Grateful for any advice. In summary, a very well known firm are refusing to pay out the return from a winning long-term ante-post bet, where I lost the slip and it looks like the firm may have mis-settled based on the horse's result in a different race (on the day I placed the bet).
On April 4th, I backed Silviniaco Conti at 12/1 for the King George in a cash betting shop (dark blue signs) before he was due to run that day at Aintree. However, the cashier wrongly marked the slip as SP and, even after I pointed out the bet was marked for the ante-post race, Evens (the price for the race on that day). After again pointing out the error, the cashier amended it again to show the ante-post odds.
Unfortunately, about two weeks before the race, I lost the slip (with only a slim prospect of recovery) and then the horse duly won. Not to worry, I contacted the customer services department. (The betting shop is about 300 miles from home incidentally so the issue couldn't be resolved in person). 3 weeks later, they have just written to tell me they have no record of my slip on the system (or any amended bet) and the only bet recorded was for my selection at Evens for the race that day (for the same stake). Therefore they can't pay out.
Grateful for any comments/advice on what to do next. In particular, a few questions spring to mind.
a) Would the firm still have the carbon copy? Or would they have destroyed it after they had believed the bet settled on 4th April (the horse lost the Aintree race). b) Assuming they had destroyed the carbon copy, what would they do if I find and produce my slip? Would they say the bet had been settled accurately and therefore my slip was fraudulent/had been tampered with? c) How can they actually mis-settle a bet clearly marked "ante-post king george kempton 2013" (or very similar) in this way in the first place? d) What's the best way to take this forward? The amount owed is less than £500.
When I worked for Billy Mountains we could only search through the EPOS systems for the past few weeks. Anything before that you would need to phone up customer services for them to search for the slip.
A good shop would keep the top copy (or carbon copy as you call it) for at least a year. So if they could find this it obviously would be helpful to some extent (although with the shop 300miles away perhaps not). To be honest though customer services should easily be able to find it even if it has been mistranslated as a loser. They could enter the date parameters when your bet was placed, which is easy in your case as you know the exact date, and could look through the bets taken that day.
So it's a bit baffling that they claim they can't find it. If it is obviously stated that it's an ante-post bet they should be able pay you out whether you have the slip or not.
So sorry if I've waffled a bit here but,
a) Yes. To the best of my knowledge most Hills shops would have ALL top copy of slips for a year's worth of bets. b) No. They couldn't. Unless it has been tampered with! If you find the slip and it explicity states the King George you HAVE to get paid. c) Poor training. Most cashiers know f-all about horse-racing. They would have typed Silviniaco Conti into EPOS and the first match would've been for the Aintree race and they would have entered that. d) Well if you can't find your slip - I would get back onto customer services. Tell them to look again. Tell them you KNOW you've done the bet on that day for the King George. Tell them if they can't find it you will go to IBAS. If at all possible if you could go back to the shop and ask them nicely to try and find the top copy for you the shop manager should be able to oblige.
When I worked for Billy Mountains we could only search through the EPOS systems for the past few weeks. Anything before that you would need to phone up customer services for them to search for the slip.A good shop would keep the top copy (or carbon c