gerilege - I think most countries in Europe have a 'right to refuse service' rule, as long as it is not on race or religious grounds. I don't see how opening up borders would necessarily change this. Now, restricting territories and/or the bonuses (wagering) to them may be a different story...
Rusty - I don't remember saying I consider myself to have the moral high ground - what exactly are you referring to here?
Nifty29, jod5413 and purpletin. Fair point, however Purpletin's original post stated that he did not care as to the reason he got banned, but just wanted an answer. I inferred from this (perhaps wrongly) that he would have no objection to me replying directly to his post with the reason.
Kasinoking - correct
VWM - your first post is fair and logical, however I will re-iterate that we do not close players account just because they have won.
Further, you mention that most casinos would issue a 'bonus ban' rather than closing an account. Do you consider this a better option? Also, I can assure you that have not the slighest intention of closing the casino down.
heador112 - your post should at least prove the fact that we do not close players account just because they have won.
LuckY Loser - Was going to try and find an example of a customer being banned from a supermarket for only taking up deals, but found this instead which should interest you:
Well, we have our answer to this whole affair. PL do NOT "bonus ban", they simply close the account of players who they consider to be "abusing" their promotions. In the case of heador112, I can presume AGAIN it was the "abusive" playing patterns on the first two deposits, rather than the outcome, that lead to the ban.
Most casinos just issue bonus bans, but quite a few in my experience try to LIE their way out of admitting it. I was bonus banned a while back by Roxy Palace, but they pretended it was down to my spam filters that was preventing me from getting their newsletters. In the end, I did what purpletin has done, went public. ONLY then did I get the TRUTH from them, and this was that I had been put onto their "no promotions for him" list, and it was NOTHING to do with my spam filters, or any other of the excuses I was given.
In this case, it is the same thing, CS decided not to respond at all, and ONLY when purpletin went public did he begin to find out what was going on.
When casinos lock accounts and refuse to respond, it makes the player feel they have been accused of something VERY SERIOUS, such as FRAUD. What SHOULD have happened here is the player should have been told his account was being closed. he should NOT have had to find it locked, and then engage in a fruitless battle with CS finding out why.
I beloeve it was a DELIBERATE policy of ignoring his emails that started this issue off, since all the bonuses HAVE TO BE CLAIMED, which means PL WERE GETTING HIS EMAILS all along, yet did NOT reply to ANY sent by him asking about why his account was locked.
The Tesco case is interesting, but Tesco have now paid the price, receiving a RECORD FINE here by local trading standards for even WORSE lapses than in that article. Perishable food over a MONTH out of date, customers getting ill, and the offences REPEATED after they were fined.
Had they dealt with the problem back in 2007, rather than banning the customers who didn't want to risk food poisoning every time they shopped at Tesco, they would have had the early warning that something was going very wrong in their stores. They are now in danger of losing market share because of the BAD PUBLICITY surrounding their decision to simply ban customers, rather than deal with the issues raised.
In a sense, PL are taking a similar risk in that players now know that they can be "flavour of the month" one week, and have their accounts locked the next, no explanation, no idea of what they were doing wrong, and all they can get is a "commercial in confidence" type of non-reply from the casino.
MOST gamblers DO want the chance to "get even" where they have lost, and THIS is what PL has denied some, by locking accounts of LOSING players.
NEW players may join, play, lose, and then want to come back next week in the hope their luck has changed, but find their account LOCKED instead.
Neither bonus bans or account bans are the answer. The casino should offer a LEVEL PLAYING FIELD to ALL, and IF they are losing money, should change this "playing field" for ALL players, not eject all the "lucky" or "clever" ones, and leave the "suckers" and "unlucky" behind in the hope profits will increase.
The simplest solution would be tiered offers, so that whether you got all those 100% bonuses depended on your loyalty tier, so that players who ONLY took the bonuses, and played only what was required, would not play enough to rise in tier. Failure to rise in tier would lead them to become ineligible for further bonuses UNTIL they had played some more. The players would either deposit and play more, OR they would quit, but this would not matter since the quitting players are NOT the players you want.
Currently, there is NO incentive to play for a higher loyalty tier, since EVERYONE can clock watch, and get the twice weekly 75 for 75 bonus, and the Sunday 25 for 25, and are eligible EVERY week (till their account gets locked by management
) even if they sit on the lowest loyalty tier for months on end.
I was almost on "elite" in April, but I saw no difference whatsoever between being on this status, and the lowest status some while back - the offers were the same, so no incentive at all to "play hard to reach elite" by the end of April.
I now believe I too am flirting with a locked account, since as I said before, MY play was almost always with the happy hour and newsletter bonuses, plus a couple of special offers. I am also well ahead, and even if this makes no difference, it should be obvious that I am more likely to win more, rather than lose it all back, whilst these £700 worth per month of 100% match bonuses are available to me.
I just wonder what purpletin and heador112 did with the bonuses that was different to how I played them. I was certainly FAR more successful
