casino.
Also one other thing, I think we are all pretty much in unison on an actual Chargeback, but what I was looking even more for was what Spearmaster was referring to, You make a deposit through like ACH, knowing there are not any funds available, but that the charge will not hit your account for a few days. If you win off, in what are in essence fronted funds, should you get your win? Also these scenarios are not isolated incidents they happen a FEW times every day.
Slotchick, last time I took a marker in Vegas, and won, they made me pay the marker back before leaving.
Im the states when I worked retail, if someone wanted a refund (withdrawal) of a purchase,(deposit) and had paid with credit or check, we would make the customer wait till the purchase had cleared.

 

[Vesuvio]

Just out of curiosity - if you have this situation (no funds available) and the player loses his deposit, do you usually get these funds anyway? If you do then it suggests there's generally no foul play involved and you should be willing to pay up if the player wins - if you don't, then I can see you may have a point.

 

[virtualted]

Depends on the player and what the situation is. On citadel ACH and firepay, when it is a customer who has not made many deposits, like lets say 10 or less, I would say the retrieval rate is less than 5%. On current depositing players, it is close to 100% recovery. I have a customer that we just received notice of a 15,000 Firepay charge back, which I am not worried about at all, because I know the player, and know that it was an oversight on his part.
Last week real scenerio happened, 4 players overnight from Germany, with IP address in France, each deposited a few thousand $ on Credit cards with in a few hours of each other. Each one played nothing but roulette at $100.00 per number. Thee players lost, and the fourth won, and wanted to be paid by neteller the same day because he took no bonus. After some immense digging on our part we found that these players were all linked and not only had the first three all ready charged back, the won who won also had.

 

[slotchik]

Remember, Virtual Ted is referring less to checks and more to Firepay/Citadel. It can take up to 9 days from the time of the deposit for those services to cover the deposits.

I would say that as long as the unpaid deposit is NSF and not an actual charge-back (disputed charge), the player should be released his winnings upon paying his deposit.

I know some here were saying that paying such a player is tantamount to encouraging online fraud for those who don't pay, but keep in mind that unpaid debts do hit players' credit reports - and since Firepay/Citadel are only available to American players, that stick is certainly an effective one.

We can't judge the player's "real" intentions to pay from the NSF itself, but the deterrent effect that damaging remarks on his credit report will have should sway casinos to be forgiving with those players who do pay their bills to keep their winnings.

Not True. They only hit your credit report if you lose a judgement and after they take you court and sue...
They can't just put it on your credit report like an unpaid credit card.

 

[slotchik]

Depends on the player and what the situation is. On citadel ACH and firepay, when it is a customer who has not made many deposits, like lets say 10 or less, I would say the retrieval rate is less than 5%. On current depositing players, it is close to 100% recovery. I have a customer that we just received notice of a 15,000 Firepay charge back, which I am not worried about at all, because I know the player, and know that it was an oversight on his part.
Last week real scenerio happened, 4 players overnight from Germany, with IP address in France, each deposited a few thousand $ on Credit cards with in a few hours of each other. Each one played nothing but roulette at $100.00 per number. Thee players lost, and the fourth won, and wanted to be paid by neteller the same day because he took no bonus. After some immense digging on our part we found that these players were all linked and not only had the first three all ready charged back, the won who won also had.

I still thought it was the responsibility of Netteller, firepay, prepaid atm, etc to incur these losses and not the casino. Isn't that true? Shouldnt the processors go after these people?

