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888 terms and conditions - Inactive accounts beware

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gareth888:
Hi all,

I am in the management of 888, and would like to address these concern directly to you.

I want to point out that before any deduction of funds from an inactive account (6 months without logging in) ever happens, we email the member numerous to tell them that the time is approaching (a month before the time). And all they need to do to become active is again is login and play a hand. I think that isn"t a great burden for anyone, for whatever reason they are taking a break from poker. We have an instant play no download client that works on all computers. It takes 1 min to login and play a hand - and then the player is considered active. We don"t deduct funds from a member without warning them. We want our customers to be active playing poker of course, and OF COURSE we try and re-activate our customers before this even becomes an issue.

Now it"s not our own policy as to why we need to do it, it"s because it"s a licensing REQUIREMENT for the particular gaming licenses we have in our jurisdiction. That is why you will find the other operators that have similar policy are usually in the same licensing jurisdiction as 888.

The reason the regulators want us to do this, is that we cannot keep an open cash liability in our financials forever and we have all sorts of financial guidelines like anti money laundering we need to consider in our business. We are licensed to be a gaming operator, not a bank where we hold the funds forever. During normal gaming play we of course securely hold customers funds so they can be used in the poker play. So we need (and must have) a policy in which deters customers from leaving money with us without playing with it. Our license says we can hold funds only for game play. We are not a licensed financial institution.

I consider our process to be very fair and reasonable around the guidelines we are given. We don"t even consider an account inactive for 6 months, and all a customer needs to do is login in that period and this is never an issue. We notify them by email if this is ever happens. They can login once and a new 6 months starts, or of course they could withdraw the funds and redeposit later should they decide to return to us. Even if the 6 months deadline does come, we still only take 10% a month so we have opportunity to continue to try and re-activate this customer.

It"s really important to make sure we have your correct email address so our communications reach you.

There is no malice intent here, it"s just a combination of regulatory and financial requirements.

Regards
Gareth

coprey:
Hi Gareth

Thanks for the response.

I would be interested to know the total cash taken from customers under this policy. Is this information available? Can you also tell me if it is also 888"s policy to nullify customers accummulated reward points, if their account has been deemed inactive, and if so where this appears in the terms and conditions.

Thanks

Col

AMRN:

--- Quote from: gareth888 on March 17, 2011, 16:04:32 PM ---
Now it"s not our own policy as to why we need to do it, it"s because it"s a licensing REQUIREMENT for the particular gaming licenses we have in our jurisdiction. That is why you will find the other operators that have similar policy are usually in the same licensing jurisdiction as 888.

--- End quote ---


Thanks for the response Gareth.  Regarding the quote above, I"d be interested to know other operators that take this stance... I"ve never come across it before, and have accounts on most of the major sites.

In my opinion, regardless of how hard you try and communicate with owners of inactive accounts, there may be valid reasons why someone is unable to login and play during a six month cycle. As you state, it only takes one minute, however there will be people who are physically unable to achieve this (resting at HM pleasure, hospitalised, working away, plain old simple personal reasons, etc) and to take their money away feels inappropriate and wrong. I understand that FSA rules may prohibit you from acting as a bank, however would expect that you would first attempt to return funds to source of deposit before simply swallowing them into 888"s own accounts.

Cheers
Steve

Marty719:
Surely making the account inactive would take all admin costs out and still make sure 888 are still not "acting like a bank."  I know I have money on other acc"s which I havent used in 6 months.  

gareth888:

--- Quote from: coprey on March 17, 2011, 16:30:18 PM ---
Hi Gareth

Thanks for the response.

I would be interested to know the total cash taken from customers under this policy. Is this information available? Can you also tell me if it is also 888"s policy to nullify customers accummulated reward points, if their account has been deemed inactive, and if so where this appears in the terms and conditions.

Thanks

Col

--- End quote ---


All of it is in the terms and conditions of course. I don"t know the exact numbers to be honest as this rarely happens.

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