188Bet Rejecting Withdrawals

[Suppin]

I have been trying to withdraw £4500 from 188Bet for over a month now. However, they constantly reject all my withdrawals.

They requested four forms of ID:

1. Driving Licence
2. Bank Statement
3. Copy of front of card
4. Copy of back of card

All of these documents have been sent off and approved at various points. The withdrawals are being rejected because their staff are not approving them within the time frame. Since all four documents were approved on the 13th of December, they have ignored all e-mails that I have sent in reply to the withdrawal e-mails.

If I talk to staff via chat they tell me that the staff are busy and I will have to be patient and to keep trying.

It has been over a month now and I have not made any progress with them.

I filed a report against them to the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission (GSC). They got back to me and told me that I have provided sufficient evidence to 188Bet that the debit card belongs to me, but 188Bet are not satisfied by the evidence provided. I have been told that it is 188Bet that I have to satisfy and that GSC are unable to take this any further.

What step do I take now? Is my only choice to take legal action against 188Bet?

 

[Trevrizent]

You said in your post that you have been trying to withdraw 4500 GBP. Does that mean you are based in the UK? If you are thinking of taking court action against 188Bet, it will be much easier if your account is registered in the UK.

 

[Suppin]

I am based in the UK, yes.

Is legal action my only remaining option?

 

[Trevrizent]

Before you look at pursuing them by going down the UK small claims court route (although that is an option open to you), I would suggest you contact the UK Gambling Commission and make a formal complaint to them about 188Bet's conduct in this matter. The UKGC license 188Bet in respect of all their UK-based customers, so they are the body to complain to in the first instance. If you don't get anywhere with the UKGC (and you might not), then, yes, court proceedings probably represent your best remaining option.

I appreciate that a lot of players like 188Bet for their competitive odds on a wide range of markets, but personally I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. Good luck.

 

[Suppin]

I've already contacted the UKGC and they told me to contact GSC. So it looks as though the small claims court is my only remaining option.

What is likely to happen in court? I don't really see how 188Bet will be allowed to retain the money if it reaches that stage.

 

[Trevrizent]

I've never yet had to take a bookmaker to court, so I don't know for sure. If the court found in your favour, then, assuming 188Bet still didn't pay up, I would imagine you could ask the court's bailiffs to enforce payment of the debt on your behalf - but I'm not a lawyer, so I can't give you definitive advice (it might be a good idea to speak to your Local Citizens Advice Bureau about this). In any event, before you take any action, I think you should write to 188Bet and give them a deadline of 28 days to allow you to withdraw your funds after which, if they still do not allow you access to your money, you will instigate court proceedings against them.

Before you do anything, however, you might want to submit a complaint to BMR via the sticky at the top of the forum page. 188Bet may not cooperate with any approach from BMR, but I can't see that you have anything to lose by letting BMR try to help you.

I don't think I can help you any further, but good luck in any case.

 

[quincunx]

My sympathies,Suppin.For anyone who may be reading this,it shows the importance of getting ID documents approved before you bet or even deposit [okay,I know,I haven't done that either - but it is advisable !].It is also worth waiting a few days,in case the bookie takes that long to decide they weren't satisfied with the quality of the documents after all.Finally,try not to run up a big credit and then withdraw it all at once - it gives the bookie a good reason to find an excuse not to pay you.Only keep enough for three or four decent bets -if you go above 4 bets worth - withdraw down to 2.Then if you get down to less than one,top up if you want.If you really don't intend to bet any more or you just need the money,withdraw in stages so that the bookie doesn't know the money won't be coming back when you make the first withdrawal.
Yes,you can reduce the risk by only betting with the best bookies - but 188bet used to be pretty good - I have had plenty of payouts from them.Canbet were good once,too.

 

[Trevrizent]

Very good advice, Quincunx.

 

[Trevrizent]

It's always been my suspicion, rightly or wrongly, that 188Bet sometimes use their KYC procedures (which I regard as completely over the top in any case) as an excuse not to pay players their legitimate winnings, which is why I won't go near them. I would recommend that players treat them with extreme caution at present and, as Quincunx advises above, urge players not to accumulate a large balance with them.

