Arbusers

Hi all
Sorry for long post. Questions at the bottom of post.

I've had my account with unibet c. 1 year. My wife has had hers for maybe 3-4 months less.
On 21st my wife made a withdrawal request of several hundred. On 24th she followed up asking why delay. On 25th she got account verification request. She submitted documents. Next day she got message saying for all docs to be resubmitted whilst holding them. Then on 27th she got message saying account permanently suspended and money confiscated per T&Cs:

5.3 You can only register one (1) Account with us, which can then be used across all of the Services. If we identify that You have acted fraudulently or dishonestly in opening multiple/ duplicate accounts, we reserve the right to suspend or withhold any winnings/ funds that have accumulated on those accounts. We also reserve the right to close any and all accounts.

After this she got another email reminding her on 28th to submit docs whilst holding them (she didn't have time previously). She did this and afterwards got an email same day saying account suspended for T&C breach 16.1, 16.5, 19.2, and 19.2.2:

16.1 We will not tolerate any fraudulent activity or cheating. If we consider in our reasonable discretion that You have: (1) dishonestly manipulated the Services or taken an unfair advantage of us or the Services; or (2) attempted to defraud us or any other customer or legal entity, we reserve the right to suspend and/ or close Your account withholding any or all winnings and share information (together with Your identity) with the police and other appropriate authorities.

Naturally seeing this unfold caused me to get worried and on 27th I made withdrawal request for my account. On 31st I got a message saying that my account was permanently suspended but no request for verification or notification of cash confiscation - just saying investigating.

Clearly they are grasping at straws. My suspicion is that they are trying to insinuate that we are multi accounting since we make similar bets HOWEVER as we are both arbing big matches (seria A, EPL) etc that are identified by oddsmonkey/PA we are making same bets as thousands of others at same time. If they had valid suspicion both accounts would have been suspended simultaneously and not only upon withdrawal.

Same for the second accusation (they quote following list of possibilities):

identity fraud;
payment fraud;
money laundering;
third party funding;
forgery;
using stolen or fraudulent payment details;
collusion with other individuals;
utilisation of software to gain an advantage;
chip dumping;
exploitation of loopholes within our software & functionality;
betting on fixed sporting events; or
insider information.

Again - all of these are ridiculous and can't be proven. Things like money laundering / identity fraud would mean police involved. Collusion? Again arbing is not illegal. Making bets on all outcomes is also not illegal as it's essentially double chance bet. So again no ground to stand on.

My questions:

1) my wife informed unibet that she will be making complaint to eCOGRA and then taking to court if that doesn't work. Unibet replied that she needs to first initiate complaints procedure with them. As they used terms "final decision" is there any point in doing this? Don't want ADR to say didn't exhaust avenues but seems like extra 4-8 weeks to process?

2) in this process what is the entity I'm facing? I read unibet would sometimes try confuse process between their various legal entity responsibility (kindred group etc )

3) if my money is also confiscated should we make seperate complaints or same one?

4) in the complaint to eCOGRA should I be open about arbing and how if they had real suspicion on multi then both accounts would be suspended same time etc

Total cash between two accounts 1.5k. Both of us are happy to go to court in person etc if necessary

Many thanks

Before anything else I suggest you study this article as I m sure it will clear your thoughts: portal/how-to-take-legal-action-against-a-bookmaker/

You didn't inform us where do you come from, but lets suppose for the shake of the argument that you come from the UK.

Now let's take your questions one by one:
1. I am not sure what eCOGRA could provide, this is not in my SOP and I suggest you skip it. Instead, you should be going directly to the UKGC. Contact them by both phone and e-mail. Present the situation backed by evidence, print screens, documents etc, go to full details. Ask for the Point Of Contact that will handle the case. It is important to get the name of the manager that will handle the situation. I understand that trust on UKGC is severely damaged these days, but this is how you should proceed.

2. You should not be confused by any game they might play against you. In every step that you take you should clearly inform them. For example, when you firstly contact UKGC, you should inform Unibet that UKGC is on the case, without giving them any more info. Let them spend time and resources too.

3. Yes, separate action should be taken.

4. Again, not sure what eCOGRA would bring on the table. Can't comment.

Good luck.

arbusers wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 07, 2023 11:08 am

Before anything else I suggest you study this article as I m sure it will clear your thoughts: portal/how-to-take-legal-action-against-a-bookmaker/

You didn't inform us where do you come from, but lets suppose for the shake of the argument that you come from the UK.

