Mad Money Casino - Player's attempt to close his account has been overlooked.

Breaking T&C.

Hello, my name is Dennis!

And heres my story, so 26th Jan i was playing at madmoney casino and lost alot which made me come to decision to self exclude myself and also because i have a gambling disorder. 

So the 27th of jan i contacted "madmoney" to go ahead and help me with this and i had read the terms before that it could take up to 24h it does not specify anything else. 

(During this time "play responsible") so during this time i put in 100e more and managed to win up to 5000e which i instantly made a withdrawal request and sent i documents for (KYC) and after that i logged of figured my account would be self excluded by the 28th but to my suprise no. So i logged of again and came back by the 29th to see my withdrawal (heres when my addicition kicks in an d i end up loosing all of it) but this is based on a technicality since the operator clearly has breahed it own terms, i took contact with the operator and to my suprise the did not find this being in breach of their terms. Because i did not contact the email adress directly which i thought i did, since its mega misleading on their website. Which clearly states the email adress and then the form Below (so i thought the form is connected to that email) and correct me if im Dumb in this regard see the pictures. 

So my dispute is over my 5000e withdrawal which i want refunded, since i dont think they have done their part in withholding their terms/responsible gambling (protecting players with addictions) 

their basing their final decision on the "MAY" 24h (infact it took 63h)

Dear Denzoor,

Thank you for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your bad experience. Do I understand correctly that you initially requested self-exclusion via the contact form? If possible, could you please forward me your self-exclusion request?

Also, do I understand correctly that you later contacted the casino via the correct email address, and only then your account was blocked?

If there is any other relevant communication between you and the casino, please forward it to kristina.s@casino.guru together with your self-exclusion request, or alternatively, post it here.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Kristina

Stämmer, jag skickar resterande till dig.

jag förstod inte att kontaktformuläret inte var korrekt då den mailadressen som man skulle skicka till stod ovanför kontaktformuläret som du kan se på bilderna.

Med vänlig hälsning,

Dennis

Thank you for your reply, Denzoor. We were contacted by the Mad Money Casino representative who provided some additional information about this case. First, I would like to point out, that the casino's General T&Cs do state that in order to close an account, you have to contact info@madmoneycasino.com. Please, see here:

"14.1 Provided that Your Account does not show that a balance is due to us, you are entitled to close your account and terminate the Terms of Use via the "Responsible Gaming" tab on your user profile and or by contacting us through info@madmoneycasino.com."

On the other hand, the Responsible Gambling section, where we believe that such information should be shared primarily, doesn't inform the player about who to contact. It seems that Denzoor quite intuitively opened the 'Contact Us' section and used the more comfortable way for him to get in touch with the casino - the contact form.

We understand that players should always read the T&Cs, but on the other hand, there is no way they are supposed to know that messages submitted via the contact form are being sent to a completely different email address, which, to be honest, is not very user friendly in our opinion.

I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Peter (peter.m@casino.guru) who will be in charge of this complaint from now on. I wish you the best of luck and hope to see your problem being resolved to your satisfaction soon.

well its not correct either since they admitet that its connected to the right email adress. So for me thats just an excuse not worthy of being apart of their argument.

Hi Dennis,

I'm taking over your complaint. I looked at the issue and we discussed it internally. I have to say that there is a bit of truth on both sides. Looking at the "Contact Us" page, I completely understand why Dennis or any other player would think that sending a message to the casino using the contact form would go to the info@madmoneycasino.com email address. This was also confirmed by the support (screenshot above) which isn't great. Secondly, I wonder what happens to the emails about self-exclusion that end up in the other email address, are they simply ignored? Don't the departments cooperate? On the other hand, Dennis, if you didn't receive any confirmation, why didn't you send an email directly to the email address displayed on several places on the casino's website? If I had a gambling problem, I would use all options to push the self-exclusion through.

