Resolved Tropica Casino not paying £7k

[Refilliates Casinos]

I am reading this thread over and over, trying to see the whole picture. This Dieter guy, is it this one that Bryan mentioned here?



Now, it seems like the new guy is out of the picture, Duwayne is back operating his own CM account again.

However, this is strange:



Zodiac posted this evidence:



After this was posted, Tropica decided to pay the player. And now Tropica want the emails sent to the player. I might be way out of line when I suggest that this Dieter guy sent those emails and covered his tracks.

If it is so, I hope that Tropica can be honest and tell us about it. I am not an English native speaker, I can't compare text and see if Dieter's text is the same type as the ones in the emails.

Hi,

The mails posted by Zodiac were sent via Outlook and had nothing to do with this matter.

Regards,
Duwayne

 

[Casinomeister]

The OP has forwarded me the emails, but I need the headers. @towersoft - could you please resend these with the full headers intact? Thank you.

One thing that is clouding this issue is speculation. We have about 20 some-odd pages of speculations and people guessing what is going on. That hasn't really helped in figuring out exactly what happened.

@Tropica - you haven't always been on the not recommended list - this is only a relatively recent event. When the Rival white labels were there, I had made Tropica exempt from this.

 

[Mousey]

Just in case the OP is having a problem showing Gmail headers.... Gmail doesn't seem to make it easy anymore (at least to me). Log on to the web gmail. Open up the oldest/first received of the conversation in question. (I'm not sure what you will do if you don't have your emails threaded for conversations - individual emails perhaps). Click the little down arrow on the right of the upper edge of the email, which will drop a box down. Select 'Show Original'.

 

[towersoft]

Not to sound greedy but can I just add that Tropica have agreed to pay £5k of the £7k as they say they can't see the pending withdrawals I had at the time of the account closure. I am hoping that they will allow me access to the account so I can pull the logs. I may even have a screen capture of it somewhere, not that it will prove much, Will have a dig when I get time.

 

[maphesto]

Not to sound greedy but can I just add that Tropica have agreed to pay £5k of the £7k as they say they can't see the pending withdrawals I had at the time of the account closure.

This seems very strange. Can Duwayne confirm that this is impossible?

Have you successfully been able to resend those emails btw?

 

[Borgie]

Not to sound greedy but can I just add that Tropica have agreed to pay £5k of the £7k as they say they can't see the pending withdrawals I had at the time of the account closure. I am hoping that they will allow me access to the account so I can pull the logs. I may even have a screen capture of it somewhere, not that it will prove much, Will have a dig when I get time.

They can't see the pending withdrawal!!!? - this is very worrying !! What else can't they see that may be vital ? This means money can just vanish and nobody knows

Hi,

The mails posted by Zodiac were sent via Outlook and had nothing to do with this matter.

Regards,
Duwayne

Why does it matter how they were sent ?? They could well be relevant. Who is Dieter ?? Actually as well as that - if e mails can be sent via outlook then the Casino can't keep track of what is being sent and those e mails could be deleted

From what I understand, the email records in the back end at Rival cannot be deleted. As for the chat records, I'm not sure, but I would guess that the same rules would apply.

I'm hoping that the following can or cannot be confirmed:

So the back end E mails can't be deleted but other e mails could be thus the headers are really important here

The thing is, I can hardly see them admitting to the latter paragraph if they can avoid it, it's so ridiculous.

Indeed !!!!

 

[towersoft]

This seems very strange. Can Duwayne confirm that this is impossible?

Have you successfully been able to resend those emails btw?

Having trouble forwarding them on my pad on the move so have given Bryan the log in details to the email account in question. Hopefully he will get everything he needs.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Not to sound greedy but can I just add that Tropica have agreed to pay £5k of the £7k as they say they can't see the pending withdrawals I had at the time of the account closure. I am hoping that they will allow me access to the account so I can pull the logs. I may even have a screen capture of it somewhere, not that it will prove much, Will have a dig when I get time.

Tropica can cut the BS, they promised to pay the balance, and that's what they are expected to do. If they have "lost" 2 grand somewhere "in the system" then far from being let out of the pit, the whole bunch need to go full on rogue because player's money can simply vanish in the Rival processing system.

I think this is a clumsy effort to claw back 2K because at first the rep said they couldn't access data from before the new owners took over, then they had everything at their fingertips when launching their last ditch attempt to justify the original decision, and now the payments have started, data has yet again gone missing.

The full audit trail should be there, intact, and accurate, else Rival software belongs in the pit. If they claim after all this time that it was never 7K but 5K, they will have to back this up with the original data.

