Drake - Casino Case

Ruling

Resolved - Drake casino managed to locate a missing transaction and as such reinstated this player's full balance plus $100 for inconvenience.

It should be noted that the casino were non-responsive to this complaint and we only managed to make progress with the issue after we contacted Drake casino's regulator.

Player's Complaint

Hello The Pogg, thank you for mediating this case for me in advance. First of all, I'd like to congratulate and commend you on your progress with the site and the service. With $384k in recovered money, that makes The Pogg stand out quite well even to Casinomeister's $600k last year. Keep up the good work!

Secondly, about this casino that I am requesting a mediation with, the casino name is Drake casino (drakecasino.eu). I honesty do think that Drake casino is a great casino, and offers some very fun games not seen in most other US-Facing casinos (RTG slots are quite boring). And so far, dealing with the customer support, they've been very polite and professional. However, it seems like Drake Casino has so far stayed under the radar from review sites such as The Pogg, despite its seemingly large size. In fact, when I tried to file this complaint, I couldn't even find the casino name in the scroll down list of nearly a thousand casinos! I'm hoping that you can do a review of Drake Casino once this mediation case is dealt with and help the visitors of this site to get acquainted with Drake.

With all that said, let's get started on the case.

On Aug 1, 2015, I made a deposit of $250 at Drake casino. In about an hour I ran the balance up to $530. And the troubles began.

The system then started glitching and the pages stopped loading (Drake casino uses website only, no client). As I was unable to load the pages, I paused gambling and took a break. I came back about an hour later and the pages were loading again, however, my balance of $530 disappeared! I took a closer look and realized the system seems to have absolutely no memory of anything I did that day, not even my $250 deposit! (Later I found that comp points, hand history, balance, tier credits, and literally everything else were reset to before my deposit). This very suspiciously looks like the system did a rollback for some reason. Given Drake casino's size and my previous play experience with them (and honestly this relatively small amount of $530), I instantly ruled out purposeful fowl play on their part as a possibility (meaning they purposely rolled back the play to not pay). So I contacted support immediately and explained the situation. I said that if there was a rollback I can't possibly be the only player affected, so please do a check on the system. They said they will and told me to wait a few days for them to take a look. I said I'll do the casino a favor as a gesture of good will, and not chargeback the $250 ($254 on my credit card actually due to currency exchange fees) on my credit card. In fact, Today is Sept 2, I still haven’t disputed this charge with the credit card company despite I could have done so any time, in hope of The Pogg resolving this situation instead of a charge back happening.

Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. Essentially Drake support kept sending me in circles. However I'd still like to say despite so they've still been very courteous and professional in our communications, so kudos to that. They essentially kept reiterating what they see on my play history, which is nothing happened that day (including the deposit of $250). I never could get them to actually ‘take a look', when I request so then they will 'take a look' at the play history and tell me I did not deposit and play that day. Let's be clear here, I'm requesting them to take a look at the 'server rollback' issue that wiped my entire activity for that day. It seemed to have gotten extremely tough for me to communicate this with them. And furthermore, although they were polite and professional, reading between the lines I got the undertone of 'you're probably a fraudster making a fake claim of disappearing balance to try to get free money from our casino'. This, as well as other factors that I will explain next, lead to me finally resorting to using The Pogg for dispute mediation.

I've actually realized that undertone almost since the beginning, and I've thus actually considered multiple times immediately resorting to The Pogg during this month. But I gave Drake Casino the benefit of doubt that we might come to an amicable resolution ourselves. I gave it my last shot when, I provided Drake Casino with my credit card statement that showed the $250 charge. They have asked for it since the beginning of the month and the credit statement only comes out on Aug 28. I tried other things in between but nothing worked. When the end of the month came, I gave it my last shot and sent the statement in. The undertone this time in their response was 'we don't actually need this, we don't know why we asked you for it'. I finally gave up and resorted to The Pogg.

As I said earlier, I'm afraid that in Drake Casino's mind they believe I'm a fraudster with a fake 'balance loss' claim to try to get free money. You might be able to see that as well if you read between the lines of their communications with me. This is the main reason for me requesting mediation: To show them that I am serious and no fraudster. I absolutely 100% certain that I deposited $250 into drake casino (and did not play at any other casino) on Aug 1, and 100% certain that I ran the balance up to $530 before everything disappeared. And I can back up my claim as well. After all, I DO HAVE a credit card charge for $254 on that day that showed up immediately after I made the deposit (I checked immediately after that I noticed my balance was gone).

