Betnuvo- is it a scam

[Samski211]

Hi folks, I opened and account with Betnuvo and deposited 5k. I now have 18k in my account but when I go to withdraw it always gets rejected despite being verified. Since joining up I’ve notice several people have the same issue, and I checked if they have a Curacao licence per their T&Cs and they don’t

What are my options to get the money out? I’ve already contacted my bank Revolut who have opened an investigation, as the payments went to 5 or 6 different businesses. A rookie mistake I know

They have now blocked my account so I cannot play games or bet, but can still see my balance. Online chat says they are reviewing my play history but it seems these lot are scammers. Any advice welcome

Thanks S

 

[justdoit]

Hi folks, I opened and account with Betnuvo and deposited 5k. I now have 18k in my account but when I go to withdraw it always gets rejected despite being verified. Since joining up I’ve notice several people have the same issue, and I checked if they have a Curacao licence per their T&Cs and they don’t

What are my options to get the money out? I’ve already contacted my bank Revolut who have opened an investigation, as the payments went to 5 or 6 different businesses. A rookie mistake I know

They have now blocked my account so I cannot play games or bet, but can still see my balance. Online chat says they are reviewing my play history but it seems these lot are scammers. Any advice welcome

Thanks S

stop playing on scam casinos,

 

[maxd]

... What are my options to get the money out?

"Options"? Something between slim and none I'm afraid. The obviously don't have a license -- as you say, the Curaçao claims are BS -- and that means they are basically a pirate operation, well beyond the laws and regulation of any country. In other words they can do whatever they like with no one to tell them otherwise.

In situations like this you basically have two choices: appeal to their good will OR try to shame them into paying you. Unfortunately rogue operations like this are often rather short on good will AND they tend to be remarkably shame-resistant. Good luck there.

I’ve already contacted my bank Revolut ...

There's another problem because Revolut is

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:

We've seen recent cases where there is no protection for players: rogue casinos can place charges against the players Revolut account without authorisation and Revolut won't do a thing about it.

I'm afraid the moral of this story is use a proper bank and don't play at casinos that lack proper licensing.

Regards,
Max Drayman
Head of Dispute Arbitration & Player Complaints (PABs)

 

[jasonuk]

I'm guessing there's a self-exclusion involved, given the casino in question prides itself on being highly rated on a UK-focused site targeting people on self exclusion programs.

The site lists no license... no address... no evidence of a jurisdiction - just a couple of fleeting references to Curacao in their T&Cs (which is a common trick of sites that have moved to Costa Rica or similar). Which is a mammoth red flag that you shouldn't be going anywhere near it...

Your primary avenue for chargeback is probably going to be abuse of merchant codes - which is a breach of the VISA or Mastercard merchant terms.

As @maxd has already highlighted, Revolut are not a bank in the UK. They appear to have a somewhat tenuous Lithuanian banking license for the EEA, and they've been hinting at getting a UK license for many years now - yet their application has been stalled for three years at this point. By contrast, many of their direct competitors in the UK are regulated as UK banks.

While they are still regulated by the FCA, it is under the much weaker "e-money institution" designation. This does offer a right of complaint to the Financial Ombudsman (FOS) however the scope of the ruling will be limited.

Unfortunately, prior rulings* are not on your side here - the FOS have frequently declined disputes with actual banks over miscoded gambling transactions, and there was an eye-watering

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were someone was scammed by a binary trading website already on the FCA warning list... Revolut sat on it for a month, incorrectly rejected it, thus didn't join the dots that the scammers were using a third-party payment processor as a front and since the customer was unaware of their obligations under the VISA chargeback scheme, the clock expired. Incredibly, the FOS still found in favour of Revolut!

I would echo his warning and further suggest replacing affected cards for security purposes - if they decide to place further unauthorised charges on your account, it sounds like you will be the one fighting the uphill battle to get your money returned.

Unfortunately, it's going to be an expensive lesson I'm afraid...

--
(* as an aside, some interesting FOS rulings in this space, might be worthy of another thread in the near future).

 

[justdoit]

"Options"? Something between slim and none I'm afraid. The obviously don't have a license -- as you say, the Curaçao claims are BS -- and that means they are basically a pirate operation, well beyond the laws and regulation of any country. In other words they can do whatever they like with no one to tell them otherwise.

In situations like this you basically have two choices: appeal to their good will OR try to shame them into paying you. Unfortunately rogue operations like this are often rather short on good will AND they tend to be remarkably shame-resistant. Good luck there.


There's another problem because Revolut is

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

:
View attachment 198910
We've seen recent cases where there is no protection for players: rogue casinos can place charges against the players Revolut account without authorisation and Revolut won't do a thing about it.

I'm afraid the moral of this story is use a proper bank and don't play at casinos that lack proper licensing.

Regards,
Max Drayman
Head of Dispute Arbitration & Player Complaints (PABs)

 

[jasonuk]

An overdue step in the right direction - it could take another year for them to be fully up and running as a bank (the "mobilisation" phase) and will continue to use the e-money institution license in the interim, although it's unclear what the license restrictions are at this point.

Given some of the previous concerns included alleged infractions involving the National Crime Agency, they could be treading on eggshells for a while longer.

Sadly doesn't help the OP, as those transactions are likely to be held against the old standard.