they are are offering 0% commission on some markets as compensation

..
https://promotions.betfair.com/refund-offer
..

I cannot see anywhere that the refunded commission is ignored for the PC calculation.  Plus I don't do horses and will be away for this weekend so it is no good to me at all

I am unimpressed but not surprised.

I was expecting precisely nothing and seems that's what I've got.

Given that it was the cricket punters that were most badly affected, followed by the footy ones, why are the horsey people being singled out for a refund?

Not that it matters if you're right about the PC anyway.

tbf, PC payers are kind of compensated more than others by default, because if they lost that will be offset against future PC.

tbh, compensation that addresses actual concrete losses would be fine.

what would be better, imo, would be for them to figure out which users had a net losing day on saturday, and hypothecate that day's losses (or a percentage thereof) against their future commission. with maybe a cut-off date to encourage activity, if as seems the case they're determined to use this as a promotional opportunity.

not that I think there's any chance of it happening, mind you.

This is good for pc payers. Simply back overs and lay 3 goals or more at the same odds so the bets cancel each other out. You'll generate commission from both bets and it shouldn't cost you anything.

This 'compensation' is a fcking joke. I pay less commission having a pretty high turnover.... so... as a bigger player I get to be rewarded less than a smaller punter who may pay the whole 5% commission?!!!

This compensation is ill-thought as it:-
1. Rewards people unaffected by Saturday's events
2. Rewards Betfair's larger customer's less than their smaller ones
3. Gives you no choice as to what markets YOU actually might want to bet on
4. Quickly cobbled together moreso to appeases foot-tapping shareholders who wanted to take some half-assed action to restore customer faith

Betfair you are turning into a complete joke and I for one would stamp across the back of your neck to jump to the next ship as and when it arrives.

I am not a 'big account' player.  I was not affected in an adverse way on Saturday.

This is not a "refund-offer".

It is simply a promotion targeting specific events.

For those affected by the outage(s):
The only way to "get a refund" is to spend money. 

If your bet is successful, you will be rebated the commission for 'that profit'. 

If your bet loses, you will receive "no refund".

This is as tacky as when an airline or train operator who offers you a voucher on "your next journey" rather than compensating you on their poor performance at the time.

Chilly the Dog, how is this "compensation".  You have to bet to "earn your compensation.

Compensation should be offered without condition.  Betfair should have posted that they were looking at options then took two or three days to look at who was affected.

Instead, a quick "spin doctor" approach to smoothing things over.

Disappointing from an organization that used to be the home of "sharp minds"

The Betfair offer is pitiful. When they used to **** up they acknowledged it often offering 0% reduction for the week or something. I expected 0% commisssion on all bets placed next saturday. Missing a Saturday represented 20% of my total bets for the week. I generally back only horse racing and because of the outage I had to increase the bets on Sunday so I didn't drop a discount band. Fortunately a good winning day scrapped me above the band, but what of those who lost out?

It works out the same as cash if you adjust the amounts you are arbing off in the absence of comm. Fwiw, I think it's better than an across-the-board offer of cash wd be.

A truly generous offer wd have been the Supreme Nov Hdl, the race in which everyone is fiddling to try to cash in on the money back if jolly wins offers, one of which has no price ceiling.

That wd also be a generous offer, but my remark about the Supreme (I take it you are not a horse punter, viva) stands.

A hard core of professionals or informed amateurs wd not necessarily have lost anything b/c there are other exchanges or hedging mechanisms available.

You're suggesting that people who won that day didn't undergo any frustration that is worth compensating--even if I understand that they suffered less than the losers. The comm.-free events for all also divert resources away from working out who deserves a refund and towards maintaining site functionality at a busy time.

They had no comm. on the Arkle, Medermit was pretty constantly trading around 4s here and was 7-2 w/ Mountains early. There was lots of mone lying about (if you're able to get on).

But how do you go about determining who had a concrete loss.

Punter A - just wants to have a bet on Arsenal to beat Man U for £100.
Punter B - puts a position of a £100 bet up on Arsenal to beat Man U with the intention of trading out later.
Site goes down. Only Punter B has suffered a concrete loss because of the site going down, but hey look they are both phoning up saying that they wanted to trade out but couldn't.

Every person who lost will claim that they wanted to trade out but couldn't, are you suggesting that they should go through every single person's betting history and try to determine whether they were telling the truth or not. Sounds like quite a lot of work.

Indeed no way is perfect, and whatever they do there will always be people saying "that's not fair on me". Likewise there will always be people trying to claim things for which they are not entitled.

There will be so many people who lost that ultimately were not affected by the site just like there will be so many people who could have bet and would have won that were affected.

I suppose the site going down potentially affected every customer so they looked at a solution that also potentially everyone can benefit from.

Anyway what's done is done i suppose.

In situations where compensation is involved, it can define a company.  The work/finance involved should become secondary to the effort and cost of making good.

For betfair, they did not look at the overall impact this had on their clients and did a "make good" promotion that essentially cost them nothing (bearing in mind they took commissions on all bets and trapped trades that became bets on Saturday).

The work involved to compensate is finite and achievable:

First, do not come up with compensation in 24 hours.  Announce you need a few days to (a) focus on the site and (b) look at the cases.  Definitely don't say "We have listened to your feedback" or "fair to everyone" when interviewed. 

Second, filter through your accounts:

a) who was logged on?  Those not logged on are eliminated from compensation and their accounts flagged as such.

b) Regardless of their account balance, up or down on Saturday, clients who DID NOT HAVE OPEN POSITIONS on events that were affected by the crash (i.e. played events before or after) are eliminated from compensation and their accounts flagged as such. 

From there, betfair now have an idea of how many clients are "potentially affected" and will see the potential cost that will go against revenue from the weekend.

Betfair now proceed as follows:

c) they can go through the accounts and evaluate (using filters) clients who were affected negatively by an event during the black-out (this is finite).  Major clients are contacted by their account managers (this has most likely happened anyway).  Smaller clients given equivalent in free bets via a promo code.  These cases are now closed and the clients account flagged as so.

After seven days:

b) They then build a compensation form on the site and send out an e-mail saying "if we have not contacted you concerning your account but you feel that you were affected adversely by the crash, go to www.betfair.com/compensate and fill out the form.  This page will be available for seven days."  The descriptions will be from simple to abstract, bet references need to be typed in.  The major work-load is on the client.

Betfair then will have "x" amount of claims.

a) claims under X, just give them a free bet for the amount.  No time spent, no questions asked as long as they had an open position.  Do not question whether it is a trade or bet.

b) claims over X need to be looked at and verified, their claim scrutinized.

It is not a major task force to do so. It is finite but the responsible thing to do. It would have put Betfair into the upper realm of client relations.

It is disappointing to see a technology company that had the ability and opportunity to go the extra furlong.