That's one instance of this term in use.
The opening tale was:-
I made $80 Neteller deposit to Manhattan Slots and got $28 Play Bonus. I managed to get my balance up to $1200 after fulfilling wagering requirements. They state in their website to process withdrawals by the next working day. However, it took 8 days and several emails them to process it. I can't find anywhere from their website that they have withdrawal fees. But they had taken $104 withdrawal fee. Their email support completely ignores my emails, I got the information of the withdrawal fee from their CM representative.
In short, an $80 deposit and $28 bonus. Player won from this offer, and withdrew $1200. The charge was $104. This was more than the DEPOSIT, but as the tale unfolded, it became clear that the charge included a considerable RETROSPECTIVE component because the player had made many such similar "plays" on the account.
Here is the contribution from the rep explaining why the fee was charged.
Hi Guys,
We do not pass any processing costs on to players apart from in situations covered by point 18 of our terms of use:
18. In cases where players are participating in strategies or patterns of play that CWCUSD in its sole discretion deems to be abusive we reserve the right, prior to closing the account, to deduct any processing costs associated with the account from the value of the final payment. You will be notified in advance of any deductions of this nature being made.
The OP has successfully cashed out many thousands of dollars in profit, and so I am surprised that he is so averse to contributing $104 towards the processing costs. Regards
Tom
The justification appears to be that the player has won "thousands", so should not moan at being made to contribute $104 to cover all these earlier withdrawals from the one in question.
The suggestion is also that he won this money "abusively", yet this seems to have been nothing more than simply taking the bonuses offered on the website, and a reply the OP managed to get from CS makes it clear that all accounts they have with CWC were assessed for this charge, and that the profit was the overall lifetime position averaged over all the casinos.
No explanation was ever given for why it is "abuse" to take up what you are offered by way of bonuses. That thread also links to other threads detailing instances where players have had sums deducted under this rule from a final withdrawal, but assessed retrospectively on past deposits.
There is nothing to suggest that play broke any specific rule, but the clear impression given was that taking every single bonus offered is "not in the spirit" of the promotional program, which may be why this "abusive strategy" term was applied to players who consistently took EVERY bonus, and played them in a well disciplined manner.
CWC can easily block "abusive" accounts from receiving any more bonuses, so they made the choice to allow the players to repeatedly redeem bonuses, and the FIRST action they took was to assess a charge on their final withdrawal, rather than to say "enough is enough", and cut the player off from further bonuses BEFORE it got anywhere near the stage of having to retrospectively charge processing fees.
I went ahead at Club World, and got bonus banned, but I was NEVER charged under this rule for past deposits. I got paid, and then no more bonuses. I can't see why this was not done in these cases, the PR damage of " I got bonus banned for winning $8000 off them" is nothing compared to the PR damage of retrospective application of charges using a vague term about "patterns deemed to be abusive".
The impression given is one of play being deemed "abusive" simply because it results in an overall win for the player, and would NOT be considered "abusive" were the player to have LOST with the same pattern of play. The other suggestion is that players are not allowed to play at all the CWC properties, yet there is NOTHING in the terms about this.