Now let's take your questions one by one:
1. I am not sure what eCOGRA could provide, this is not in my SOP and I suggest you skip it. Instead, you should be going directly to the UKGC. Contact them by both phone and e-mail. Present the situation backed by evidence, print screens, documents etc, go to full details. Ask for the Point Of Contact that will handle the case. It is important to get the name of the manager that will handle the situation. I understand that trust on UKGC is severely damaged these days, but this is how you should proceed.

2. You should not be confused by any game they might play against you. In every step that you take you should clearly inform them. For example, when you firstly contact UKGC, you should inform Unibet that UKGC is on the case, without giving them any more info. Let them spend time and resources too.

3. Yes, separate action should be taken.

4. Again, not sure what eCOGRA would bring on the table. Can't comment.

Good luck.

Thank you for your reply. Never read anywhere about contacting UKGC but everyone mentions ADR but suppose can't hurt and will show court that I have taken every possible step before court.

no point wasting your time with UKGC or any other dispute resolution.

You and your wife make 2 separate claims in the UK small claims court and unibet will contact you saying we are returning your money.

treblepop wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 16, 2023 9:42 am

no point wasting your time with UKGC or any other dispute resolution.

You and your wife make 2 separate claims in the UK small claims court and unibet will contact you saying we are returning your money.

thankfully blessed that i can afford to have this last indefinitely (6-9 months?+), just want to make sure all the boxes are ticked off when i finally do go to the courts.

i assume more people dont go to courts because they are multi accounting and cant actually convince the person whos details they are using to show up in court for them?

so i received eCOGRAs response and they sided with unibet:

• Unibet confirmed that X account was flagged by their operations team.
• This resulted in a review being conducted of X's account.
• Upon concluding the review of X's account, Unibet found that the account is linked via IP address, home address and GEOIP location to a second account.
• The second account was restricted by Unibet due to negative betting patterns.
• As a result of the links to the second account, Unibet made the decision to permanently close X's account and confiscate the balance.
• This decision was made in line with section 16 and 19 of Unibet’s terms and conditions, which states the following

They have given me time to provide evidence to the contrary. so in my response i want to say that:

yes, it is true that there is a similar home address that both accounts are linked with (not IP though) however the T&Cs do not ban same address accounts and they have a specific T&C against using promos by same address accounts that Unibet have not accused my wife or myself with. Further as i wfh for considerable amounts of time it is not surprising that our geolocations would be similar.

Should i just reply that i follow a trading strategy of exchange arbitrage where i follow the difference between back odds and this is done by thousands of other people so we would all be expected to have similar betting patterns at similar time frames as these odds are constantly changing before settling on an amount that doesnt change

i also want to point out that this seems to be linked to the so called "second account" so i assume that means that once that account had any issues then that should have immedietly resaulted in email being sent to my account, however no such emails were sent and again it seems to follow the premise of "confiscate money first then find reason second"

any other suggestions?

to add to the above - none of this describes their T&C 19.2.2:

"19.2.2 we become aware that You have used or attempted to use the Services for the purposes of fraud, collusion or unlawful or improper activity;"

who committed the fraud? each person used their own identities when signing up. what part is collusion? if it is value / arbitrage betting then the bets are usually made on same outcome. How is that collusion? How do you even define improper activity? Winning?

i have already addressed the imo lack of applicability of the T&Cs

"16.1 We will not tolerate any fraudulent activity or cheating. If we consider in our reasonable discretion that You have: (1) dishonestly manipulated the Services or taken an unfair advantage of us or the Services; or (2) attempted to defraud us or any other customer or legal entity, we reserve the right to suspend and/ or close Your account withholding any or all winnings and share information (together with Your identity) with the police and other appropriate authorities. A non-exhaustive list of what we consider to be fraudulent activity or cheating is set out below:

identity fraud;
payment fraud;
money laundering;
third party funding;
forgery;
using stolen or fraudulent payment details;
collusion with other individuals;
utilisation of software to gain an advantage;
chip dumping;
exploitation of loopholes within our software & functionality;
betting on fixed sporting events; or
insider information."

no one committed fraud as we used our own details. software/exploits surely only relates to casino not arbitrage betting?

it seems that assuming eCOGRA doesnt change opinion i now do the "letter before action", wait 30 days then start small claims process? do i do this against Unibet Limited UK? Their Gibraltar entity etc or what? many thanks