I actually saved a copy of every communication with Drake Casino regarding this incident. And if you like, I can show them to you. However, I would highly advise, and sincerely hope that you just ignore all that and start afresh. What I mean by that is, I believe Drake casino and I got started on the wrong foot with them sending me in circles because they think I'm a fraudster. I don't think there's any value in those chat sessions/emails for your mediation, but if you insist, I will still be happy to show all of them to you. So I would like you to start all over on this case from the beginning, as a mediator, and treat the case as if it just happened and I haven't gone back and forth with the casino.

I am also happy to present you with any other information you need for mediating this case.

Once again, as a gesture of good will, I have kept the $250 charge untouched.

Meanwhile, keep up the good work The Pogg, and hope to hear back from you soon.

Additional information:

Account name: [EDIT]

Date and time of the incident: 8-1-2015, 9:00 pm Central US time.

P.S. Looks like the system is forcing me to chose a casino, so I chose "Dragonara" but please understand that my case is indeed with "Drake casino"

Read the casino review

8 Responses

ThePOGG

September 4, 2015

Hi Dr Boom - welcome to ThePOGG.com!

Thank you for the compliment - I feel our complaint service has grown well in the past year.

I'll contact Drake casino and see what I can find out.

What would be helpful to me is if you could send me a copy of your Credit Card statement showing the transaction to Drake casino and a screen shot of your casino history for the same time period. You can send them to webmast[email protected]

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Dr Boom

September 5, 2015

I have sent you the requested items. I forgot to mention on the email - Drake casino history is not viewable to the player, only to the casino itself.

ThePOGG

September 16, 2015

Hi Dr Boom,

Just to keep you updated - I've tried to contact the relevant parties at Drake casino a few times now with no success. I'll keep trying for the time being and let you know if I get anything back.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Dr Boom

September 18, 2015

Hello The Pogg,

Thanks for the update. No rush, take your time! Thanks for the mediation as well.

Dr Boom

September 28, 2015

Hello The Pogg,

Drake casino contacted me today. They expressed that they would like to directly resolve the situation with me, and still requested my credit card statement. I politely rejected and informed them that I still believe there is nothing more of value to the statement than the information they already have. I told them I am willing to comply with any request from the mediator (ThePogg), and that they should forward all requests to the mediator. If the mediator sees that the request is appropriate, he will forward it to me.

Drake also mentioned they are currently in process of checking with the 3rd party processor about my charge. Since the case is at this point already, I do actually have additional information that can be of help. Before I resorted to The Pogg, I actually tried to resolve the case myself by contacting the 3rd party payment processor. The charge stated hzsmqcyp.com, so I actually went on that website and found their customer support email and asked them. It was a weird conversation, however.

I will send you an email with the transcript of my conversation with the payment processor.

ThePOGG

September 28, 2015

Hi Dr Boom,

I've spoken with Drake casino's regulator today. My understanding is that the casino have acknowledged the issue and that your deposit alongside your winnings should have been credited to your account.

Could you check this and confirm?

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Dr Boom

September 29, 2015

Hello The Pogg,

Drake Casino contacted me today and informed me that they found my $250 charge, and it was indeed billed through their system. As such, they reinstated my balance of $530 before the incident, and also gave me an extra $100 credit for the inconvenience. I am very happy with the resolution. Thank you The Pogg for once again a fantastic job well done.

Many thanks to Drake Casino as well for handling the case with professionalism. As I mentioned in my first post, I enjoy playing at Drake and I'm hoping that The Pogg can do a review for Drake casino once the case is finished to help visitors of the site get familiar with the casino.

ThePOGG

September 30, 2015

Hi Dr Boom,

Thanks for confirming that this issue has been resolved.

To answer your question, Drake casino were entirely unresponsive to multiple attempts to contact them on both their main support address and their affiliate address. The simple answer is that there is no reason why they would have been unaware of this complaint other than the people monitoring those email addresses not doing their job and instead just ignoring the emails. Not great service in my opinion.

They were very quick to react and investigate once I contacted their regulator.

All the best,

ThePOGG