Aspers – Account unlocked early causing massive losses
Ruling
Resolved - Aspers Casino have acknowledged that there was an issue with the way this situation was managed and the player has been refunded.
Read our Aspers Casino Review.
Player's Complaint
Hi,
I guess I'm clutching at straws here but I have no where else to turn to. I saw a post submitted on here after googling my question, it closely relates to my case and I am seriously impressed with what you people do, Bravo.
Without going in to detail (as per your terms and conditions) but something happened last week that tempted me to start drinking silly amounts of whiskey after finishing each gruelling 12 hour labour night shift.
After searching for a while and talking to MANY live chats regarding unlocking with my account with them I'd had no luck. Remembered about aspers.com and launched a live chat with them...
I have the full transcript in my emails as theses are sent automatically after each session. But here's my problem: I was drunk at the time as mentioned earlier and REALLY wanted to gamble. I asked them If I could unlock my account. The operator asked me to confirm some details for security purposes, followed by one simple question that was "Just to confirm, you want me to remove the time-out on your account" to which, obviously, I said Yes. That was it, no other questions were asked. I was shocked at how easy it was, the whole chat session was 15 messages long including hello, goodbyes, thank yous, etc.
Here's my least favourite part. I took out a payday loan to gamble with as I had no money at the time. Visited a site I had used quite a while ago for personal reasons and they offered me £850 to which was added to my bank account a minute later then deposited into Aspers.com. This deposit lasted minutes, for some reason I played Live Blackjack with it (I NEVER play Blackjack, just slots)
I was pretty annoyed at this point at the sheer time it took for me to unlock my account, take out a loan and then lose that money, literally under 15 minutes I'd say. I visited another payday loan website, this time of £500 from a different lender. Deposited it to Aspers.com and lost it in minutes, again on Live Blackjack. Since then I've made some smaller deposits from my wage and my total deposits since unlocking my account now stand at £1830. I don't think I've ever lost that much in my life, never mind in an hour.
I had a stupid mentality and decided other casinos might have more luck for me, I searched my brain for other accounts and found that my SkyVegas account had been unlocked automatically after a 6-week time-out. Essentially, I took out further loans, deposited and lost VERY quickly, again on Live Blackjack. On this site alone I'd lost £2200! But I couldn't be angry at SkyVegas as they had done nothing wrong. I even had a call from them today because they were concerned for me after realising my deposits were nothing like my usual deposits and the sheer time it took me to lose a huge amount of money worried them. I told him what had happened and he decided to but a 6-month self-exclusion on my account for my safety.
I wasn't angry at SkyVegas, I was audibly screaming at 8am because Aspers had let me unlock my account from a 6-week timeout SO EASILY, without even question, without any concern. What is the point of a timeout if it offers ZERO force. I didn't want to close my account with them for 6 months and I knew I would be back to my usual, happy and safe gambling mentality pretty quickly so I opted for the 6 weeks option. Why offer and fool us into thinking our account can be closed for 6 weeks? When it seriously isn't!
What happened at Aspers made me look for other places to gamble and incur a much further loss.
My total loss for that few brief hours was a little over £4,000, all payday loans. It actually made me cry. I have NEVER deposited over £100 a week or so, even then that was rare.
I seriously do apologize for how long this submission is but I read all of your terms and conditions and knew you want us to "Be honest" and "Fill us in as many details as you can"
I know I am at fault for what happened. But I cannot help thinking that none of this would have happened if Aspers would have declined my request to reopen my account or even tried to deter me from doing so, that would have showed me that someone cared, but they didn't.
This all happened a couple of days ago now. I can't thank you enough for even reading this if you have. Seriously, thank you. This is the first time I've spoken or I guess "posted" about it since.
Thanks in advance for any replies, help or solutions anyone comes up with, it's appreciated more than you think.
14 Responses
Hi there, I can't thank you enough! I have emailed the transcript for you to look at.
I completely understand that there is nothing to do with Sky Vegas, I knew they had done nothing wrong and I would expect them to do anything about it. I also appreciate what you said about the loans, that's on my head.
Thank you so much for replying to this, you're amazing people.
Hi Pilkyy,
Thanks for your email. This issue is going to require having a discussion with various 3rd parties about the technicalities of the system, so you need to be aware that it could take some time before I'm able to offer you a full response.
ThePOGG
Hi ThePOGG,
Thank you for the update, I will be patient.
Hi Pilkyy,
I've spoken to Aspers Casino about this issue and my current understanding is that they intend to reach out to discuss this issue with you shortly. I would appreciate it if you could confirm when they do.
