Hi gang Is there a mandatory or legal requirement to return your full funds in the instance of wanting to close an account? I know there are rules in bookies T&C's that say if you signed up as part of a welcoming special offer, that you have to "play through" the amount deposited (multiplied by however many times they stipulate in the small print.) Those with long memories will recall me being unable to withdraw around £6000 from my Ladbrokes account, where they trotted out this line about not fulfilling the original terms. At the time I thought a solution may be to close the account, forcing them to hand over all the funds (possibly less an admin fee) In the event I left it a few months then tried again, and again I had to contact them, but this time met with a more responsive attitude. Asked how much I wanted I said £5500 ..... and it was paid without quibble. I had explained that Laddies was my very first account some 15 years earlier, and that seemed to convince them. However ......... Unibet. I just went straight for the closure option and got this automated response "If you close the account, any ongoing bets will not be paid, nor bonus's accepted. You will be unable to withdraw funds" This just seems so wrong. Again this is an old account from when they were Stan James - set up around 2004. It may be that I can withdraw virtually everything, but leave say a quid to keep the account "live" but I won't try that until I have spoken with them. Your thoughts?
Bookies are crooks and obviously try to tie you in until you lose the money on losing bets. But, at the end of the day, like so many bloody contracts you have to read the small print and be fully aware of what that means. We recently bought something from French on-line company. They obtained the goods from China. Apart from the goods being extremely poor quality, we then got a demand for shipping costs from a shipping company and when we told them to get lost they referred us to the small print in the contract. (Cue for another thread me thinks). Eventually we had to pay up. Fortunately we got an electronic receipt because a month later we got a demand from a debt recovery company - just sent them back a copy of the receipt. Oh, and the on line company's site disappeared so we couldn't even returned the **** Small print should not be ammunition for a company. If it is something that will cost there should be at least something in large print which informs you of any cost incurring clauses. And in our case it should have been included in the price quoted (ie plus shipping costs, see small print). In Bookie account invitations it should state very clearly: Warning. Limits apply on withdrawals and account closure, see small print It's about time the Government stepped in and made it illegal to hide cost incurring clauses in the small print
A year ago, I wanted to close a brokerage account because my broker had been taken over by Interactive Investor, who decided that they were going to introduce a £90 a year charge (£22.50 a quarter) on my previously free account. I qualified for a free account because I held sufficient equities and cash in it. I followed the small print in the terms and conditions and posted them a letter by snail mail to request that they close the account. I never got a reply but as far as I was concerned, it was closed. A month or so later I got an email from them telling me my latest statement was available online. So I logged onto the now empty account to find it was overdrawn by £22.50 as they had charged the quarterly fee. They are never going to see a penny of it and presumably at some point in a few years time some automated bean counting bot will realise that the account is hundreds in the red with unpaid fees and flag it up. They can try the debt recovery company approach if they want but I had one of them before when somebody bought £200 of kit from Dixons with a cheque book that had been stolen in a burglary – the debt recovery company got a flea in their ear and zero money. With your online betting account, I would be inclined to withdraw the funds in reasonable chunks over a couple of weeks and just leave £1 in it and walk away. When the account has been inactive for a while, it will flag up to some bean counter on a periodic report and they can deal with it.
Update: With the help of their online chat service, a very friendly assistant called Emily (probably a screen name) I was walked through the process. It was done as a complete withdrawal, so technically the account is still not closed, but the money should be on it's way to me soon. The one irritating bit was after she spoke with their accounts people, they advised HER to ask me for photo ID and a photo of a bank statement, because "it's an old Stan James account"
