MyStake Casino - Player’s complaining about high withdrawal fees.

Hi,

I am querying two large transactions where I was charged high fees that are outside of MyStake's own Terms & Conditions. My first withdrawal on 02/01/23 was supposed to be for £6000.00 however £5779.32 was paid into my account via a SEPA transfer. The second withdrawal on 01/02/23 was again supposed to be for £6000.00 however £5829.14 was paid into my account, also via SEPA transfer.

When I queried this with MyStake Customer Service they said it had to be my bank who took a transfer fee, I have raised this with my bank multiple times and they confirmed no fee was deducted by them therefore it had to be on MyStake's end. With all due respect, I am more inclined to believe my multinational bank over this unlicensed casino. I have never had this issue before with any other casino.

Please note the monies owed I initially calculated as £391.54 however MyStake's Terms do state a maximum fee can be applied to withdrawals of €16 which x2 is €32 (equivalent to approximately £29 in my currency at the time of year these transactions were made, I will round up to £30 allowing for varying exchange rates) therefore I am owed £361.54 but have had to round down to £361.00 as your website does not allow for values with pence.

I would very much appreciate your team's cooperation with this matter as I have raised this before with MyStake's Live Chat and they just say it must be my bank and don't seek to investigate further.

Thanks in advance.

Dear Gamblur,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your problem. It's important to understand that withdrawal fees may have been charged by intermediary banks, which are beyond the control of the casino or your own bank.

To help resolve this issue, can you please confirm if you have received any transaction receipts from the casino? These documents can serve as proof that the casino transferred the full amount to you, and can also help us determine if any intermediary fees were charged by any third party.

If you haven't received any receipts yet, we recommend reaching out to the casino directly to request them. They should be able to provide you with the necessary information.

However, if the casino did send the full amount and any additional fees were imposed by intermediary banks, we may not be able to assist you with this matter.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Petronela

Hi Petronela,

Thank you very much for your response and explanation of some of the possibilities that may have resulted in the additional charges as this is all quite new to me. When dealing with non-Curaçao casinos I have never experienced this issue in all my years of online gambling.

I emailed MyStake yesterday, it's basically the same as my post here detailing what had happened in relation to the high, unexplained withdrawal fees but also requesting transaction receipts. It was nearly 24 hours ago I sent it but I haven't yet had any response. I tried to attach the email just now in case you need it but the icon in the text box isn't working.

Many thanks.

Update: I received an email back from the MyStake team however they did not provide any transaction receipts despite me requesting these and just provided a very generic response which doesn't give me any answers:

Hello [redacted],

Thank you for reaching out!

First and foremost, we would like to inform you that we don’t charge our customers with any additional fees neither while depositing, nor while withdrawing. Fees might have been taken by your payment provider or during currency changes.

If you have any further questions or inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will be more than happy to assist you anytime.

Have a wonderful day!

Best regards,

[redacted] / Support agent. 

Thank you very much, Gamblur, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Branislav (branislav.b@casino.guru) who will be at your assistance. I wish you the best of luck and hope to see your problem being resolved to your satisfaction in the near future.  

Hello, Gamblur,

I am sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience, and I apologize for the delay. I will contact the casino and try my best to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Now I would like to invite MyStake Casino's representative to join this conversation and participate in the resolution of this complaint.

Dear MyStake Casino Team,

Could you please look into the player's issue and provide us with an explanation of the additional fees? Can you provide me or the complainant with a confirmation document of the processed payment? Can you also ask your payment method provider about it and inform us about the outcome of the investigation?

It is possible to share the data directly here, with your reply, or by sending them to my email address (branislav.b@casino.guru).

Thank you in advance for providing the information.

Hello @Gamblur,

The fee isn't deducted from our side, not the bank one. The reason for conversion. To explain it in more detail: the user withdrew GBP, and we transferred that currency's equivalent - EUR (all the bank transfers used to complete in EUR) and the bank converted it into GBP again. As a result, the user got a double conversation difference. We will send you invoice details by email as proof.