Eventually, our conclusion is as follows: Since Dennis didn't send the email to the correct email address as instructed and didn't receive any confirmation that his account was blocked/self-excluded, there is no claim for the winnings. However, considering the user-unfriendly system and wrong information from the support, we believe that Dennis should at least get his deposit back. I would like to invite Mad Money Casino to the conversation to participate in the resolution of this complaint.

I tried everything in means to this, i contacted live support and also they said that their responsible gambling was under update so you couldnt self exclude by going their since it said "coming soon" and also it does not say anything in their T&C about reciving any confermation. Thanks for your help in this but i actually think they recivied it but because of they withdrawal request they didnt close it.

just to get another perspective on this i took T&C from another antiville licensed casino

13.1. You may terminate (lock) your account at any time by contacting live support.

13.2. Until you have received a confirmation from us stating that we have closed Your Account, you shall remain responsible for any activity on Your Account between the time when you send us a request and the time when your account is terminated by the Company.

here it clearly stands - until you have received any confirmations. This is clearly understandable if this was at madmoneycasinos T&C but it is not.

i dont agree with the decision to refund intial deposits, i think the casino should refund the intial withdrawal request, it was more then 48h until it was cancelled and 61h from when i first sent the intial request to close the account. And also in contact with live support they said "the emails will be responded to in order" not just once.

i never even got the information that i sent it to the wrong adress until i lost the money.

I agree with your determination and resolution. Here is what I will do, I will speak to our developer to be sure the contact form page is more clear and see if instructions can be added to the Responsible Gaming page on how to contact us to close an account so it is available there and not just in our T&C. Additionally I will refund his last 100 euro deposit which is the deposit that was made between the time of request and subsequent closure.

I strongly disagree with this solution, since the support admitted it has been sent to the info@madmoneycasino adress, which you also said. The 100e that is the inital deposit im not interested in since the dispute is 5000e, so you can keep the 100e since your wrong doing "madmoney" in this case also admitted by your support. and T&C does not say anything about any confirmation, i tried numorus times via livesupport but didnt get any further help from them.

I will be taking this to legal instead since we cant find a settlement and the solution your providing i strongly disagree with.

Best Regards

Dennis

The important part to note in this whole situation is our terms state accounts will be closed within 24 hours or a reasonable time. We are not bound to a 24 hour limit in no way, shape or form. It is an estimated time for most closures but all will be closed within a reasonable time.

we have explained all the various reasons why we are ultimately not accountable for his loss. The gambling license has reviewed this and found us to not be at fault and told the player it was attributable to himself and it seems Casino Guru cannot seem to ultimately find enough fault. Ultimately we must abide by our gambling license rules and regulations and as they have dismissed this claim, there is no higher court or jurisdiction to bring judgement.

So thats why you updated your T&C then?

14.1.2 Your request will take effect within a reasonable time, provided that you continue to assume responsibility for all activity on your account until such closure has been carried out by us (at which point the Terms of Use shall terminate).

(updated -T&C)

you removed the 24 hours, i honestly think its but cruel and also so fishy.

but E***** T****, better laywer up.

Hi all, thank you for your replies.

Dear Denzoor,

To sum the whole case up again, there is some truth on both sides. The casino could definitely have a better system of self-exclusion on the website and train the support to make it work properly. On the other hand, as soon as the casino received your request to the correct email address, your account was blocked. Secondly, you did ask for a self-exclusion but you haven't received any confirmation. If you don't receive any confirmation and your account obviously still isn't blocked, you can't think that the self-exclusion is active. these are the reasons why we think that the refund of the deposit is fair. Even if the self-exclusion took effect immediately on the 27th, you wouldn't be eligible for the winnings, only for the deposit. I'm afraid this is all we can do for you to be fair to both sides. If you disagree with our decision, please turn to the Curacao Gaming Authority (certria@gaminglicences.com). Thank you for using the Casino Guru complaint resolution center. 

Best regards,

Peter