Account suspended for premium charge avoidance

[Iron]

Do Betfair have a problem with you giving your advice to Bet Angel customers or to people who attend your seminars?

Or is it just your wife who they think you should refuse to help?

Jeff

I think there is a point of contention here though? If somebody deploys an activity or acts on your advice, is this really considered to fall into the same definition?

[xitian]

Betfair seem to be taking the view that they can treat you and Mrs Webb as a joint entity on the assumption that 'what's hers is yours and what's yours is hers'.

It's a very presumptuous and patronising position to take IMHO...

Exactly. If she uses her own bank account, then she should be an independent entity. If she wins, she can do what she likes with her winnings. Why should this have anything to do with Peter whether married or not?

If Peter is using her account directly as himself, or transferring money across in organised betting, then I would agree that they would be acting as an "entity". But since Peter is not, then he's not doing anything to reduce his own charges.

Peter, have they just given you a warning, or actually deducted funds? Do you plan to dispute the charge?

[andyfuller]

A further response from Betfair: -

They say the charge has been applied because....

Any users that distribute their activity across multiple accounts in order to reduce the charges they should have paid will be investigated, suspended and contacted directly by our Fraud and Recoveries teams

I think there is a point of contention here though? If somebody deploys an activity or acts on your advice, is this really considered to fall into the same definition? If I had done something dodgy like swap money between accounts or similar then yes, slapped wrists for sure but I didn't.

Anyhow, be careful everybody. Don't fall into the same trap as me.

What charge did they end up making Peter?

I think what they are saying is if you are deploying activity or acting on your advice with the explicit reason being to avoid the charge then they will go after you.

There are many people acting on your advice, all of the people who have been on your course for example. I for example use something you once showed at the financials expo you did several years ago. But I/we are not acting in a way so as to avoid/reduce your charge.

How they prove, if they even feel they need to (they should obviously), that someone is acting to avoid the charge though is very questionable and I don't know legally where this would stand but I am sure there could be reason for someone to try a test case if they so wished.

Also as they are a bookmaker are they entitled to just say we do not want you custom, like other bookmakers can. I guess they can? No different to a Landlord saying you are barred really. So legal action may lead to a recovery of any unjust charges but they may be then entitled to say we don't want your custom any more or any one we think is linked to you.

[gutuami]

what if two families are renting a house {and have same bank address} and sharing the same ISP through a router what is an entity than???
Is an entity connected to a family name, IP address, bank address or what?
Or that is up to a "judge" from their Fraud and Recoveries teams to decide..

[freddy]

Unbelivable what next,

may as well just go the whole hog and link all Betangel users accounts together ,
after all we have probably all learned something from Peter at some point.

Betfair are just unuseable for me now, they carn't be trusted and will not even produce clear guidlines on what is allowed and whats not.

[Iron]

I disagree about Betfair being unusable, but they need 100% clear rules that are applied to the letter, so everyone knows where they stand.

Jeff

Betfair are just unuseable for me now, they carn't be trusted and will not even produce clear guidlines on what is allowed and whats not.

[Innertube]

Agree, we need to make the most of the opportunity while its there but we also need to be aware of this sort of stuff.

[freddy]

I disagree about Betfair being unusable, but they need 100% clear rules that are applied to the letter, so everyone knows where they stand.

Jeff

Betfair are just unuseable for me now, they carn't be trusted and will not even produce clear guidlines on what is allowed and whats not.

Thats pretty much what i said Jeff , we need to have clear rules and then individuals can decide if Betfair is worth using or not.

Untill then, it's not worth the hassel for me i carn't afford to have my account suspended for 2 weeks so will just use Betdaq.

[mcfc1981]

if mrs webb account was -£100000 peters +£300000 would they be so keen to link the accounts then??? bringing peter below the 250k

[andyfuller]

It would be impossible to say I have never used it, I may have at some point it's been active for many years. But especially since the 18th we have deliberately kept all activity separate. Nothing dodgy going on either such as churning or swapping money between accounts. I guess it was the drop in activity on my account that made them suspend accounts, pending investigation.

Was there any change in activity on Mrs Webb's account since July 18th away from the norm for her account?

[PeterLe]

It is worrying. I too have other family members who have betfair accounts; so are they now saying that family members will be grouped as a single entity??

I think you would have good grounds to take it legal Peter as there is no way that they could prove that you ever clicked a mouse whilst logged into your wifes account? Depends if betfair reach an agreement with you, but it only costs £50 to get a letter sent from your solicitor and fire a shot across their bow...surely they wouldn't want to see that listed in the press?? Not with their share price on its knees??

regards
Peter

[andyfuller]

Betfair are just unuseable for me now, they carn't be trusted and will not even produce clear guidlines on what is allowed and whats not.

Thats pretty much what i said Jeff , we need to have clear rules and then individuals can decide if Betfair is worth using or not.

Untill then, it's not worth the hassel for me i carn't afford to have my account suspended for 2 weeks so will just use Betdaq.

I know we think Betfair should produce clear guidelines, however, they are just a bookmaker like any other, they can accept our business or not.

What other bookmaker produces guidelines on why they restrict or close accounts? I can't say I have ever come across such guidelines. I don't believe there is any rule that says they must.

Betfair suspended Peter's account for 5 days, not 14 days, have you heard of people having their account suspended for 14 days?

If you are the only user of Betfair in your household I doubt you have any issues to worry about. If there are other family members that do and combining their accounts with yours could mean you are liable for the PC then I would contact Betfair directly to avoid any issues.

I am not sticking up for Betfair's actions just trying to look at it from a different angle.

[chuck536]

So i guess the question is Peter.... are you going to be writing about all this in your Racing Post column? or seeking advice?... if your not going to be using them again then you have nothing to loose with them closing your account. Right legal action could even possibly see you recoup your lifetime PC charges others have said?!..

[hgodden]

We've probably all heard cases where betfair have linked people's accounts for premium charge purposes for a while now, so to be honest this isn't surprising.

At least if that is the reason then they are not, as many people were saying, simply shutting down accounts because they are successful.

[toptrader]

I think the sums involved are potentially getting quite large with the new PC that a 'test case' is something that could easily be threatened to Betfair

Unfortunately this means the sums are likely to be too big for the County Court (under 'Small claims' route) which will cost more, but I think highly unlikely betfair would see through a challenge if you were convincing enough to pursue court action

If the result went against them - i'm not a lawyer but it definitely seems very grey - the cost to them will be much more significant than accepting they were wrong to suspend your account in this instance and pay compensation to you to stop court action resulting


And yes, my account was suspended for more than 2 weeks once. Money was held and they refused to return it even though i was going on honeymoon and refused to give any reasons for the suspension

Suddenly a few weeks later it got unsuspended and they again refused to say why this was or why it was suspended in the first place - unacceptable in my view
I think (although never clarified by betfair) it was just because a friend used my IP once to check his account balance and they thought he was avoiding PC using my account (absolutely not the case)