If they were thinking more clearly, they would have realised it would be better to "eat" the missing 2K so that this case could finally be marked as "resolved", and thrashed it out with Rival behind the scenes afterwards.

Not having robust audit trails is simply unprofessional, and this is not how casinos should be implemented and run.

 

[Sovietsky]

They can't see pending withdrawel and they can't find the angry mail...

Everything is a mess over there at Rival and dwayne is trying to clean it up but I think in the end he will be all tangled up.

 

[towersoft]

I have found a picture that shows that I had a £6k Balance + Reversable withdrawals on the 18th of Jan. I have a few cashout confirmation mails in my inbox too. The pic is attached, have removed my address and other details. Will see what else I can do tomorrow.

 

[vinylweatherman]

That's 6K demonstrated, that already contradicts what Tropica claims, that records show only 5K. The cash-in confirmation emails should fill in the gaps if you still have them.

Somewhere on the Tropica back end, this point of time (the screenshot) has to be recorded, along with an audit trail of where the money came from, and went.

 

[towersoft]

That's 6K demonstrated, that already contradicts what Tropica claims, that records show only 5K. The cash-in confirmation emails should fill in the gaps if you still have them.

Somewhere on the Tropica back end, this point of time (the screenshot) has to be recorded, along with an audit trail of where the money came from, and went.

I have 5 cash out emails 1 for £1000 and 4 for £250 (remember thinking it was odd that the cash out limit had gone from £1000 in one chunk to £250 chunks). The 4 for £250 where after the date on the picture. It was when I submitted these cash outs that they started to mail me again. So when Dieter has looked at the account there will be £5k balance and £2k withdrawals.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I have 5 cash out emails 1 for £1000 and 4 for £250 (remember thinking it was odd that the cash out limit had gone from £1000 in one chunk to £250 chunks). The 4 for £250 where after the date on the picture. It was when I submitted these cash outs that they started to mail me again. So when Dieter has looked at the account there will be £5k balance and £2k withdrawals.

He seems to claim that only the 5K can be traced, the 5 withdrawals have simply vanished without an audit trail. This is very dodgy, and not a system that has any regard for the safekeeping of players' money. Since they claim to have a robust system, then there would have had to have been something underhand going on in order to make this other 2K simply vanish from the records. They also say that every email they send is stored, so these 5 cashout emails should be there on that record, and will allow them to see that this 2K existed.

At no point before this did they dispute the amount quoted of 7K. Only now are they saying it wasn't 7K, but 5K.

 

[maphesto]

In the report from Gambling Grumbles they are happily showing the case as closed with those 5K:

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When Dieter, one of the new owners of Tropica Casino first answered our inquiry about a complaint sent in by Philip K of the Isle of Man, we were very skeptical. We had seen this movie several times before: A casino is bought out, the new owners refuse to pay customers money they won under the old ownership, and the players have no place to turn to.

The answer that we got from Dieter was "I am waiting on Rival and the previous owner to provide me with all the data on this matter so that I can make a decision".

That was a week ago, and today we were very happily surprised when Dieter told us that that not only will he be paying Philip but will be doing so despite some serious questions he has.

"We have not been able to get the information we require from the previous owners or Rival to make a proper decision on this," Dieter said, "however do not wish to debate this matter either.

"I would like to advise you that this player is not a real player and all operators should be warned to block him from playing".

Dieter did not give a further explanation about what he means about Philip not being a "real player". We can take some guesses based on the information that Philip gave us when he made the complaint, but we are not pressing Dieter about it. After all, if a casino is willing to pay a player all of his winnings, it has the right to believe whatever it wants about him.

In this case, Philip had been trying to withdraw since January and was advised on 24 March, "Kindly note that your withdrawal has been voided and that no payment will be made after taking all factors into consideration".

He was further told:
*"We have been informed by Rival Central Risk that you have a history of abuse and multiple accounts at Rival casinos.

*"We also have an IP mismatch for your country of registration and IP country".

*"We have confirmation from Rival that you are not a genuine player. You simply play big till you win and then you cash out and move on. While we understand winning is what all players go for, it is cause for concern when we know we will not get a chance to win some of our winnings back".

Philip told us he was able to clear up the IP mismatch quickly, by showing that the same server handles "telecoms for three main areas in the UK, Jersey, Guernsey & The Isle of Man. Their operations are all run from Guernsey and as such my IP shows as Guernsey-IOM Pool when I use my ADSL, should be something similar when I use my mobile."

As far as "abuse and multiple accounts" are concerned, he said "If I have an account with a casino I am not going to use I close them, I will also always check with live chat before I open a new account to make sure I do not have an account with the casino already. I have spent lots and lots of money with Rival casinos over the years and have cashed out lots of times, never had a problem like this."

