General Betting
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Anyone who has tried to raise any kind of site issue will know how frustrating it is to go through the BF Hinderdesk with their idiot human chat-bots.
Even when you escalate an issue there's a good chance the people "looking into it" will completely miss the essential point of your complaint and when they email you back with their "resolution" there is no return address so you are left unable to clarify what the issue actually is nor be able to submit further supporting evidence.
My recent issue is low odds lay bets sometimes having more than the actual loss amount deducted from my account - sometimes just a penny or two, but sometimes a percent or two, seemingly happening at random. I went as far as submitting the specific bet IDs for analysis and do you know what they came back with? "The losing amounts of x,y and z totalling L were deducted from your account. The old balance was A and the new balance is A' " (The difference between A and A' correctly being the sum L). Well Halleluliah! They just told me the amounts deducted from my account resulted in the account having been reduced by the corresponding amount.
How stupid are these people? What could be ambiguous about "The following bet IDs were settled incorrectly, eg a losing lay bet at 1.02 for £2500 should have lost exactly £50 but £51.36 in total was debited instead. The bet IDs are 22224400**** 22224406**** 22225062**** - please submit this query to the EMT as it could be a programming glitch." ?
Even when you escalate an issue there's a good chance the people "looking into it" will completely miss the essential point of your complaint and when they email you back with their "resolution" there is no return address so you are left unable to clarify what the issue actually is nor be able to submit further supporting evidence.
My recent issue is low odds lay bets sometimes having more than the actual loss amount deducted from my account - sometimes just a penny or two, but sometimes a percent or two, seemingly happening at random. I went as far as submitting the specific bet IDs for analysis and do you know what they came back with? "The losing amounts of x,y and z totalling L were deducted from your account. The old balance was A and the new balance is A' " (The difference between A and A' correctly being the sum L). Well Halleluliah! They just told me the amounts deducted from my account resulted in the account having been reduced by the corresponding amount.
How stupid are these people? What could be ambiguous about "The following bet IDs were settled incorrectly, eg a losing lay bet at 1.02 for £2500 should have lost exactly £50 but £51.36 in total was debited instead. The bet IDs are 22224400**** 22224406**** 22225062**** - please submit this query to the EMT as it could be a programming glitch." ?
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I imagine this is linked to very small bets (pennies - lots of them) and rounding errors. It's been a long time since I've played around (purely to prove the point) with the backing side of it, but certainly laying you (at least used) to be able to get a completely risk free lay. I remember making BF aware of it 18/19 years ago, so it wouldn't surprise me if nothing's been done about yet.... Rome was not built in a day.
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If you lay £2500 for a risk of £50 you cannot lose an extra £1.36 due to a "rounding error".
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I can absolutely promise you that you used to be able to. If you were matched by large volumes of backs at very small stakes, the backer would yield greater odds than those being asked for because each bet was settled individually rather than collectively (ergo multiple instances of the rounding error). Not saying that is definitively the case now, but it absolutely was a thing in the past.
It does seem harder to lay small stakes bets now (possibly impossible), but backing to tiny stakes still appears to be possible with the API from a quick test I've just done.... |
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To give some examples of this in action based on what Gruss is showing me (without actually submitting):
1) If I submit a back bet of 50p at odds of 1.01, my potential profit shows as 1p rather than the 0.5p liability that should actually be the case (dropping the stake to 49p shows a profit of 0p) 2) If I submit a back bet of 75p at odds of 1.02, my potential profit shows as 2p rather than the 1.5p liability that should actually be the case (dropping the stake to 74p shows a profit of 1p) Do it enough times, and it adds up. |
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I'm not certain if the total amount credited to the winning account would match the total of the rounded figures shown in the breakdown in the examples you cite, as what is displayed need not correspond with the number of decimal placers used in the calculation, but if what you say is true then any extra paid out should come from BF's own funds. It should never be possible to back odds for £10 then lose £11 on that bet, yet that is exactly what is happening on the equivalent lay bet. If I bet £2,500 at 1.02 to lose £50 I am really betting £50 in the hope of winning £2,500. What I am NOT doing is betting any amount greater than £50, so why is my account having more than that amount deducted?
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That was the argument I had with them all those years ago. The reality (in my experience of 83,811 markets, according to the Premium Charge portal), is that it's extremely rare for there to be more than a few pence disparity.
I imagine BF would be quite quick at highlighting and closing down any accounts acting in this manner, so you may have just been unlucky. Have you noticed any other instances of it happening? |
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Since 20th Jan yes, on six occasions, for a mere penny on only half of those. I've never seen it in the previous twenty years, so I'm assuming it's a new site-glitch.
But my query here is not about the specifics of this example - it's an appeal for a functioning email address. To get a reply from the so-called "Escalations Management Team" sent from a "DO NOT REPLY address is simply unacceptable, especially when the response clearly shows they did not fully understand my issue and therefore needed further interaction and more evidence. It's an awful trend these days where big corporations hide behind chat bots or at best very automaton-like humans with limited scripts so that you can never directly discuss a complex query with anyone capable of understanding it. Imagine a world where two mathematicians could only communicate via a journalist with a History of Art degree, or where two English speakers had to communicate through intermediaries the first of which translated the details into the local language to a second intermediary who then translated it back into English? |
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Can't help with an email address, I'm afraid. I do have a VIP phone number, but they won't talk to me any longer...
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VardonVoo.30 Jan 21 22:45Joined: 21 Dec 01 | Topic/replies: 5,323 | Blogger: VardonVoo.'s blog
It's an awful trend these days where big corporations hide behind chat bots or at best very automaton-like humans with limited scripts so that you can never directly discuss a complex query with anyone capable of understanding it. You have summed it up pretty accurately. Be thankful you are only being robbed of £1.36 because at the end of the day (with the Customer Service being exactly as dire as you have described it), you are left in the unfortunate position of calculating how much you value your time. In my experience you are best to just write it off - which is extremely irritating because obviously that is what they want you to do. The alternative is that you could (quite rightly imo) pursue it with them on basis of the principle - but I suspect five hours of your time is worth more to you than £1.36, coupled with an insincere apology from somebody that still won't understand what has happened and that will do absolutely nothing to prevent it from happening again. GL. PS - if one of the "automaton-like humans" masquerading as a Customer Service operative offers you a "call-back" - don't hold your breath waiting for the phone to ring! |