 

[yourmum]

Something seems awry with this complaint - I find it very strange that the UKGC referred you to the IOM gaming commission when you said you are based in the UK. Their IOM license would be for those outside of the UK and the UKGC license for those based in the UK.
Unless for some reason the UKGC only covers sports betting and your issue is casino betting (although I'm sure the UKGC covers sports + casino for UK based customers).
It's clearly an issue with your documents by the sound of it, they maybe haven't actually approved them and have sent you the approved email by mistake.

Can you just clarify something from your initial post??? You said that the documents were sent off and approved at various points, but then go on to state they were all approved on the 13th. If you sent these in at various different times such as over a few days / a week, they may suspect the documents aren't yours as you didn't have immediate access to them at the same time.

They could be looking at the time stamps of the photos of your documents - If the photos you took are a few weeks old (or more) they might suspect you aren't in possession of these documents (i.e they're not yours). Take new pictures of your documents and send them again. I have had my documents rejected before when I have sent pictures taken a long time before, despite being perfectly clear, that's the only reason I can think of that may have caused an issue.

 

[Suppin]

Since UKGC were taking so long to respond, I decided to phone them to find out why. I was told over the phone that they couldn't do anything about it as it involves 'retrieving money'. They told me to ask 188Bet for details of their complaints procedure. I had attempted this before and got nowhere, but this time I was referred to GSC.

A few days later I received an e-mail from UKGC, but it appears to be a generic template about how my age has to be verified within 72 hours of opening an account. I'd already done this a long time ago, so the response is irrelevant. I suppose I should tell them to look at my case again and point out that this has nothing to do with age verification?

In the initial e-mail they requested my driving licence and a bank statement. These were approved on the 13th of December. They then requested a copy of both the front and back of my card. I sent them off, but they didn't approve them in the 3 day timeframe. I then sent them off again during my next withdrawal attempt, which was on the 13th of December. They approved them on the 15th and requested the driving licence and bank statement again, which they had previously approved!

I then sent these off again, but I didn't hear from them before it timed out on the 16th. I then withdrew on the 16th, sent off those two documents and they asked for copy of the front and back of my card again. I sent them off and as usual it timed out.

In subsequent e-mails I have attached all four documents, along with the requested nationality and country of birth. However, since I have been attaching all four documents in one e-mail, they have stopped replying altogether.

As of a couple of weeks ago, they stopped sending me e-mails to let me know that my withdrawals were being rejected. I suppose they are hoping that I forget about this. Not likely!

The pictures of the driving licence and bank statement were taken on the 10th of December. The pictures of the card were taken on the 13th of December. They were not old pictures.

It might also be worth noting that I have withdrawn money from 188Bet several times before without any problems. The highest sum I have successfully withdrawn from them was £300, but I have managed to withdraw around £560 from them in total. Their issue is that I am withdrawing larger sums of money, which they want to keep for themselves.

 

[Trevrizent]

Your last post highlights a couple of important issues. First it shows just how unwilling the UKGC appears to be to help players who are in dispute with one of the GC's licence holders (nothing new there in my view) and secondly it illustrates the difference between a reputable and a less reputable bookmaker. A reputable operator will treat all withdrawal requests, whether great or small, in the same way, whereas a less reputable one will happily process small withdrawals, but will do everything they possible can to wriggle out of paying a large one. I do not regard 188Bet as particularly reputable these days and, if I had my way, they would be on the BMR Orange List.

 

[yourmum]

I've never had issues with 188bet personally, although they appear to be stalling using KYC as the reason there could be another reason such as a security / fraud issue.

Have you only been using the same card / payment method for deposits? You may need to withdraw amounts totalling deposits from other methods before withdrawing the rest to a nominated source.

Have you tried what was suggested earlier and tried withdrawing smaller amounts?