Thanks,
ThePOGG
Hi there, thank you for the update, they haven't reached out to me yet but I will let you know. Thank you!
Hi ThePOGG. I received an email yesterday from Aspers casino, I'd love to discus what they said with you if at all possible.
Could I forward the email to your complaints email address or should I discuss it openly on this thread?
Thanks again for everything, I'm gobsmacked.
Hi Pilkyy,
Please forward it to the complaints email address and I'll take a look.
Thanks,
ThePOGG
Hi ThePOGG, I've forwarded the email to you.
Thanks
Hi Pilkyy,
I'm having another conversation with Aspers. Please do not respond to that offer at the present time.
Thanks,
ThePOGG
Hi Pilkyy,
My understanding is that Aspers should have contacted you a few days ago with a revised offer. Could you please confirm receipt and if you are happy with the offer let Aspers casino know?
Thanks,
ThePOGG
Hi Pilkyy,
I'm following-up on the above?
Thanks,
ThePOGG
Hi ThePOGG,
Sorry for the late reply.
Yes, Aspers Casino have been in contact with me and have offered the full claim amount of £1830 as a settlement which I am happy with.
They have since sent me the amount and all is well. This will help massively with the loans I dropped myself into but will not cover them all unfortunately.
I did want to double check that you believe there is nothing that can be done about the large amount I lost with SkyVegas? If anything can be done about this I feel I would be obliged to offer you ThePOGG a sum of £400 for the work done in recovery of these funds.
I completely understand that you may believe there is nothing that can be done at SkyVegas but looking at my account there I have lost many thousands there with no bonus offer or anything. One thing I would like to add to that case is that although SkyVegas did call me to ask what the recent very unusual and high deposits where, I believe if I would have had a call at the time of the deposit than this huge loss could have been avoided. As they self-excluded my account to protect me only AFTER the very unusual deposits and losses.
Again, I understand if you believe nothing can be done but if you can, I would like to send £400 as a huge thank you. Recovering these losses too would just about cover all of my loan debts caused by this.
Also, for the work done recovering losses at Aspers I would like to send £100 by any means to yourselves as a thank you on my behalf, I understand you work completely fee-free but I feel it's only right for me to thank you this way as you don't understand how much you have helped me. £100 doesn't sound like a lot considering the recovery but this is all I can afford as the rest of the money has been used to pay off debt.
Please get back to me about the case at SkyVegas if you feel there could be a slight chance of a case, if all goes well then, like I said, there's a £400 thank you from me.
I hope you accept my offer of just £100 for the work done at Aspers, please guide me on how to forward this sum to yourselves.
Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for going out of your way to deal with this for me. I hope understand what good you are doing, you're all unsung heroes
Thank you.
[EDIT]
Hi Pilky,
Firstly, regarding your kind offer - while I personally appreciate it, the money will make a far bigger difference to you than it will us. While we are far from the biggest group within the gambling industry, we do reasonably well for ourselves. Offering the free complaints service, and more recently with the addition of BetBlocker, we position ourselves to directly give something back to the community that supports and sustains us. Helping players like you recover money makes this site morally worthy and more than 'just another site advertising gambling'. So consider the service a thank you to yourself and other players and put the extra money towards paying back those loans!
With regard to Sky Vegas, I genuinely don't think there's a case here. This hinges on the length of closure you requested. A 6 week 'Time Out' will expire automatically at the end of the 6 week period. This differs from a Self-Exclusion which starts at a minimum of 6 months, where the exclusion has to be extended at the end of the period unless the player takes 'positive action' to re-open their account after the exclusion period and even then requires a 24 hour cooling off period before the account can be re-opened. So, to summarise, as long as the 6 week period had passed there's no reason that your account would not have been accessible.
Further to this, as you said yourself, this all happened in a very short space of time. Operators are required to monitor player behaviour patterns for indications of problems, but this is not expected to happen in real time. They are allowed a reasonable time period to review and assess before taking action. If you'd won while playing you would have expected to be paid your winnings, so losses cannot be voided on this ground and the operator appears to have taken the appropriate action at the appropriate time.
Sorry we cannot be of more help on this front!
ThePOGG
Hi Pilkyy - welcome to ThePOGG.com!
Can you please forward on any communication you've had with Aspers casino regarding the re-opening of your account to complaints@thepogg.com.
You may have a claim against Aspers casino here, but I will have to review the details.
I do need to be clear that it is very unlikely we could do anything about the money you lost with SkyVegas and we cannot do anything about any loans you may have taken out.
Thanks,
ThePOGG