 

[virtualted]

Actually these third party processors do not even attempt to collect in most cases. I was speaking with one, and asked them is the customer notified if a check is returned from the bank? There answer was "of course, you are our customer and we withdraw it from your balance with us plus the fees, It is your responsibility (casino) to collect all debts. Most of the others work the same way, we were just hit for charges from a processor from charges made 9 months ago, that they said were returned. Think about getting a call from a casino where you play all the time and they say," hey remember that charge 8 months ago? It was returned to us unpaid. I know you have deposited 5,000 since than, but can you fix this 100 charge." Needless to say as the casino we just wrote all of those charges off.
It is not just scooping up buckets of money on this side of the line.
Ted

 

[Agamemnon]

Interesting discussion.
VirtualTed, it is interesting to get the view from "the other side" as it were.
Also, I fully agree with the fact that policies must be in place to deal with what are basically crooks.
It goes without saying that chargebacks are inherently contemptible.
As for Spearmaster's concern, while I respect his reasoning and understand his view that something must be done I disagree that voiding play is acceptable behaviour.
You are thinking fraud on the player's behalf, I'm thinking simple oversight as in VirualTed's example. Also I believe that liability for these transactions lies -as things currently stand- with the Casino.
Might I propose a simple solution?

Whouldn't this whole point be moot if the casino simply forewarned players in it's T&C?
"An NSF will result in disabling of account and all winnings will be forfeit" .
Simple, straight and it assigns liability while allowing the casino necessary discretion to deal with well intentioned players.

Final ethical point to all out there that I'd appreciate some feedback:
Aren't these check payoptions already too much? Spearmaster raised the issue of responsible money management. I'm not sure that most of these pay options are inherently marketed towards responsible players.
I know that it works for quite a few people out there, but it seems that for every individual that finds it honestly convenient there must be two or three that are scraping "the bottom of the barrel".
Whenever I see these as well as the 900pay system I get nervous.
I'm not insinuating that there's something inherently wrong, it all just seems to much like credit on credit.
VirtualTed: Do your more responsible clients choose these options as often as bank transfers or debit/credit cards, Neteller?
Just out of curiosity.

 

[slotchik]

Actually these third party processors do not even attempt to collect in most cases. I was speaking with one, and asked them is the customer notified if a check is returned from the bank? There answer was "of course, you are our customer and we withdraw it from your balance with us plus the fees, It is your responsibility (casino) to collect all debts. Most of the others work the same way, we were just hit for charges from a processor from charges made 9 months ago, that they said were returned. Think about getting a call from a casino where you play all the time and they say," hey remember that charge 8 months ago? It was returned to us unpaid. I know you have deposited 5,000 since than, but can you fix this 100 charge." Needless to say as the casino we just wrote all of those charges off.
It is not just scooping up buckets of money on this side of the line.
Ted

Are you serious??? I thought that the reason Neteller, Prepaid Atm, and firepay extend this service, is so that you are not responsible for the charges. I thought they take full responsibility for chargebacks???/
Which service doesnt collect the money Ted??

This is what it says on Firepay, for example:
Offer FirePay
Offering FirePay as an alternative online payment method gives merchants access to over 600,000 active FirePay Personal Account holders (many of whom have funds available to spend online). We manage the risk on behalf of all merchants, which substantially reduces the exposure to electronic check deposits that do not clear the banking network. FirePay enables merchants to accept transfers faster. When you accept FirePay, you also benefit from 24/7 merchant technical support as well as customer service to support consumers.

 

[spearmaster]

You are thinking fraud on the player's behalf, I'm thinking simple oversight as in VirualTed's example.

Perhaps I gave the wrong impression. I did fully intend to say the doors would be wide open for people to take advantage.

Again - this is not a matter of perception or bias - it's a line that must be drawn so that perception or bias does not come into play - therefore removing judgement calls.

But what I am talking about here is NSF - fraud or no fraud, it's still NSF. Banks don't distinguish between a deliberately bounced check and an accidentally bounced one - and payment processors do not make this distinction either.

The ONLY exception I would make is if the player actually did have the funds in account but the processor erroneously returned NSF. In which case, it is the processor's responsibility to either cover this error with the casino operator, or else be subject to possible liability for lost income.

 

[jmildstone]

IMO its very irresponsible to process a credit card, with wrong information.

Many times it is your processor that is making up the charge backs and keeping the money (Fire Pay is known by pulling this tactic), that is why cc information must be complete and accurate