He added that "I never take deposit bonuses, I have used No Deposit bonuses in the past but have never cashed out from one of these. My style of play is exactly how it was at (this) casino, I use my own money and play reasonably high stakes and hope for the best! The only real time I use bonuses is when they are given to me by a rep."

This leaves only the last point: That the casino will not get a chance to win some of its money back. If that is what Dieter means by saying that Philip is not a real player, we have to disagree.

Admittedly, in private poker games in friends' homes it is generally considered rude to quit while ahead but I have never heard of any casino, either on-line or brick and mortar, which requires a winner to continue playing. If I walk into a casino in Las Vegas, put $1 into a slot machine and hit a $100,000 jackpot, that casino will pay me immediately. It might hope that I continue to play, but it will place no such obligation on me.

In the end, however, it does not matter if that is the reason that Tropica does not consider Philip to be a real player or not. No matter what the reason, Dieter has demonstrated that mere suspicion on Tropica's part, without any solid evidence to back it up, is not sufficient grounds to keep a player's money.

For that, which is increasingly unusual in on-line gambling, we have to give both Dieter and Tropica a big "thumbs up".

Steve Russo, where did those last 2k go?

 

[Steve Russo]

Steve Russo, where did those last 2k go?

The simple fact is that yesterday was the first time I heard about that 2K, when towersoft sent me the following e-mail:

Thanks for all your help! £2500 appeared in my Neteller account yesterday. I should get another £2500 next month. I will add however that the £2000 I had in pending withdrawal (making the £7k) has got lost it would appear. I will talk to Tropica about re-opening my account so I can get the relevant info from it to allow me to show the validity of my initial complaint. Thanks again for all your help, I will let you know how things continue

Until then, it was my understanding from both towersoft and Tropica that we were discussing £5000.

Towersoft's first request for help read as follows:

I deposited around £3200 from account opening and had withdrawn at that point about £1K. They where telling me I was on track to be a VIP and giving me some of my losses back now and again. I deposited a few more times and managed to rack up a £10k balance. The casino has a £1k a week payout limit like most Rivals so I could only put in £1K at a time so the casino paid me £2k over the next couple of weeks. Then as soon as it started to be apparent that they where going to have to pay me some of their own money This happened.

This really left unclear just how much towersoft felt he was owed. He said he had a £10k balance, but that they gave him "some of my losses back now and again" and had withdrawn £1K, and later another £2k. Between what they had paid him earlier, the £1K payment and the £2k payment I was not at all certain how much he was owed when I wrote to Tropica.

Tropica then sent an e-mail to Towersoft (and sent me a copy) which read:

I see £3,000 has been paid to you and your account has a balance of £5000. If we are entitled to a payment, it will be paid in 2 instalments of £2500 (1 per month). I will notify you of our decision once I have the data. Please be patient while we complete the process.

That was a week before Tropica approved the payments. During that time, Towersoft did not tell me that Tropica's accounting was wrong and hence I had no reason to even suspect that it might be.

 

[vinylweatherman]

The simple fact is that yesterday was the first time I heard about that 2K, when towersoft sent me the following e-mail:

Thanks for all your help! £2500 appeared in my Neteller account yesterday. I should get another £2500 next month. I will add however that the £2000 I had in pending withdrawal (making the £7k) has got lost it would appear. I will talk to Tropica about re-opening my account so I can get the relevant info from it to allow me to show the validity of my initial complaint. Thanks again for all your help, I will let you know how things continue

Until then, it was my understanding from both towersoft and Tropica that we were discussing £5000.

Towersoft's first request for help read as follows:

I deposited around £3200 from account opening and had withdrawn at that point about £1K. They where telling me I was on track to be a VIP and giving me some of my losses back now and again. I deposited a few more times and managed to rack up a £10k balance. The casino has a £1k a week payout limit like most Rivals so I could only put in £1K at a time so the casino paid me £2k over the next couple of weeks. Then as soon as it started to be apparent that they where going to have to pay me some of their own money This happened.

This really left unclear just how much towersoft felt he was owed. He said he had a £10k balance, but that they gave him "some of my losses back now and again" and had withdrawn £1K, and later another £2k. Between what they had paid him earlier, the £1K payment and the £2k payment I was not at all certain how much he was owed when I wrote to Tropica.

Tropica then sent an e-mail to Towersoft (and sent me a copy) which read:

I see £3,000 has been paid to you and your account has a balance of £5000. If we are entitled to a payment, it will be paid in 2 instalments of £2500 (1 per month). I will notify you of our decision once I have the data. Please be patient while we complete the process.

