Intercasino have unfairly confiscated my money

Hi ThePlayer - I spoke to InterPartners about this issue at the LAC Conference over the weekend, they are looking into it, but it may take a few days (getting home and back into the office) before they can get any real details of what's going on at their end. I'll chase it up again today.

ThePOGG

Hi ThePlayer - I spoke with InterCasino again on Friday and they are due to make a post here related to this complaint shortly. I can confirm that they did receive a refund of the incurred fees from Neteller but there's some other information i'm waiting on them releasing before we can progress any further with this issue.

I appreciate your patience.

ThePOGG

Hi ThePlayer,

There have been several developments with this issue that I currently feel are likely to affect the ultimate outcome.

Firstly, due to the continuing public conversation regarding this issue at Ask Gamblers where various accusations have been made, it is now unlikely that mediation will advance this issue any further. Regardless I will continue to converse with InterCasino regarding this issue until such point as I am completely sure this is the case. At the very least the continued conversation at Ask Gamblers is likely to slow the process dramatically.

To clarify for the final report - Neteller were running a promotion wherein they offered cashback on every transaction an account makes. InterCasino claim that ThePlayer was making deposits, playing a very limited amount on their games, withdrawing and repeating the process over and over to benefit from the cashback. In this circumstance, the player would have a theoretical value to the casino far lower than the charges generated by the transactions.

The bone of contention seems to lie with a phone call that a member of the InterCasino management team claim to have made to ThePlayer on the 7/7/2011 advising that if they continued their deposit pattern they would be charged for all Neteller fees generated, after which it is claimed that ThePlayer disregarded this warning and continued the same deposit pattern.

At such time ThePlayer was then charged by InterCasino for all fees generated, both before and after the phone call. At the same time ECash – the payment processor of the Wagerlogic group - applied for and received a refund of the charges from Neteller. After discussion with InterCasino we have been informed that these separate reclamations of funds were carried out independently by departments unaware of the other process and as such ECash are in the process of returning the reclaimed fees to Neteller to ensure that the Wagerlogic group did not benefit financially from this situation.

Our current status is that we've asked InterCasino/LGA if they can provide any logs or evidence to support the occurrence of this phone call and we've been informed to expect a formal response in the coming week.

PRECEDENCE SET IN THIS CASE

Important communications from either party should always be conducted over email to leave a paper trail. If a communication occurs verbally, it should always be followed up with written correspondence summarising the content of the communication. This is essential to ensure that all important communications are documented in case of future dispute.

ALSO

In the case of email communications - it is the player's responsibility to ensure that they can receive emails from any casino they interact with, and if the emails do not go directly to their inbox, to monitor their junk mail folders in case of important communications. Excluding circumstances wherein the email is returned as undeliverable to the casino, it will be assumed that the player has received and understood the communication regardless of response.

ThePlayer,

I have spoken very briefly since your last email showing the original email from InterCasino dated 12/7/11 requesting a phone number to reach you on to discuss an "urgent" acccount issue.

The person in charge of dealing with this issue has been out of the office for the last two weeks, with limited email contact, something i was informed about earlier. They got back to the office yesterday and are going to look into this matter over the weekend.

Apologies for the delays.

ThePOGG

I've not received any further communication from InterCasino management regarding this issue. I've chased this up today requesting a response before the end of the working week.

This may be as simple as slow communications between the various managers involved in the decision making regarding the new email evidence you submitted, and the fact that they did respond at the end of last week certainly suggests this is the case, but i'm hoping to see some progress with this issue in the near future before i have to close this dispute and publish my final report.

Sorry for the delays and thank you for your continued patience.

ThePOGG

After much conversation I’m genuinely thrilled to say that this matter has been completely resolved!

After extended discussion and review of all of the facts in this case, InterCasino have agreed to reimburse the full amount charged to ThePlayers account.

To be clear about this situation, the manner in which ThePlayer was playing was specifically designed to profit from the promotion that Neteller was offering at the expense of InterCasino. The style of play very near guaranteed that ThePlayer would come out far ahead due to the bonus being given on the transactions (deposits/withdrawals) and low levels of play through being generated in between.

In a normal situation where it’s the casino who offer the promotion, there would be rules in place to prevent players from exploiting promotions to the degree where they could seriously damage the casinos bottom line. In this situation however – as it was the payment provider who were offering the promotion – InterCasino did not have rule in place to protect themselves properly.

From my point of view, it’s understandable that the casino management at the time made the assumption that they would have some rules to cover this situation, in almost all similar situations they would have. This was only exacerbated by the length of time between the seizure of funds and the complaint being submitted (I would stress that the delay was by no means the fault of either party, but the result of information coming to light from a 3rd party investigation only recently). As many of the personnel that originally dealt with the issue had moved on by the time I spoke with InterCasino, this became an investigative process that took time to bring all the facts to light.

Given that ThePlayer was playing in a highly financially detrimental fashion to InterCasino (to the tune of over £12k in financial transaction charges), it would have been understandable – though not justifiable – if InterCasino had decided not to enter any discussion regarding this issue. Certainly I would have expected that response from many casinos less concerned with their reputation and treating players fairly. The fact that InterCasino were prepared to step forward and review this issue with a 3rd party, discussing the exact terms and what they covered and looking in detail that the timeline of events is a huge credit to them and sets a high bar for other venues to reach.

While obviously it would be preferable that situations like this one never occurred, writing terms and conditions to cover every possible eventuality in advance is a very tall order. The important issues here are that the player has ultimately been paid and that InterCasino now knows to adjust their terms to protect themselves against such situations in the future.

Overall this was a very interesting complaint to work on and it has to be said that the devil really was hidden in the detail. This was also a clear case where emotions ran high and there was a real benefit (if I do say so myself ahem ahem) to having someone impartial who wasn’t as invested act as go between.

Too often this sort of disagreement can escalate to the point where both sides feel aggrieved at their treatment from the other and no longer wish to engage. This is the primary reason that it’s important to not use evocative language when submitting a complaint – when you do, by its very existence within the complaint, you place the mediation team in a position where they can be perceived to be bias in favour of the player which in turn makes it harder to carry out a genuine conversation with the casino. And if we remove the problem language before approaching the casino, you feel that we’re censoring you and trying to paint the casino in a more favourable light. Basically we as mediators end up in a ‘no win’ situation.

I have to applaud ThePlayer in this instance for not engaging in that behaviour when they submitted the complaint and furthermore stepping back – it showed a great degree of faith and trust - and letting me work through the mediation process. In large part I feel the mediation was successful in this case because of that acceptance.

We will hold this case open until such time as ThePlayer confirms that they have received their funds

It's just been confirmed for us that theplayer has now received their funds!

I'm thrilled to mark this complaint as completely resolved.

ThePOGG