Roobet Casino - Player’s account was blocked.

Hello Casino Guru,

I am writing here as Roobet are not addressing my emails appropriately, so hopefully can achieve resolution through this method. Thank you for all you do, I can see that a number of people in my situation have had good results through this site!

I have been playing at Roobet for under a year from France (where I reside), being able to deposit and withdraw thousands freely up until recently. I was level 2 verified when my account was locked (when I requested a large withdrawal). At this time I had deposited thousands, and had an account balance of between 17,000 - 18,000 USD (I cannot remember exactly, and cannot now access my account to check).

I then received an email saying I had accessed the site from a restricted location and therefore they closed my account and offered to refund my last deposit. As I had not done this, I rejected the offer of my last deposit (c.3500 USD) as I had a big balance of 17k+ in my account, and went on to explain that I live in France which is not a restricted region. I provided the evidence they requested, but they followed up with ‘the documents you have provided do not fulfill the requirements of confirming you have been residing in France during this period’. I asked what else they needed and am still happy to provide this, but they now respond each time with bland emails stating terms and conditions that do not apply to my situation.

As a result, I quite rightly want my full account balance returned to my ETH address (which I have provided to them).

As I work for an international company (UK, Norway, China), I believe I may have accidentally accessed the site whilst connected to my work’s VPN/Intranet which triggered this whole scenario. A harmless mistake, certainly not one that warrants confiscating my 17k+ funds. Even if I did access from a restricted territory, surely that does not warrant keeping all deposits/balances from a player - this is certainly not a standard practice of the industry (that is theft!?)

At this point I have been treated so badly, I would just like my account to remain closed and my account balance returned. As above, I am happy to provide any further documents they would like, but they have not asked for any more. I reference case linked here: https://casino.guru/roobet-casino-player-s-account-has-been-blocked-8 whereby a player actually did place bets from a restricted region (which I have not!) and had their account balance returned to them as a resolution on this site.

I have attached the email chain to this so you can review the conversation I have had with Roobet so far - you can see that they are simply just keeping my account balance with no real justification.

Many thanks, and I hope this can get resolved. I am happy to provide any further documentation you see fit. I would appreciate if my personal details do not get published publicly.

Regards

Dear stevetreen,

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. Could you please advise when exactly you made your last successful withdrawal? Do I understand correctly that the casino has never specified which restricted country they believed you played from?

Have you activated any bonuses recently or was your balance accumulated only from your real money deposits?

Additionally, if there is any other relevant communication between you and the casino, please forward it to kristina.s@casino.guru. Alternatively, you can post it here.

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

Best regards,

Kristina

Hello Kristina,

Thanks for taking the time to read through. The last successful withdrawal was made on 27th August via the ethereum network.

They did not specify the country they believe I played from. I would like to reiterate that I have only ever played from France, which is where I currently reside. I was born and lived in the UK for most of my life and own a house there, I have a UK drivers license which I use in France and used this to validate my ID. I believe this may be their reasoning for locking my account (still doesnt warrant seizing my funds though!?).

I had never claimed any bonus other than the standard rake-back style bonuses they do for daily/weekly/monthly activity. All money is real money (and I believe those rake backs go straight into real money when redeemed anyway).

My initial submission attachment contains all correspondence I have had with them to date.

Many thanks!

Hey Kristina,

I have a small update on the case I would like to keep you updated on.

They have now made clear the reason for my account lock. In the verification process I sent them a letter from an investment account of mine that was registered in the UK, at an address of a property I own and now rent out to tenants now that I am no longer based in London. The full details of my situation are explained in my latest email to them which I have attached for your reference

To prove that this address is merely a mailbox for me, I have proposed that I send them a) Proof of tenant residency in my London property (signed rental agreement dated 2021), b) Full year to date bank statements showing all French transactions to prove residency (on top of the proof I have already sent them), c) (optional) selfie holding my ID, the days Le Monde newspaper outside the Eiffel Tower. 

This is getting a bit ridiculous now as I had already provided them with the documents they requested to prove French residency, only for them to keep my account closed. I do not know what more I could provide them with! I have asked what do you need to see, but they are ignoring the question and keep reverting with the same response that my account is permanently locked.