That was a week before Tropica approved the payments. During that time, Towersoft did not tell me that Tropica's accounting was wrong and hence I had no reason to even suspect that it might be.

There are some very serious issues here.

Firstly, it seems you have been sent the quote:-

We have confirmation from Rival that you are not a genuine player. You simply play big till you win and then you cash out and move on. While we understand winning is what all players go for, it is cause for concern when we know we will not get a chance to win some of our winnings back

Now, here Dieter is claiming this could never have come from them, nor Rival, and that they cannot find any trace of this email having been sent to this player. This quote is what got them added to the not recommended pit here under "CS torches up the crack pipe". If this is disputed, this should have been made clear by Dieter to Gambling Grumbles.

next, we have this:-

We have not been able to get the information we require from the previous owners or Rival

I can't stress how SERIOUS this is. It means that when there is a change of ownership at any Rival casino, no audit trail is kept of players' money during the process, so all we have is the players' screenshot and confirmation emails to go on. It also means that Rival have no means to refute the player's claim as to the amounts involved.

Given that data has disappeared, one has to wonder what other data the previous owners may have simply "walked off with", such as players' personal information, itself a valuable commodity. Since they no longer operate Tropica, NONE of the data should have gone with them, and so it is odd that the previous owners are being asked to trace the data in the first place.

Since we know that Rival does pretty much everything for the casinos, all the data should be there, and available for scrutiny should the need arise.

It seems that when white labels change hands, Rival tends to view data under the previous ownership as no longer worth keeping, so they may not necessarily have it in the event of a dispute, even one a mere couple of months after the casino changes hands. It's a setup that seems to indicate that the intent is to allow players' balances fall victim to ownership changes, and they have been caught out in this case because there is a pressing need for this data in resolving this case, and it has gone.

Since the data has gone, the rep cannot back up some of the claims he has made here. For a start, he cannot back up the claim that the offending emails did not come from Rival CS or the Tropica team prior to the change in ownership.

Lastly, it seems many bogus excuses were trotted out in order to deny payment before we started getting this "not a real player" story.

The first was an amateur attempt to make the OP look like a fraudster, and it erred in trying to portray IP geolocation as 100% accurate when matching a given IP address to a specific physical location. All they have left is this vague "not a real player" leading to them not having a fair chance of winning back their money.

Whilst they may pay the OP 5K of the disputed 7K, it does not make their shoddy record keeping of players' balances any better.

Since the OP has also made deposits of more than 3K, he cannot be classed as a "free chip hunter" either; he IS risking his own money, but chooses to play without any bonus when depositing, and using only the free bonuses the casino gives him, which is their choice.

If they are trying to suggest that never claiming deposit bonuses is "abuse", it won't fly.

In other casinos, it is viewed that "depositing only when a bonus can be taken" is "abusive", and players are often told that they should deposit their own money without an expectation of a bonus as part of "being loyal".

Given the bonus terms found in many Rivals, it is a very good idea to steer well clear of deposit bonuses with their restrictive terms and low max cashouts. In this case, how about the PLAYER having a fair chance of winning back their money, a situation that arises with deposit bonuses with restrictive max cashout terms that would prevent a losing player from having a "fair chance" of winning back what they had spent at the casino over the life of their account.

I am not even 100% certain I believe this "new ownership" story, as it seems we have some of the same people involved at Tropica under the new owners that we had under the old. Also, until this case came up, there was no mention of this ownership change, and surely a lack of data transfer about player balances would have created quite a few problems, and we would have a number of players in dispute about money and withdrawals that straddled this change.

 

[Steve Russo]

Firstly, it seems you have been sent the quote:-

We have confirmation from Rival that you are not a genuine player. You simply play big till you win and then you cash out and move on. While we understand winning is what all players go for, it is cause for concern when we know we will not get a chance to win some of our winnings back

To clarify: I was sent that quote by towersoft. He told me that he received it from Tropica.

Now, here Dieter is claiming this could never have come from them, nor Rival, and that they cannot find any trace of this email having been sent to this player. This quote is what got them added to the not recommended pit here under "CS torches up the crack pipe". If this is disputed, this should have been made clear by Dieter to Gambling Grumbles.

It was never disputed -- nor was it confirmed. My interest, as with all disputes that I handle, is to try to get an agreement between the two sides, not in throwing gasoline on a fire.

That said, I was told by Dieter that towersoft is not a "real player". I responded by telling him -- and, in addition I included in my report (as can be seen above), the following:

This leaves only the last point: That the casino will not get a chance to win some of its money back. If that is what Dieter means by saying that Philip is not a real player, we have to disagree.