Check the t&cs do 188bet only allow a certain amount of withdrawals per month (quite common with some bookmakers although mainly the US facing ones).

Also, if you don't mind me asking - what was the bet you made? Was it casino, live casino, a sports bet?

I'm fully aware that 188 regularly has arbing / dutching opportunities and there is a high occurrence of obscure events on there such as lower league eastern European football. You could have wagered on an event that is now being investigated for fraud or match fixing and 188 is investigating your account / betting pattern because of it. Rather than tell you, they are hiding behind KYC instead of telling. This might sound absurd to you but it has happened before even with some of the top bookmakers.

If you have used live casino - these are heavily scrutinised now by security teams due to huge amounts of bonus fraud / chip dumping.

Lastly, why not take the UKGC to court for failing to comply with regulating the business! Thought they were supposed to have new licensing to help protect the UK players, which clearly they aren't enforcing. Gambling debts are now enforceable under the new scheme so they should be helping you get your money - the IOM gaming commission used to do this.

Perhaps you just spoke to a complete moron on the phone and they knew nothing about what they are supposed to be doing now!!!!!

 

[Suppin]

I have used the same card for all deposits and withdrawals.

I haven't tried withdrawing smaller amounts.

It can't be a 'number of withdrawals per month' issue as I haven't been able to make a single withdrawal in January. I also only made two in December.

All my bets were sports bets.

I was betting on the Bundesliga, La Liga and the Copa del Rey, none of which are small markets. These bets were placed over a month ago and if they were investigating my betting patterns the results would have been in a long time ago.

I have not used the live casino at all.

Nobody has mentioned taking the UKGC to court. I will be taking 188Bet to court in order to retrieve my money. I will certainly not allow them to keep it!

 

[yourmum]

Was it a debit or credit card - certain card providers will only allow the amount of total deposits to be refunded to the card (I know this is certain for all credit cards, might apply to some debit as well).

Also, try contacting your bank / card provider - they could have blocked it from certain transactions. Halifax block my card regularly from making online transactions especially with gaming companies where the processor is not UK based. It's the main reason I just use skrill or paypal now for gaming transactions

 

[Suppin]

Debit card.

And no, my bank aren't blocking it. It says 'Verification not completed within timeframe', which is their fault and not mine.

 

[Suppin]

Interesting development.

My driving licence expired the other day and I received an e-mail from them today for the first time in a long time telling me that all my documents had been approved except for the form of ID.

They told me that need to me to send them a valid one for them to approve before the withdrawal times out (which is an hour away), or they'll close my account and I will no longer have access to my money.

I've just sent off a photo of my passport. I suspect that one of three things will happen.

1. I'll get my money on my next withdrawal attempt and they will try and pretend that they didn't send me my money earlier because my ID had expired. It hadn't expired when it was sent off and approved, so this can't be true. If I get the money, they probably saw that my ID was a month and a half away from expiring and saw it as an opportunity to make some money until it expired.

2. They'll close my account because THEY haven't approved my photo ID in time. I have screenshots and e-mails for evidence of how much money is in my account.

3. Nothing will change and they will continue to reject all withdrawals.

If my next withdrawal fails, or my account is closed, I will tell them that if they don't send my money within a month, I will take legal action against them.

 

[Suppin]

Withdrawal approved!

So these guys saw that my driving licence was set to expire in a month and a half, then decided to reject all my withdrawals until it did and I had to send off new ID.

I assume the purpose of this was to gain some income by claiming interest on my money, while in the meantime I was losing out on interest?

Do I have a case here to report them to the gambling commission? Can I claim the interest they made as a result?

 

[yourmum]

Unlikely, most business accounts don't add interest to the balance. Business accounts operate in a very different manner to our standard current accounts.

Glad it's been sorted now though. It may be worth writing a formal complaint to the UKGC about your ID as it was still valid when you made the initial withdrawal request.

It could however be part of their licensing terms that ID is updated within xxx amount of time before it expires. No harm in writing to the UKGC though

 

[quincunx]

Thanks for keeping us updated,Suppin.