Vinyl Casino - Player's withdrawal delayed due to endless verification issues.

I signed up to this casino on 17/10/2023 and deposited €190. I received a bonus of 100% from the casino. I played with this bonus money according to their terms and conditions and after completing their wagering requirements I had a cash balance of €2,352.90. The casino only allows a withdrawal of €500 per day. I initiated the first withdrawal of €500 and it was completed quite quickly. However, since then, I haven't been able to withdraw any of the remaining €1,852.90 that is outstanding. I made requests to withdraw the second €500 on 19/10/2023 and 20/10/2023 as well as two requests on 12/11/2023. In that period between creating my account and 12/11/2023, I was doing my best to keep up with the ever more unreasonable requests being made for me to "verify my account". I complied 3 or 4 times, each time submitting what had been asked for but even when the casino promised that it would be resolved after I sent a document, they always "moved the goalposts" and requested something else, in a blatant effort to simply not pay my winnings. Each time it became more unreasonable and unnecessarily invasive, especially since I had provided all the information already that should have been enough to verify my account. Please understand that this happened nearly six months ago and it's difficult to recall every detail at the moment. When I would contact their live chat they would be very flippant, many times simply disconnecting the chat without warning. I sent them emails on 14/11/2023 and 21/11/2023 to try and seek a resolution, the first of which was just completely ignored. Their reply to my email on 21/11/2023, simply reiterated their unreasonable position about the need for further efforts to verify my account in some way. Since I'd heard this about 4 times previously when in the processing of trying to verify my account, it became apparent to me that they simply were refusing to payout the remainder (and vast majority of my winnings). I became very frustrated and discouraged but since they weren't being very responsive to my emails I was still trying to engage them on their live chat, each time they would provide absolutely no help, usually just replying with "is there anything else I can help you with" even though they had provided no assistance. I know that I didn't break any of their terms and conditions and I continuously complied with their verification requests up to the point I realised they were just determined not to payout regardless. Before initiating this complaints process, I tried to engage them again on 25/04/2024. I decided I would file a complaint through their disputes department, through the email listed on their site: complaints@vinylcasino.com. Unfortunately this email address wasn't functioning and wasn't receiving the email I'd written. After that, I sought help on their live chat, asking for a way to escalate the matter within Vinyl Casino, rather than escalating externally. They asked me to use the regular support email again, and I refused, because of the experiences I'd had leading up to that point, in which their staff had shown no desire to help me in any way, and usually acted to hinder my attempts to resolve this, either by ignoring my email, or disconnecting live chats abruptly, the latter of which happened well over 5 times. After this, I knew I needed to escalate outside of the casino. I went to the website of the authority they were licenced under according to the footer of their website, the Gaming Control Board of Curacao. After checking on their website, it was clear that they "do not handle complaints yet". At this point, I made the decision file a complaint with casino guru. I appreciate it may be difficult to build a precise picture of what happened based of this message but I am committed to answering and questions you may have in order to make things clear. This is what I can recall at the moment and is an accurate overview.

Please note: That my first name is incorrectly inputted as "cal_a_l" because I thought a username was required. My real first name is Calum. My first name on the casino account is "Calum A******" which includes my middle name. They included my middle name in their "first name" record, after reviewing my passport, where it was listed. I believe my casino username is the same as my email address as that is what I use to login to my account.

Dear cal_a_l,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your problem. 

Please understand that KYC is a very important and essential process, during which the casino makes sure that the money is sent to the rightful owner. As they don't have the luxury of being able to physically see all of the players and check their identification and documents, this is the only way gambling establishments are able to complete the verification procedures. None of the licensed casinos take KYC lightly and it might take a few working days to complete this thorough process. 

• Have you been informed what specifically seems to be a problem in verifying 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 Petronela,

Many thanks for your quick response. I fully understand why the KYC process is so important for casinos and did my best to comply and provide everything they asked for. I've completed this process on sportsbooks and other casinos, with no problems like this. Can I ask if you were able to see the emails I sent to the casino which I uploaded as attachments with my complaint? They provide some context.

My account was fully verified before my first withdrawal request was completed. I uploaded my ID and Proof of Address and everything was normal and my first withdrawal was paid out with no issue.

When the next request for withdrawal of €500 was rejected, I contacted them and they asked for a bank statement for the account I was withdrawing to, to prove it was mine (My initial €190 deposit was with USDT cryptocurrency). Even though it seemed strange since this was no issue for the first withdrawal, I sent them a statement but unfortunately they still wouldn't process the second withdrawal of €500. They never stated why they were refusing to pay out at this point but just made another request. They then demanded a screenshot of my crypto transactions for the last 30 days. While I thought this was intrusive, I reasoned that it was OK because this was my deposit method so I sent them the required screenshot. However this was also not accepted despite it being what they had asked for. They then changed the request to crypto transactions for the past 30 days in PDF form. They knew I was growing frustrated but at this point they definitively stated that this was the last request and that my winnings would be paid out if I submitted it - which I did. They rejected it a couple of times, arguing about the formatting within the PDF (I was sending them a PDF generated by the crypto exchange Coinbase, where I had sent the USDT from for my deposit), I still followed each request until they simply stopped making any attempt to explain why they were rejecting it. At this point, their live staff was becoming pretty rude, dismissive and began terminating live chats or simply not responding. I attempted to ask them why it wasn't accepted and what needs to be done to get my winnings and they essentially tried to break off any meaningful contact at this point. I persisted in contacting their live chat, and it was like pulling teeth trying to get any sort of meaningful response. Then I noticed a message within my casino account that read "Please upload bank statement for October from the account with which you have bought crypto". They never contacted me to say this, if I hadn't have checked manually in my account I wouldn't have seen it, despite me having active withdrawal request. At this point, I became very weary of the casino because I felt that they were making it up as they went along. I agonized over whether to comply with this request. I'd only ever deposited €190 to the casino and I felt their request was unwarranted and everything suggested that they simply didn't want to pay my winnings out. Also, my trust for this casino was now non existent since they strung me along about 4-5 times. However, I decided I'd send it. However, after talking with family members, and my bank, who advised against it, I decided to send them a partially redacted bank statement that showed my deposit to Coinbase on the date I joined Vinyl Casino (If I recall correctly, depositing by card wasn't working on the day). I thought this was reasonable as it linked my bank account to my Coinbase account.

I'd now provided proof of ID, address, ownership of my bank account, ownership of the crypto wallet that deposited the money to the casino and the transaction history they asked for on my crypto wallet, and evidence that I had funded the crypto wallet with my own bank account. But, to no avail. They demanded I send completely unredacted bank statements including unrelated to the casino. I'd already explained to them that I was very uncomfortable with this.

Since then, I have learned that casinos have procedures to verify "source of funds", however I don't feel that is a reasonable request for a player who has made one deposit to the casino. Also, they never said they were asking for me to prove "source of funds". I felt like they weren't going to pay me and were trying to violate me by gathering as much data about me as possible, all while not communicating in any reasonable way.

I appreciate that the timeline for each interaction isn't there, but I do not have the Live Chat transcripts unfortunately, and I am having to do my best to recall each of their requests in the correct order. Apart from not receiving my money, which I think is totally unacceptable, I am appalled by their general tone and terrible attitude in their (limited) communications with me.

Thank you very much, cal_a_l, for providing all the necessary information. I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Peter (peter.c@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 there,

Thank you cal_a_l for providing us with all the information. I hope we'll be able to resolve this issue together.

I would now like to ask Vinyl Casino for their help in resolving this complaint. We would like to know what is the issue with the verification and what can we do to help the player receive their winnings.

Thank you!