Kind regards,

Mystake team

Thank you very much, MyStake Casino team, for sharing the necessary details and documents with me.

Dear Gamblur,

I saw 2 bank statements confirming the following:

1. The successful payment to your Lloyds Bank account on January 2, 2023, in the amount of €6767,00.
2. The successful payment to the same bank account on February 1, 2023, in the amount of €6837,00.

It is easy to "google" a website with historical exchange rates, and recalculate the stated amounts to GBP according to the dates. When I was checking it by myself, it looked like overall, the casino sent you more than it should have compared to the historical exchange rates. But, it is not possible to check what exact exchange rates were used by the intermediary banks, and the rates used by the casino can differ too.

However, as the casino representative mentioned, the differences are very likely caused by intermediary banks and exchange rates (£ <-> € and/or the opposite), and the casino cannot influence this process on its side after the transactions are successfully processed. Therefore, the casino fulfilled all the obligations towards you, and unfortunately, there is nothing else we could do to help you in the matter.

Have you been provided with the same bank statements? Is the casino's explanation enough for you, or is there please anything else I could help you with?

Hi Branislav,

Thank you for your assistance with this matter, I do appreciate it.

I have not been sent any transaction receipts by the casino so would appreciate if you or the casino could send these to me.

You state that the casino sent more than required but both withdrawals were supposed to be for £6000.00 in my currency. Even if the casino sent €6767 and €6837, which I understand you have seen the receipts displaying these amounts, as per average exchange rates, would've been only £5870 and £5932 respectively in my currency and the final amount credited to me was even less than these amounts.

MyStake's own Terms & Conditions which I attached a screenshot of in an earlier post (and will reattach now) states fees for intermediary banks would be limited to a maximum of €16 per withdrawal. Just to reiterate these fees were within the hundreds as I ultimately received £5779.32 and £5829.14 which, as I stated in my first post here, is £361.54 less if you deduct what they state would be the maximum fees of €16 per withdrawal (€32 total over the two withdrawals).

If MyStake are citing intermediary bank fees for the high withdrawal fees then they should make it clear on their Terms & Conditions that these fees are uncapped and not a maximum of €16 per withdrawal as their current T&Cs state. I received hundreds less therefore this is a large discrepancy they did not make clear and they are therefore in violation of their own T&Cs. You can view their T&Cs here for clarity: https://m.mystake.com/en/static/terms/generalterms

Dear Gamblur,

How did you calculate those amounts? What exchange rates did you use and where did you have them from?

We cannot talk about average exchange rates, but the exchange rates that were valid at the time the payments were made. I checked it again for you, and the amounts (considering the exchange rates valid on the dates in question) were £5985,69 and £6065,37. But, those are only indicative values because we do not know what exact exchange rate was used by the casino and then by any other involved payment provider/bank upon exchanging it back to GBP.

The rule you referred to only sets the maximum additional charge. It does not say anything about exchange rates, which are also outside the casino's influence.

Dear MyStake Casino team,

As I do not have permission to share details with the player, could you provide the complainant with the invoice details of the payments processed?

Hello Branislav,

We give you permission to send the relevant docs to the user.

Kind regards,

Mystake

Thank you very much, MyStake team. The documents were sent to the complainant's email registered in the casino.

Dear Gamblur,

Can you please find my email in your inbox (che***********uk@gmail.com) and check the documents provided?

Is everything clear to you, or is there anything else I could help you with? Could I consider the complaint resolved?

Dear Gamblur,

We are extending the timer by 7 days. Please, be aware that in case you fail to respond in the given time frame or do not require any further assistance, we will reject the complaint.

Unfortunately, we are forced to reject this case because the player has not responded to our messages and questions. Therefore, we are not able to proceed with a further investigation or suggest possible solutions.

The player can reopen this complaint anytime.

Thank you very much, MyStake Casino team, for your cooperation.

Best regards,

Branislav, Casino.Guru