casumo paused account problem

[Sodi]

Hello,

so, here's the situation (i know it looks bad and i understand some of it is my mistake).

ive been playing at casumo on an account for alot of years. (lost alot of money but had alot of fun aswell)

a year ago i closed the account because i didnt feel like playing anymore. (because of the losses).

2 weeks ago i started playing again on casumo, but forgot i already had an account (thats my mistake i understand)

deposited around 500euro's in total, before i started winning something back (2900 ish)

tried to cashout (had to do the verification check, everything went fine).

talked to Frank from customer support he said i already had an account but it was closed long enough for it to be reopend and my funds to be transferd to my first account, wich i agreed appon.

he said i had to write an email and explain the situation. wich i did. 

but then my account got flagged for being a multiple account, and it got paused, my funds confiscated. and my now nobody seems to be able to help me.

i have all the transcripts and the promises. ive been playing for along time on casumo and i really like the site, never had any issue with them, but this whole ordeal is just getting me upset.

i hope someone can help me!

with kind regards,

Jacob

[vanHooff]

Hi there,

I am sorry to see that you have run into problems at Casumo.

I recommend that you follow the Complaints and Dispute resolution procedures as outlined in the Terms & Conditions of Casumo.
A link to the T&C is printed at the bottom of their website, you'd be looking for Chapter 10 "Complaints and Dispute resolution procedure".
 

The route to get your issue resolved is first to get it sorted with Casumo customer support, and only if you don't reach an acceptable resolution, 
escalate the issue to an 'ADR' (Alternative Dispute Resolution) .
The ADRs recognized by Casumo is eCogra, and also the ODR platform of European Commission is also recognized. 

From what I have read here on the forum, I am not sure if you have exhausted your options in trying to get this issue resolved with Casumo customer support yet. Your posts indicate that there could be some sort of miscommunications and misunderstanding between Casumo and you or between Casumo staff, but I would not be surprised either if something relevant which has led to the casino not paying you has not been posted yet.

In any case best of luck in getting the issue resolved.

Casumo is a good and decent casino.
(although their KYC / SoW is one of the most rigourous of the industry, after Casumo having been fined heavily multiple times for social responsibility and AML failings) 

Edited 28 April, 2021 by vanHooff

[dirtystack]

1 hour ago, Sodi said:

Hello,

so, here's the situation (i know it looks bad and i understand some of it is my mistake).

ive been playing at casumo on an account for alot of years. (lost alot of money but had alot of fun aswell)

a year ago i closed the account because i didnt feel like playing anymore. (because of the losses).

2 weeks ago i started playing again on casumo, but forgot i already had an account (thats my mistake i understand)

deposited around 500euro's in total, before i started winning something back (2900 ish)

tried to cashout (had to do the verification check, everything went fine).

talked to Frank from customer support he said i already had an account but it was closed long enough for it to be reopend and my funds to be transferd to my first account, wich i agreed appon.

he said i had to write an email and explain the situation. wich i did. 

but then my account got flagged for being a multiple account, and it got paused, my funds confiscated. and my now nobody seems to be able to help me.

i have all the transcripts and the promises. ive been playing for along time on casumo and i really like the site, never had any issue with them, but this whole ordeal is just getting me upset.

i hope someone can help me!

with kind regards,

Jacob

Couple of things:

Have you tried logging into the new account and the old one?

How many days has it been since you sent the email? 

How many days since your account got paused?

When you closed your account the first time did you self exclude or state problem gambling as a reason?

 

[Sodi]

hi @vanHooff,

thanks for responding to my post and the information you give me.

i have nothing to hide, so i'm not giving out any misinformation.

i have talked to customer support when i needed my account to be verified, they said that because i already had an account, although closed, i had to send an email to hey@casumo.com and explain my situation.

if you want i can send you the transcript of my confersation to customer support so you can see what they promised me.

in regards to the exhausted options with customer support, nobody seems to be able to help me, it might be a miscommunication as you stated, but i explained multiple times the situation, and i do not hold any information back as im not trying to be dishonest.

 

do you think i should use an ADR in my case?

thanks for the advice once again,

Jacob

 

4 minutes ago, dirtystack said:

Couple of things:

Have you tried logging into the new account and the old one?

How many days has it been since you sent the email? 

How many days since your account got paused?

When you closed your account the first time did you self exclude or state problem gambling as a reason?

 

Hello @dirtystack,

thanks for your reply,

yes ive tried logging into both accounts, one (the new one) says its paused because its under suspision of being a dubble account, the other says its self excluded indefinetly (wich i did on my self a year ago).

5 days since ive send the first email, than a couple of hours later they confiscated my money and blocked my account.

5 days since my account got paused (in the email they said it was blocked, but on the site they say its paused).

I honestly do not no if i stated problem gambling as a reason, i just wanted to close the account because i lost to much (wich i did by self excluding it indefinetly a year ago)

i hope this info helps you to help me find a solution to this problem.

