Withdrawn: 123Bingo Online: dodgy practices and mishandled winnings.

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[withdrawn]The problems at 123Bingo -- originally 123bingo.com, since moved to 123bingoonline.com -- came to our attention when a player complained that withdrawals on a $4500 balance had stopped and the site was claiming the player had been paid in full.

We investigated and learned that that the bulk of the winnings had been earned at BigRoomy.com which 123Bingo had taken over. Initially the player's balance was transferred over to 123Bingo from BigRoomy without problems. When the player went to withdraw 123Bingo started giving bogus reasons why the balance was not valid. Then they locked the account (briefly). Then the balance disappeared.

At first 123Bingo said that clearly the player had used "advantage techniques" and was thus disqualified from the winnings. We asked for details and pointed out that advantage play is not fraud.

Then 123Bingo claimed the winnings had been earned on "complimentary promotion" bonuses so there was a cap on withdrawals, which they had already paid. The player denied this and said that (a) the winnings had not been on bonuses and (b) there were no such "max WD" terms in place at BigRoomy when they played and won.

123Bingo then claimed they had no record of what had happened at BigRoomy because "the back-end was lost ... no player records survive". How then could they say the winnings were derived from free bonuses? No response, other than to say "it was gift money". I asked why the balance had been transferred and was accessible after the takeover of BigRoomy was complete if it was not a valid balance.
"We have no records" they said again.
"But you have enough information to know the winnings occurred during bonus play?", I asked.
"Yes."
"And there were Max WD terms in effect?"
"Yes," they said.
"Show me", I said.
"Can't, no records", they said.

At this point I made it clear that without something to verify their claims against the player they had no grounds to withhold the winnings.
"We'll get back to you," they said, and that was the last we heard from them.

WARNING: 123Bingo Online is confiscating player winnings without justification. Customer Service makes claims they cannot substantiate and uses excuses that boil down to "the dog ate my homework". Players are advised to avoid 123Bingo Online.[/withdrawn]

 

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123Bingo has since produced records that more or less support their original claims. Their position would be that this exonerates them and that this Warning should be removed. I disagree: the Warning alerts players to "dodgy practices" and "mishandled winnings" and from what I've seen in this and previous experiences with 123Bingo I'd say that pretty much sums it up. See 123Bingo: no pay, endless stalling from CS in the Withdrawn section for some backstory.

Based on what they finally managed to cough up in their defence it's clear that at the very least they were BS'ing their way through the PAB proceedings. For example, when they wanted them the mysterious "lost records" suddenly reappeared and in more than sufficient detail. Furthermore they don't seem to have been interested enough to bother doing anything until this Warning was posted. Exactly the same was true with that previous Warning. From where I stand insofar as player issues go this much is clear: something is seriously wrong with the way 123Bingo is managed and player issues are handled. Some, if not all, of the charges we've made against them are obviously true and they have themselves to thank for the confusion.

 

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FWIW the problems with 123Bingo seem to be ongoing. Other cases including PABs keep popping up, most concerning slo-pay/no-pay situations. As before, Players are advised to avoid 123Bingo.

 

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As many of you know Virtual / Ace Revenue are making a bid to be removed from the Rogue Pit: see On Probation: The Virtual Casino Group and Ace Revenue.

As part of this they've asked for the details of old, unresolved issues to be forwarded to them, including those pertaining to 123Bingo. As I see it there are two 123Bingo issues that failed to make it through the PAB process and those have been forwarded to Tawni at her request.

The OP in the 29 January 2013 issue did report some months later that the issue had been resolved.