Admittedly, in private poker games in friends' homes it is generally considered rude to quit while ahead but I have never heard of any casino, either on-line or brick and mortar, which requires a winner to continue playing. If I walk into a casino in Las Vegas, put $1 into a slot machine and hit a $100,000 jackpot, that casino will pay me immediately. It might hope that I continue to play, but it will place no such obligation on me.

I can't stress how SERIOUS this is. It means that when there is a change of ownership at any Rival casino, no audit trail is kept of players' money during the process, so all we have is the players' screenshot and confirmation emails to go on. It also means that Rival have no means to refute the player's claim as to the amounts involved.

You may well be right -- I have no way of knowing. Again, keep in mind what I was attempting to do -- to wit, helping a player who wrote to me with a problem. I do not claim to be an investigator who unearths all the secrets of either a casino or of the player. In fact, each dispute that I handle stands on its own -- which is why you may well see high praise from me for how a particular casino handled one dispute and a "Skull & Crossbones" icon on how it handled another one.

The only time that I put a casino into our "Hall of Shame", condemning it in general, is when it either tells me it will not discuss any player complaints or else ignores two consecutive complaints. At that point, I can see there is no point in wasting the time and effort in writing to the casino and simply publish the complaint as it comes in. I then send a link to the casino in case it decides to change its policy and enter into discussions (which has happened more than once).

 

[vinylweatherman]

To clarify: I was sent that quote by towersoft. He told me that he received it from Tropica.



It was never disputed -- nor was it confirmed. My interest, as with all disputes that I handle, is to try to get an agreement between the two sides, not in throwing gasoline on a fire.

That said, I was told by Dieter that towersoft is not a "real player". I responded by telling him -- and, in addition I included in my report (as can be seen above), the following:





You may well be right -- I have no way of knowing. Again, keep in mind what I was attempting to do -- to wit, helping a player who wrote to me with a problem. I do not claim to be an investigator who unearths all the secrets of either a casino or of the player. In fact, each dispute that I handle stands on its own -- which is why you may well see high praise from me for how a particular casino handled one dispute and a "Skull & Crossbones" icon on how it handled another one.

The only time that I put a casino into our "Hall of Shame", condemning it in general, is when it either tells me it will not discuss any player complaints or else ignores two consecutive complaints. At that point, I can see there is no point in wasting the time and effort in writing to the casino and simply publish the complaint as it comes in. I then send a link to the casino in case it decides to change its policy and enter into discussions (which has happened more than once).

What, if any, action would you take if it later emerges that a casino has lied to you when you have been trying to mediate a dispute. I know that dodgy players would probably lie in order to get paid, but I would expect something more professional from an operator.

 

[Steve Russo]

What, if any, action would you take if it later emerges that a casino has lied to you when you have been trying to mediate a dispute. I know that dodgy players would probably lie in order to get paid, but I would expect something more professional from an operator.

There are way too many variables in that question for me to even begin to answer it. The key question would be whether the lie was material to denying the player his money.

 

[maxd]

I know that dodgy players would probably lie in order to get paid, but I would expect something more professional from an operator.

Ah, such innocence, rather charming really.

Not that you asked me but in my experience operators are not much different than players: most are fairly believable, a few are habitually "creative" with the facts. The trick, of course, is knowing which is which. I have learned to believe anything that can be proven and to be extremely economical when it comes to blind trust, regardless of whether it's a player or an operator. Fewer surprises that way.

 

[Steve Russo]

Ah, such innocence, rather charming really.

Not that you asked me but in my experience operators are not much different than players: most are fairly believable, a few are habitually "creative" with the facts. The trick, of course, is knowing which is which. I have learned to believe anything that can be proven and to be extremely economical when it comes to blind trust, regardless of whether it's a player or an operator. Fewer surprises that way.

Where do I find the "Like" button for this post?

 

[chuchu59]

Steve, If you like the guy you can express it in a pm whereas if you like his post just use the Thanks button.

 

[Steve Russo]

Steve, If you like the guy you can express it in a pm whereas if you like his post just use the Thanks button.

I decided to go with the "Thanks" button. It's not that I don't like Max (I have never met him) but I figure that if I start sending him PMs telling him that I like him he may think I am trying to hit on him.

 

[dionysus]

I decided to go with the "Thanks" button. It's not that I don't like Max (I have never met him) but I figure that if I start sending him PMs telling him that I like him he may think I am trying to hit on him.

 

[Revel]

Steve, If you like the guy you can express it in a pm whereas if you like his post just use the Thanks button.

Where is the Thanks button please? I don't see it.
Perhaps because I'm not a regular visitor or poster and need to reach a certain activity level to be eligible?