And just as a side note to this on their general business practices and policies; say a player had broken a number of their terms of service. They surely should not just be able to seize the players deposits/balance and keep it for themselves if, for example they deposit from a restricted region? Surely this should be returned to the players bank/crypto account anyway, and the account permanently locked? This as a policy is unfair - Roobet must have a pot of millions of dollars built up from players accounts that theyve closed and not refunded, and just kept as pure profit? I'm just thinking that even though I can prove I am a resident of a non-restricted region (as above), I dont know why I'm having to go through weeks of arguing the case when even if I did break all of their terms, I should still at least be able to get my balance returned and account rightfully locked out of the site?

Thanks

Hi Kristina, this issue remains unresolved. Are you able to review the situation and invite Roobet to comment on this publicly?

Many thanks

Thank you very much stevetreen for your reply. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Peter (peter.m@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 soon.

HI stevetreen,

I have looked at your case and understand the situation. Let me contact the casino and I will do my best to help. I would like to invite Roobet Casino to the conversation to participate in the resolution of this complaint.

Dear Peter,

Thank you for your message,

Please allow us to explain the series of events that lead us to our decision, which I hope will provide some further clarity.

I can confirm that we have had and are still having conversations with this user demonstrating our intentions and willingness on countless occasions to solve this case. Sadly, the evidence that has presented itself has not passed our compliance checks for the below reasonings:

• The user triggered our KYC checks and uploaded Identification as well as a Proof of Address document from the United Kingdom. As per our terms of service, sadly we cannot service individuals from this Country and as such his account was locked and he was notified of such closure.
• Once this was completed, the user reached out to our compliance team – stating that he was working in France. Our compliance department requested some additional information to support this claim. Unfortunately, the user could not provide documents sufficient enough to confirm this claim and we made the user aware about this.
• Subsequently, the user responded on 14/09/22 and mentioned he had official documents to confirm his claim. At this point, again we gave him the benefit of the doubt and confirmed we were happy to review these. He then provided us with a new driving license from France and mentioned that he is a resident in France and no longer a resident of the United Kingdom. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that we have state of the art compliance tools here at Roobet which can identify when documents are tampered with or edited, by which this document did not get approved. We had reason to believe this document was fake. Nonetheless, we continued to provide him with an opportunity to show us that he was indeed a resident and we further requested for him to provide his residency card or proof of residency. We are aware that one cannot obtain a driving license without it.
• The user in question then responded that he is not a resident of France and therefore could not provide these documents. Of course, this statement contradicted the statement above.

We pride ourselves on our geo location detection tools which we hold to a very high standard, we can say with confidence that this user is from a restricted territory and attempted to circumvent our measures not only hiding his location but also uploading fake information.

With, as a gesture of goodwill we offered to refund him his last deposit which was a total of $3,154,15 and he declined our offer. We did not need to do this as we have clear evidence of him breaching our terms on multiple accounts.

We are happy to provide the evidence to substantiate all the above and we kindly request this case is closed.

Firstly, I would like to deny any claims that my documents are tampered with or I am not currently residing in France. I 100% can confirm I live in France and all account activity has taken place there.

Having opened this complaint and taken time to look into other players who have been unfairly subject to Roobet's questionable business practices and small print on the TOS, I had almost already written off retaining my account balance.

At this point I would accept settlement of my last deposit (surely if you believe I breach terms, this should be settlement of my lifetime net deposits?). I actually outlined on September 8th that I would like to accept this but it was ignored.

I have highlighted my ETH address multiple times on email communications, please settle appropriately and consider this case closed.

Hi all,

Thank you for your replies.

Dear Roobet Casino team,

Could you please forward the aforementioned evidence to my email address including the player's statement: "The user in question then responded that he is not a resident of France and therefore could not provide these documents."

Dear stevetreen,

If the casino's statement will be supported by evidence, I'm afraid the refund of your last deposit is the best offer you can get.

Hey Peter,

Thanks for getting back quickly. After uploading my driving license and bank statements, they asked for a residency card as well. What I actually said was 'I have not applied for the residency card yet (as I do not legally require one yet)'. This statement is again, 100% true. I can still reside and work in France at the moment without having one of these ID cards.

As I above, I just want this settled as soon as possible now as it has been going on for far too long, and the number of documents I have supplied has been immense.

Regards

A gesture of goodwill would be a refund of my full balance. It does not seem right that even if they do genuinely believe the funds in my account belong to somebody residing in the UK - appropriate action would be to return the balance and close the account regardless. They should not be able to simply keep all funds and deposits that come from restricted territories from a legal standpoint (TOS's irrelevant). A case like that was handled correctly in this case by Roobet on this site: https://casino.guru/roobet-casino-player-s-account-has-been-blocked-8 (full balance refund).

