Refuel Casino - Player faced unexplained withdrawal charges.

On 2024-01-17 I played the welcome package at Refuel casino: 4x 250€ deposits with which you received wagerless free spins (but had to wager the deposit once). Afterwards I withdrew my entire balance of 1058.09€.

On 2024-01-18 I received the money, but only 1021.06€ had reached my bank account. At this point I checked their T&C and couldn’t find any mention of a withdrawal fee (unless I wouldn’t have wagered the deposit, which I did do). Since their live support was offline, I contacted their email support, asking them to either show me the relevant part of the T&C justifying the fee, or to refund the missing 37.03€. They haven’t replied to this date.

Later, the live support became available, so I asked them for an explanation of the fee. They claimed that Refuel casino does not charge any fees, but occasionally the bank or the payment provider may charge some. So I contacted my payment provider Brite, and they confirmed that they only received a transaction order of 1021.06€ from the casino.

I contacted the live support again, and another agent replied with the same snippet about the casino not charging any fees, so it seems that the live support has been instructed to lie about the fees. I showed them the Brite email and said that they must have payed me too little by mistake then. They told me that they can’t help any further, and instructed me to contact the payments department in the same email address that I had already tried in the beginning that does not respond.

Note that this fee of 37.03€ came on top of a 5€ fee for each of my deposits. But those I could at least see before confirming the deposits, so I’m not including them in the complaint. But this unannounced large withdrawal fee is completely unjustified, and since there is no mention of it anywhere in the site, I want the casino to refund it to me. It can’t be so that the casino has a right to take an arbitrary amount of money as a transaction fee without announcing it beforehand.

Dear theTJK,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your problem. Please allow me to ask you a few questions, so I can understand the whole situation completely.

• Can you confirm whether you've received any payment receipts from the casino?
• Is this your initial withdrawal from the casino utilizing this payment method?
• Is there a chance that the withdrawal underwent processing through an intermediary bank before reflecting in your account?

I hope we will be able to help you to resolve this issue as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for your reply.

Best regards,

Petronela

Hi,

I didn’t receive any specific receipt, I can just see the received payment in my online bank system. The payment shows Brite AB as the payer, and this is my first ever withdrawal from the casino. There shouldn’t be any intermediate actors between the casino and Brite, and on other casinos there typically aren’t any fees deducted when using Brite. After this incident I also talked with fellow players about Refuel, and according to them they do indeed charge 2% of each deposit and 3.5% of each withdrawal.

Hi theTJK,

I apologize for the unexpected fee charged on your withdrawal. However, it's important to recognize that we cannot penalize the casino for fees incurred by a third-party payment provider. Unfortunately, we are unable to facilitate the refund of the charged amount. Nevertheless, your public complaint serves as a valuable warning to other players regarding this particular payment method.

Please let me know if there is any additional information that I have overlooked, but I’m afraid I will be forced to reject your complaint as unjustified. I wish I could be of more help. Thank you in advance for your reply and understanding.

Hi,

I dont understand. I specifically confirmed that the fee was charged by the casino, not a third party. The fact that Brite had received less money from the casino than my withdrawal is proof of this, since only the casino has had a chance to charge fees up until that point.

Brite explicitly confirmed that they never charge fees, which is supported by my experiences of using them on other casinos. The fact that Refuel does charge fees is supported by similar experiences by other players on that particular casino.

Hi theTJK,

I do apologize for the misunderstanding. I have checked the casino website and this is what I found (here):

As per the forwarded message, both parties involved assert that they do not impose any fees.

Thank you very much, theTJK, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Pavel (pavel.k@casino.guru) who will be at your assistance. However, I would like to warn you that it seems to be a common practice of Refuel Casino to ignore us in our attempts to mediate any kind of issue. Regardless of some unresolved complaints marked "No Reaction Policy" we keep on trying.

Hello, theTJK!

Thank you for your patience. Now I will be taking care of your complaint and I hope that together we will resolve the problem.

I would like to invite the casino to give them a chance to explain their side of the situation.

Thank you!

We would like to ask the casino to reply to this complaint. We are extending the timer by 7 days. If the casino fails to respond in the set time frame, we will close the complaint as ‘unresolved’ which may negatively affect its rating.

I have tried to contact the casino repeatedly but had no success. I’m afraid there is not much that can be achieved without cooperation from its side. I will mark the complaint as "unresolved" in our system. I understand this isn't a satisfactory solution to your issue. However, the decrease in the rating caused by unresolved complaints might help to change the casino's approach. If the casino decides to react, we will reopen the complaint, and you will be notified by email. In the meantime, I recommend you contact the Malta Gaming Authority (https://www.mga.org.mt/player-hub/lodge-a-complaint/) and submit a complaint to them. The Gaming Authority has more options and tools to help players. Please let me know if you need help with submitting the complaint or how they responded if you can do it on your own (pavel.k@casino.guru). I am sorry I could not be of more help on this occasion.

Best regards,

Pavel K

Casino Guru