The player was trying to close his account due to a gambling problem. He had sent multiple requests to an e-mail address found in the 'Contact us' section on the website of the casino. The requests, however, never reached the relevant department as e-mails sent to the address found in the 'Contact us' section were handled by a hired, third-party company. After each request, instead of a permanent account block, a 7-day block was applied to the player's gaming account and the player was provided with contact information along with instructions on how to officially request self-exclusion. After a thorough examination of all provided evidence and after considering the fact that the player never followed the given instructions, we believe that no errors were made on the casino's end and that the player is not entitled to a refund of the lost deposits. We rejected this case as 'Unjustified'.
Casoo Casino - Player's requests to close his account have been overlooked.
Amount: €1,000
Casoo Casino
Safety Index:HighUnjustified complaint
REJECTED
Case summary
At this casino I wanted to close my account several times because of gambling addiction. One does not accept this and opens it again every 7 days. I get littered with emails so I just keep depositing. In principle, support does not accept account closure. On June 13th I wanted to close the account for the last time because of searches. The email for this is available. The casino does not accept this and today I went weak and lost € 1000.
Dear Stefan,
Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m very sorry to hear about your negative experience. I have checked the T&Cs (https://www.4casoo.com/en/static-texts/terms-and-conditions) and I found this:
„35.1 For those customers who wish to restrict their gambling, we provide a voluntary self-exclusion policy, which enables You to close Your Account or restrict Your ability to place bets or game on the Website for a minimum period of one day. Once Your Account has been self-excluded You will receive mail from security@casoo.com and you won’t be able to reactivate the Account under any circumstances until the expiry of the period chosen under this paragraph. After sending a request to block your account to security@casoo.com, please make sure you get a confirmation email back. Sometimes emails might be stuck in Spam, if you haven’t received a confirmation email from security@casoo.com, please contact our Support Department. At the expiry of the self-exclusion period You will be entitled to re-commence use of the Services by contacting security@casoo.com."
Would you be so kind and confirm that you sent your self-exclusion request to security@casoo.com as instructed by the casino’s support and T&Cs? Do I understand correctly that your account still hasn’t been closed?
Also, if there is any other relevant communication between you and the casino (except for the attached screenshots and email), please forward it to kristina.s@casino.guru.
Thank you very much in advance for your reply.
Best regards,
Kristina
I wrote to them several times and never received a confirmation. Instead, they kept contacting me and saying that my account was now open again. Promo emails followed briskly. The account is still open. Also yesterday I asked for a permanent ban several times.
I forwarded an email confirming my account is blocked. 7 days later the blockade was lifted and I was enticed into playing with a number of emails. Although I clearly emphasized my addiction beforehand.
Thank you very much Stefan for your reply. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Andrej who will be at your assistance. I wish you the best of luck and hope to see your problem being resolved to your satisfaction soon.
Dear Stefan,
I’ll be taking care of your complaint from now on. I’ll contact the casino representative and see if I can help. In the meantime, could you please clarify if you have sent the request to security@casoo.com, as instructed by the casino employee?
I would like to invite Casoo Casino to participate in the resolution of this complaint.
Dear Casoo Casino representative,
Could you please explain why Stefan’s written request to be self-excluded sent to help@casoo.com wasn’t honored?
Hello, everyone.
On 30.05.2021, the customer sent a request for account closure to help@casoo.com.
Our support agent responded with the following instruction:
"Your account has been blocked.
The Casoo team is really sorry to hear that you want to leave our galaxy!
Thank you for your time with us. But, unfortunately, the support department cannot set any blocks and/or restrictions for a period that is longer than a week.
In order to limit, exclude and/or block your account at Casoo it is required for you to send an email to security@casoo.com stating your name, surname, mobile phone number, the reason for your account limitations/exclusions/block and the preferred time frame.
Please make sure to not forward this or any message sent to support - the email may automatically return to the support and not reach the Security Department. Write a new email with just one receiver - security@casoo.com.
If your account is not yet verified we kindly ask you to add an ID document to the email in order to add it to the user file in question.
From now on you won’t be able to access your account."
As is written in our Terms and Conditions under paragraph 35.1, permanent account closure can be done only through a request to the security department.
"35.1 For those customers who wish to restrict their gambling, we provide a voluntary self-exclusion policy, which enables You to close Your Account or restrict Your ability to place bets or game on the Website for a minimum period of one day. Once Your Account has been self-excluded You will receive mail from security@casoo.com and you won’t be able to reactivate the Account under any circumstances until the expiry of the period chosen under this paragraph. After sending a request to block your account to security@casoo.com, please make sure you get a confirmation email back. Sometimes emails might be stuck in Spam, if you haven’t received a confirmation email from security@casoo.com, please contact our Support Department. At the expiry of the self-exclusion period You will be entitled to re-commence use of the Services by contacting security@casoo.com."