 

with kind regards,

Jacob

[dirtystack]

Self exclusions normally have a customer specified duration attached to them, 1year, 2 years, 5 years, forever. It might be that you have opened another account while the self exclusion is still within its self exclusion period. I'm not sure if indefinitely means forever in this regard.

I'd contact their live chat and ask what the duration of the self exclusion on your original account was, exactly when it was so you can figure out if you are still in the exclusion period, and get some clarification as to what indefinitely means in this regard. Whether it means excluded until reopened or excluded forever.

5 days isn't a great deal and 2 of those days would have been on the weekend - my experience is that casino staff in the back offices, legal, compliance, etc do not work weekends or unsociable hours. 

Way I see it, if they don't have a problem gambling/self exclusion issue then they should merge your accounts and allow you access - I have the same issue pop up where I work and it can take some time as I will need to investigate for any obvious reasons not to reinstate a customer - if I can't find anything then I have to contact a different department who has more information and see if they can find any reason not to reinstate - it's only after I have received confirmation that there is no issues that I can reinstate someone. It can take time.

If they don't allow you access to your account due to some self exclusion period/problem gambling then they have an obligation to refund you the deposits you made with the new account. It should have flagged you as having an existing self excluded account when you registered the new account with the same name/details.

The ADR is where you go if you have no joy after exhausting Casumo's own complaints procedure. You will need to get a bit more info, ask for an e-mail response detailing what exactly is happening with your account/s. Once you get that info from the relevant team, and if you are not happy with it you need to make a formal complaint to Casumo, an email headed 'formal complaint regarding ......' and stating that you 'expect a response within the time frame outlined in Casumo's complaints T&C.'

It's normaly only once you have exhausted Casumo's in house procedures that an ADR will take on a complaint.

Edited 28 April, 2021 by dirtystack

[Sodi]

5 minutes ago, dirtystack said:

Self exclusions normally have a customer specified duration attached to them, 1year, 2 years, 5 years, so it might be that you have opened another account while the self exclusion is still within its self exclusion period. I'm not sure if indefinitely means forever in this regard.

I'd contact their live chat and ask what the duration of the self exclusion on your original account was, exactly when it was so you can figure out if you are still in the exclusion period, and get some clarification as to what indefinitely means in this regard. Whether it means excluded until reopened or excluded forever.

5 days isn't a great deal and 2 of those days would have been on the weekend - my experience is that casino staff in the back offices, legal, compliance etc do not work weekends or unsociable hours. 

Way I see it, if they don't have a problem gambling/self exclusion issue then they should merge your accounts and allow you access - I have the same issue pop up where I work and it can take some time as I will need to investigate for any obvious reasons not to reinstate a customer - if I can't find anything then I have to contact a different department who has more information and see if they can find any reason not to reinstate - it's only after I have received confirmation that there is no issues that I can reinstate someone. It can take time.

If they don't allow you access to your account due to some self exclusion period/problem gambling then they have an obligation to refund you the deposits you made with the new account. It should have flagged you as having an existing self excluded account when you registered the new account with the same name/details.

hello @dirtystack,

once again, thanks for the response.

i talked to customer supported and they told me that my "old account" had been closed for long enough to have my funds be transferd to this "old account" and be reopend with the funds in there. so thats what i agreed uppon, but i had to send the email, wich i did, but after the email, they closed my account and told me my funds are now confiscated. (can you maybe explain to me what confiscated means, and if that means that there is no way i can get the money transferd to my "old account" like customer support said would happen?)

with kind regards,

Jacob

[dirtystack]

Yeah, it doesn't matter so much what customer support/live chat says - they just try to keep the customer happy and often don't have an understanding as to the nuance of situations. Live chat has like, lvl 1 access - they can see your account was closed and when but that is about it. A different department might have lvl 2 and can see the exact details regarding the account closure. You need to go beyond the live chat to get anywhere.

Confiscated just means they are withholding the money.

You need to find out the self exclusion period connected to your original accounts closure. The Live chat should be able to tell you exactly this, if they are unable to access that information then you need to ask them to escalate your query to a department who can email you the exact detail. 

Edited 28 April, 2021 by dirtystack

[Sodi]

3 minutes ago, dirtystack said:

Yeah, it doesn't matter so much what customer support/live chat says - they just try to keep the customer happy and often don't have an understanding as to the nuance of situations. Live chat has like, lvl 1 access - they can see your account was closed and when but that is about it. A different department might have lvl 2 and can see the exact details regarding the account closure. You need to go beyond the live chat to get anywhere.

Confiscated just means they are withholding the money.

You need to find out the self exclusion period connected to your original accounts closure. The Live chat should be able to tell you exactly this, if they are unable to access that information then you need to ask them to escalate your query to a department who can email you the exact detail. 

A indefinite self exclusion means that your account is self excluded for an non defined period, minimum 6months. After that you can request a reopening and we will evaluate the situation.

Unfortunately there is no specific reason mentioned on you account.