Saying this, I have provided evidence for my French residency anyway. It is excessive to ask for further proof of residency on top of the plethora of documents I have already provided - it just seems never ending every time I supply something, its one more document. And a refund of my last deposit just seems so arbitrary.

If not, it would just outline how corrupt the unregulated/Curacao licensed casinos are. Most of their promotion come from streamers who openly gamble out of restricted territories using VPN. I have seen so many exposé pieces now on youtube, reddit etc outlining their unfair practices.

Roobet, I hope you make the decision to credit my full balance as a gesture of goodwill on this public forum. We can then consider the matter closed, and I will thank you for acting with integrity as a business.

Dear Peter,

Unfortunately due to data protection we will not be able to forward any communication from the user.

As the user already mentioned he does not have any official documents confirming he's a resident in France, since he hasn't applied for residency yet. This statement contradicted the statement about user being a resident in France and having official documents proving this.

With this being said, we kindly ask that this case be closed as the player has been informed about our decision and due to the fact that we offered him his deposit back, as a gesture of goodwill.

Hi Peter, Roobet,

Thank you for being responsive on this matter so far.

Peter - I am happy to send you the emails I sent to Roobet, please see your email inbox.

Roobet - thank you for the offer of refunding my last deposit.

Now the issue we have here is that we have different definitions of what constitutes residency. For Roobet, this is a French residency card ONLY (as you will see Peter, I have proved my address a number of other ways). I do not currently have a residency card, nor do I legally need one yet with the amount of time I have spent in France.

To me, this does not change the fact that I reside in France. I live here, work here, all account activity has taken place here. The TOS on Roobets site does not define that I must hold a specific residency card, nor does it define what consitutes ‘residency’. My interpretation (a reasonable one?!) is that I live and work permanently in France, therefore I am a resident, ie I reside there. I certainly wouldn’t say I reside anywhere else. As the Roobet TOS does not specify that I must hold a specific residency card, I would say that I am not in breach of these terms. No reasonable person would interpret the terms this way without it being explicitly outlined.

I would welcome you Peter, to input for advise here. Whilst I appreciate the offer of my last deposit, I really see no reason why I shouldn’t be entitled to my full account balance. 

Roobet - please would you take the above into account. I would appreciate the gesture if you could send my full account balance to the ETH address provided in emails, and update your TOS to be more specific in case any others fall into the same trap.

Many thanks, and I look forward to your response.

Hi stevetreen,

Thank you for the email. Let me ask you a question. How long have you been living in France?

Hello,

I have been living in France since last year on a long stay visa through my employer. I have already given away far too much of my personal information already for a simple casino withdrawal, this is ridiculous. Its actually got to a point where I am finding it dangerous to me to provide a Curacao registered business with this level of official documentation on myself.

It should be a simple case of providing proof of address (which I have multiple times) and then the casino processing my withdrawal. I was asked for less documentation from the French government than this investigation from Roobet, to get funds that I fairly won with my own real money.

Please can we invite Roobet to respond and hopefully make the right decision to refund my account balance (even if they want to process as a 'one-off', or 'gesture of goodwill'?). We can then consider the matter closed.

I am interested to know what you think Peter?

Thanks.

In addition to this, I have been following this complaint:

https://casino.guru/roobet-casino-player-s-struggling-to-access-his-casino

whereby a player who admittedly resides in the UK (the justification Roobet are using to withhold my balance) has been refunded his balance just a few hours ago as a gesture of goodwill.

I would like to think they would treat such issues consistently. We can then consider the matter closed, and I would thank Roobet and Casino Guru tremendously.

Regards

Hi stevetreen,

Have you sent this long-stay visa document to the casino?

Peter,

To verify my address in France I have sent so far:

Invoice for my apartment in France

Past invoice for food deliveries to my address

Travel card

Drivers License

Selfie holding drivers license

Bank statement

I am not really willing to send any more personal documents as I believe the above more than suffices, and were requested at each stage. All of the above contain my name and address.

I would like to hand over to Roobet to hopefully make the right decision to refund my balance as a goodwill gesture to end this case.

Again, this is how they handled a case recently as above.

Many thanks

Just chasing up on this @Roobet, @Peter as it has been 5 days without response.

Many thanks

Dear Peter,

Is there anything additional needed from our side? We are seeing that the most recently asked question was asked towards the player, not us, and we just would like to alleviate any potential confusion here.