On 17.06.2021. the customer sent an email to security@casoo.com, and his account was permanently closed.
This is a standard procedure that we apply for all customers, and it is described in great detail in our Terms and Conditions.
I hope this explanation helps! If any other information is needed, please let us know.
Best regards
Andrei
I clearly mentioned gambling addiction. Nevertheless, you wrote massive emails that you had reopened the account. So that I can keep playing. Player protection equal to zero
Thank you, Casoo Casino, for your reply. In Casino Guru, we believe that self-exclusion process should be as user-friendly as possible. In this case, even though it’s clearly stated in the Terms and Conditions that self-exclusion requests should be sent to security@casoo.com, there is no reason not to honor requests sent to an e-mail address that is listed as an official contact in the ‘Contact us’ section (or another relevant contact). You can read more about our view on situations like this in our Fair gambling codex.
I’d like to emphasize the fact that in one of his e-mail requests, Stefan explicitly stated he was requesting an account closure due to gambling addiction.
Therefore, we consider the requests valid and suggest refunding Stefan all disputed deposits
In case of non-compliance with our ruling, this case will be closed as ‘Against fair gambling codex’.
Thank you for your personal work. And suddenly the casino doesn't respond as quickly anymore. At least the very good rating will then be corrected so that not many other users have my experience.
Good afternoon
The functioning of the platform and systems is the same for everyone.
As far as we can see, the client has been given clear information several times - we do not see any reason for the refund. Also, this information is on the page "block" in a personal account.
We have previously reported that the security department works separately from support. Support is a company that is hired to maintain the casino. The security department is based on the platform side.
If the casino guru made such a unilateral decision, that is their right. The issue may remain unresolved.
Have a good day!
Andrei
Thank you, Casoo Casino representative, for your reply. Unfortunately, the fact that the casino security department works separately from the support is not a good enough excuse in this case. The fact is that the team that handles queries sent to help@casoo.com could have easily forwarded Stefan’s query to the relevant department.
Dear Stefan,
I’m very sorry I couldn’t be of more help. I hope you won’t come across a problem like this again.
Due to the reasons specified in my previous reply, we will now close this complaint as ‘Unresolved - Against fair gambling codex’.
Dear all,
After reevaluating the circumstances which previously led to our decision to close this case as ‘Unresolved – Against fair gambling’ and after further discussing this situation with the representatives of Casoo Casino, we have decided to reopen this case.
After a close examination of all provided evidence, it’s clear that although the player’s requests sent to an e-mail address found in the ‘Contact us’ section on the casino’s website were not honored or forwarded to the relevant department, the fact is that the player was properly instructed via e-mail on how to proceed to request self-exclusion (also set out in the Terms and Conditions). The player, however, due to an unknown reason, decided not to act upon the provided instructions.
Notwithstanding, we believe that this situation could have been handled better on the casino’s end and therefore, our recommendation for Casoo Casino is to improve communication between departments to avoid situations like this one and to make the self-exclusion process more intuitive in general. Nonetheless, with all the facts taken into consideration, we believe that no substantial errors were made on the casino’s end, and therefore, unless a relevant argument or evidence that was not mentioned or provided previously is brought forward, this complaint will be closed as ‘Rejected’.
I’m setting the timer for 7 days.
Hi
As we have mentioned before, we hire online support companies in different countries. There are quite a few of these countries (9 countries so far) and the companies that provide us with such services are different.
For security reasons, we can't trust these companies, because obviously, we can't control every firm 100%. A clear separation of duties has been introduced.
Such companies see only part of the information, they do not have access to players' balances, payments, documents, to blocking/unblocking of accounts. Just as they do not have the right to conduct any checks on the AML direction.
From the few accesses that support has - one of them being the account closure (block) for 7 days. This is one button that is available for the support department and it is used in the case when a client comes and requests the blocking of his account and/or reports any problems. It could be breaking the bank account or self-control problems. In any such cases, support blocks the player instantly and offers to write to the security department.
If the client contacts the security department, only then does the security department get involved and solve any tasks and problems because the security department is located on the platform and only employees of the security department have access to any sensitive information.
The security office is fully equipped in accordance with all regulations and rules for working with confidential information. The company's head office is also located there. Based on reports from the security department, managers can make any decisions.
It is for this reason that we ask you to contact the Security Department in the event of any serious problem. These rules and regulations have been coordinated with our license based on player safety and the keeping of confidential information.
We are working to improve communication between the departments but we can say that in 99% of cases there are no problems with customers because very precise instructions and explanations are always given.
Best regards
Andrei
Thank you, Andrei and Casoo Casino team, for the clarification.
As explained earlier, this complaint will be rejected as ‘Unjustified’.
I'm sorry, Stefan, we were not able to help you with this one, but please do not hesitate to contact us in the future if you run into any issues with this or any other casino. We will try our best to help.
