Another negative story

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8782921/Betfair-removed-52000-from-customers-account.html

This could be fun. I'll be very interested to see just how legal the courts deem Betfair's cash-and-grab to be.  They'd better have pretty strong evidence that this punter's connected to the others.

So if the guy really has nothing to do with these other people, then it would be ok for Betfair to grab his money anyway Paul? A bit like saying burglary is ok as long as you only target rich people yeah?

I have ofc no idea about the truth behind the story, but I know not many people go to court against large corporations just for fun.

Wonder if Betfair send out field agents to investigate cases like this, who shadow people, take pictures through windows and stuff like that, or if they just conduct their investigations from their cozy offices?:)

are you paul mcmullan? you seem to share the same bitter hatred of success.

the difference between the two is that the premiership footballer has transgressed a rule or code of conduct and is therefore fined accordingly; the appropriate comparison would be to fine him £20k solely because he makes too much money.

has transgressed a rule or code of conduct

In a civilised country that would probably apply to most pc3 payers.

Having read that article, what I do NOT understand is : if they believe 5 accounts are all basically 'him', why not take 1/5th from all accounts as it would all still come from him, or at least try spread it across all accounts with money in them? It's the same clawback but a better way of doing it.

Way they've done it: If they've got it wrong, firstly they've hammered one poor sod for it all. Secondly if they did it to all 5 accounts, they might get 5 people to come forward saying 'what are you doing' to indicate they've got it wrong. This way they've made it very hard for this man to prove he's been done wrong?

(I don't know what other info betfair have of course but I think what I'm saying makes sense).

If betfair miss manage there handling of winners and this sends out an embossed image that winners are not welcome in the press then betfair may find itself on very thin ice and by mirroring the bookmakers methods of clobbering there most successful customers , betfair will go into meltdown, for sure as they will be singled out as the market leader in the exchange game they wont have any safety in numbers and a mass exodus will prevail.

Lmax has cost betfair 30 million in losses, not setting up bingo up many years ago probably the same, if this was sorted out earlier they woudnt be relying on hammering there top customers with pc2 and further damaging there image to the long term loss this will incur

Good leadership would of not let all this happen!

By the way if persons are avoiding pc2 then this is wrong and should be stopped, but are we all now to worry about not only being charged in the future more and more but also being accused of cheating and having our accounts frozen and taken away?

can see this happening a lot. what right do betfair have to take people's money anyway? seems
like daylight robbery to me. although I don't agree with the methods employed by a large percentage
of people who tend to fall foul of the premium charge (ie re my "are bots destroying betfair thread)

I certainly don't agree that there should be a 60 percent tax on winnings. It's only because betfair are a monopoly that they can get away with it. if this happened in any other walk of life people would laugh at betfair and never have anything to do with them.

perhaps betfair should be referred to the monopolies commision, for breach of business ethics?

Have you read the article paulme? asking me if I have betted is not the point, the last time I won good money in a bookmaker was in march!

Placed £100 on a dog trap 5 in a race, 4/1 drifted out to 8/1
corals wouldnt pay me because although they noted that a staff member confirmed I placed it on the dog race when asked, the fact was there rules allowed them to question the bet because there was a horse race at the same time, the member of staff that asked me which race it was for was kept away as she was never in when I was told she was in.

I never got paid my winnings and they were taken from me in effect

To cut a long story short, I had been winning a lot many times, sound familiar and told that all my bets were being monitored, I told them I wont be using them again as they are unfair.

Now if I start using betfair and backing dogs then i may have my account frozen if it gets big because i may be a pc avoider.

Or perhaps I would just be a winner , not what betfair wants anymore
I dont know as all the press things you read about betfair and purple
are making me think that winners are not welcome anywhere and yet all
betting firms encourage us to win, if we lose they dont bat an eyelid.

Read the article of this thread and paste the link paulme before you
have a pop at me please.

im not having a go bff. i enjoy your posts as i've said.

why would bf freeze your account if you started betting?

Bf seems to think he's too good to bet at Betfair. I think he fears they'll assume he's be on before and is a PC evader...

I'd be very surprised indeed if Betfair have a watertight case here. The burden of proof will be quite high. You can't just grab somebody's money and take it off them without a decent explanation.  They've been used to throwing their weight around, but it's only a matter of time before somebody stands up to them.

The condition for being accused is simply to win consistently. Don't you see? Even if innocent Betfair are now heavily incentivised to suspend any consistent winners who are not paying PC2. Any new customer learning to win consistently costs them £100k+.

You can't just be realising this now.

They know what they are doing, though, I believe. It seems deliberately designed to maximise cash in the short term and to hell with the longer term consequences. I'm thinking the strategy involves some sort of medium term exit before the long term implications play out.

Good point weatherman but the only exit route perceivable short term to me for betfair to avoid there long term damage to there conceptional well being as a business is posting bankruptcy , logically speaking or can you perceive a different exit?

I was thinking of a sale to someone on the back of unexpectedly good revenue this year (because PC2 payers make more money than most people realise) - note the rise in the share price since the conf call where they said PC2 was working well.

People detest red tape. Betfair don't realise the damage the threat of having winnings withheld will do wrt attracting new customers. Where existing customers are concerned, they could have reduced the impact pc1/2/3 had by deducting/rebating after each market instead of going for the moral destroying Wednesday payment. There surely must be some kind of clown virus circulating in this company.

Feck N. Eejit, There is some sort of clown chromosome rebounding around the walls of BF HQ and having 2000 staff and no original founders and all top staff gone must mean BF are entering there dark age now with cannibalizing there best resources in the form of exchange winners
a common theme.

Lets hope any new customers can still smell the roses when they join without realizing its the smell of flower petals thought once to resist us from catching th plague, brought on by the pc dark ages now upon us.