I think both sides of the story are clear at this point.

Roobet have so far offered me my last deposit refunded as a gesture of goodwill.

I would like to hear your thoughts Peter as I personally believe I am entitled to my full balance due to:

I have provided the various ID documents as requested at each stage (I’m not willing to provide ANY more). Even Roobet saying the documents would ‘suffice’, but when sent, continuously asked for more. The document provided are legitimate and prove my ID and address clearly.

I live in France which is a non-restricted region. The funds in my account have been won fairly

In similar cases on here, Roobet have refunded the players balance

I have deposited thousands over the past year, last deposit seems a very random amount

I just don’t see any reason I would not be able to withdraw the balance in my account I fairly won.

As above, interested to hear your thoughts Peter with your experience on these matters.

I just feel like I am being robbed here frankly, and have never had such problems at any other casino like this.

Even if as a ‘gesture of goodwill’, I urge Roobet to return my account balance and we can consider the matter closed

Many thanks

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay.

Dear stevetreen,

Could you please forward a screenshot of the aforementioned long-stay visa document to my email address (peter.m@casino.guru)?

Hey Peter,

You are party to all of the communication between myself and Roobet to date, which includes a variety of ID documents proving my France address. As there is no explicit definition within the terms of what constitutes 'residency', I would suggest that proof of me residing in France would suffice, which is an interpretation any reasonable man would make.

As above, I am not willing to share any more data unless this is with governing bodies (i.e the regulator). I have in my opinion, already overshared to a point I am uncomfortable with.

Also as above, my various documents that I have provided all show my France address adequately to justify a simple withdrawal process at the casino, I have no idea how we have got to the stage where I am sending my 10th ID document, and it is still not good enough. This goes far beyond KYC requirements and is unfair and dangerous to me.

Roobet, please make me aware of your offer to end this case so we can settle up and call an end to all of this. You have my ethereum address via email. Please reimburse to this address and I will post an update here confirming settlement.

Interested to hear your point of view on the matter Peter. Thanks. And again, I refer to the number of cases that have been resolved on here for people who even admit they are playing from a restricted territory and still roobet refunded their full balance as a 'goodwill gesture'. I find it baffling that I, as a player playing from a non-restricted region am being denied my withdrawal of my balance.

I would only send my visa if I could guarantee that if once sent, Roobet can confirm they would give me my balance back. @Roobet can you confirm?

Can I just remind us that in this process they said flight tickets, bills, or bank statement extracts would suffice. Once I provided that, they then said bank statements and ID, which I provided. Now they are still refusing my withdrawal, so understandably I am beginning to doubt anything I provide will be enough, whilst at the same time sending them every ounce of my identity.

With everything going on with Twitch and the media with these crypto casinos, it would be refreshing to see Roobet act fairly in this case.

Hi stevetreen,

Thank you for the evidence you forwarded. We will have to discuss the issue internally and I will get back to you.

Hi stevetreen,

We reviewed the evidence you provided and we understand the reason why the casino asked for additional documents. I would like to ask you to send us a video of you holding your driving license, showing it on the camera, all details must be visible and readable. This should remove any doubt as to the authenticity of your document. Also, let me ask you one more question, what is your address in France? Please send the requested information to my email address.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your help so far.

I would happily provide the above information and video if it meant I would get my money owed from Roobet. But although this would satisfy you, I'm not sure this would result in Roobet accepting the decision?

Please could we invite Roobet to the chat to ascertain why they have not yet paid out after supplying the requested forms of ID & now my Visa (I do not have a specific residency card, which I maintain is not required to be deemed a 'resident')?

I do appreciate their offer of my last deposit, but do not know what more I can provide to get my full account balance.

Please also refer to other cases, eg https://casino.guru/roobet-casino-player-s-struggling-to-access-his-casino where player's balance was returned as a gesture of goodwill (and this player actually is a resident in the UK).

Many thanks

Hello Peter,

Just to let you know, I have accepted Roobets offer to refund my deposit, and I would like to thank you and Roobet for your time.

Please mark case as resolved.

I will confirm here when the funds are received from Roobet

Hi stevetreen,

Thank you for the update. I'm glad to hear that you received your funds. I will now mark the complaint as 'resolved' in our system. Thank you for using the Casino Guru complaint resolution center. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you run into any issues with this or any other casino in the future.

Best regards,

Peter