Ladbrokes refunds English punter $2000 after account fee calamity

JUST when you thought you only had photo finishes and protests to worry about stealing money from your account, you hear the bookmakers are after a piece of your pie too.

In England, a punter who won over $13,000 betting through Ladbrokes had over $2000 taken from his account due to having unwithdrawn funds that had been unused for over 12 months.

According to Ladbrokes UK terms and conditions, the company is able to charge either £2 or 5 percent of the account balance per month if the account has been inactive for an entire year.

Pommy punter Mark Mackay said he was blindsided by the fees after account restrictions limited his bets to minuscule amounts.

“I had two big wins last year and in September, there was about [$14,000 AUD] in there,” Mackay said.

“After the wins, they started restricting the bets and the stakes they were offering me were silly, so I stopped putting bets on.

“I’d occasionally try to put a bet on, then get knocked back, so I’d check the balance and leave. Then I logged into the account last Sunday and I found there was [$2197.48] gone.”

Mackay said the company had made no attempt to alert him that these fees were about to be withdrawn.

“I’d had no contact at all from Ladbrokes, and I complained to their customer services. They came back to me on Monday and said that the money had been taken because the account was dormant.”

Ladbrokes took five percent of Mackay’s balance over a period of three months, which totalled over $2000 all up.

Mackay said the funds were too excessive to ignore.

“This has got to stop. If you’re trying to put a bet on, they know you’re not going to go through it all [the terms and conditions] with a fine-toothed comb if there’s 10 minutes to the race and that’s how they catch people.

“This was too much money for me to miss it, but what if it was $15 or $20, and then you think about all the others and how it could all add up. They think they can do anything, but it’s not their money.”

Ladbrokes admitted fault on its end for not issuing an email detailing its intentions of deducting funds from the customer’s account, and delivered the funds back to Mackay in full.

A company representative stated the company will continue to issue the fee in the future.

“Our policies around dormant accounts are in line with standard industry practice,” a Ladbrokes representative said.

“Although we believe our terms and conditions are clearly available to customers who are required to accept them when registering accounts with us, we endeavour to email customers to inform them that deductions to dormant balances may be made.

“In this instance, we are investigating why such an email was not issued and would like to apologise to the customer whilst confirming that refunds of the deductions have now been made.”

Do Aussie companies charge punters for having an inactive account?

The answer to this question depends on what company you are betting with. Typically, if you have an account that you routinely bet with your funds are fine.

For those who are worried about the sites we recommend, here is a rundown on whether or not your unwithdrawn funds will remain untouched:

• Sportsbet confirmed the company does issue a dormant account fee which totals $10 per month on accounts that have had no activity for 18 months.
• William Hill Australia declared they do not charge any dormant account fees, even if customers have unwithdrawn funds in their account.
• A change in policy for CrownBet will see the company charge an inactivity fee of $10 per month if customers have not placed a bet in two years or have never bet in their lifetime or deposited for more than 2 years. This will come into effect from January.
• If you do not use your Bet365 account for an entire year, the company will deduct either $5 from the customer’s account or 5 percent of the total amount – whichever is greater.

Our take – Terms and Conditions matter

While the story of an Englishman whinging about apparent unjust behaviour is nothing new, many punters who open an account at an online betting agency could be forgiven for glossing over the terms and conditions in order to get funds into their account quickly to get punting.

The fact of the matter is however, if a company has certain conditions within their terms that dictates they can deduct funds from dormant accounts and you agree to them, you can be certain they will issue those fees whenever possible.

The punting Pom Mackay said he did not have time to go through terms and conditions “with a fine-toothed comb if there’s 10 minutes to the race” but ignorance is never going to be an excuse.

What is the best way to avoid this? Keep an active account or withdraw all your funds – seems a simple solution to having the online agencies deducting your hard earned without ever issuing a bet.