 

thats what they said, i hope this helps my case?

thanks again for helping me @dirtystack

[dirtystack]

Ok, the issue is probably caused by opening another account and skipping the whole revaluation connected to reopening the old account.

Try emailing and saying something along the lines of:

Sorry for creating this issue by creating a new account. It was not my intention to cause such an issue, I was not trying to circumvent the account reactivation process that you have.

 Is it possible to go through the re-evaluation process connected with reactivating my old account at this stage and possibly, should there be no issue, have my accounts merged.

 

Do everything by email so you have a record of of it. Just stay polite and calm and try to reason with them. This will all show you are trying to be agreeable and compliant, and gives you a history of trying to resolve an issue should you end up going the ADR route.

You have broken the T&C so I don't know how it will turn out - if I was approached in a reasonable manner I would do what I can for the player to see what can be done to retain them.

[Sodi]

On 28/04/2021 at 14:31, dirtystack said:

Ok, the issue is probably caused by opening another account and skipping the whole revaluation connected to reopening the old account.

Try emailing and saying something along the lines of:

Sorry for creating this issue by creating a new account. It was not my intention to cause such an issue, I was not trying to circumvent the account reactivation process that you have.

 Is it possible to go through the re-evaluation process connected with reactivating my old account at this stage and possibly, should there be no issue, have my accounts merged.

 

Do everything by email so you have a record of of it. Just stay polite and calm and try to reason with them. This will all show you are trying to be agreeable and compliant, and gives you a history of trying to resolve an issue should you end up going the ADR route.

You have broken the T&C so I don't know how it will turn out - if I was approached in a reasonable manner I would do what I can for the player to see what can be done to retain them.

Thanks again @dirtystack, in your opinion, how long will a case like mine usually take to get sorted out?

im trying all i can to stay patient and followed the advice you gave me wich i think is great btw.

with kind regards,

Jacob

[dirtystack]

I don't know about Casumo as I don't play there.

I'd expect any operator to acknowledge receipt of my email/complaint within 24 hours and I'd budget them up to five working days for them to send a response to my email - it should be a lot quicker then that - I just recommend staying patient and not stressing about it if you don't hear back for a while, it can actually work in your favour if they take longer then what seems reasonable - you can add that to your latter complaint if need be and you get a tiny bit more leverage - the casino is going to look worse if they fail to reply to your enquiry in a reasonable timeframe and they will have to additionally explain why that happened, would look like a failing on their part.

Once you submit a formal complaint to them they have upto 8 weeks to come up with a resolution.

Just keep a record of all correspondence and have the dates of everything at hand recorded.

Can potentially take a very long time so try not to get too obsessed with it.

 

Edited 30 April, 2021 by dirtystack

[Sodi]

As i understand from customer support , the responsible department does work on weekends.

this would put my review at 7 working days.

I would like to state that i do think casumo is a respectible casino brand and have never had any other issue with them whatsoever.

thanks again for the info @dirtystack

[dirtystack]

16 minutes ago, Sodi said:

As i understand from customer support , the responsible department does work on weekends.

Staffed maybe, staffed by anyone senior is doubtful.

Just based of my experience working in casinos, those who have a position high enough to make decisions work 9-5. The people working outside these hours and on weekends normally have to wait for approval  from one of the senior positions to do anything when it comes to anything sensitive such as security, self exclusion, legal, fraud, money laundering, etc. May not be the case with casumo, just don't expect much to happen in weekends.

[Sodi]

39 minutes ago, dirtystack said:

Staffed maybe, staffed by anyone senior is doubtful.

Just based of my experience working in casinos, those who have a position high enough to make decisions work 9-5. The people working outside these hours and on weekends normally have to wait for approval  from one of the senior positions to do anything when it comes to anything sensitive such as security, self exclusion, legal, fraud, money laundering, etc. May not be the case with casumo, just don't expect much to happen in weekends.

Ahh oke, thanks for the info once again.

It's just a waiting game from now on i guess.

[Sodi]

quick update: my account is still under review, 12 days now, didnt get any response yet, only "they will get back to you as soon as possible".

"ADR" is impossible because my account is still under review, and they give the provider the oppertunity to resolve this issue with me.

 

once again, i think casumo is a great casino and never had any problems with them, but the longer i wait the more frustrated i get.

[Sodi]

soo another quick update for anyone who is interested.

i have started using the ADR route about 2,5 months ago.

i used eCOGRA, and after giving all the required documents and transcripts to eCOGRA they said they would get in touch with me once an update was available from the operator (casumo)

after a couple of weeks I asked via email for an update, i got a reply saying "the operator had some delay issues, but the would get back ASAP with the required feedback".

this has been 2 months now, 0 communication from eCOGRA about my case. ive asked multiple times via email for updates but have had 0 responses.

maybe i missed an email, you might think, well, as did i, so i asked if i missed an email via email, but did not get any response on that email either.

i guess, at this point, the +/- 3.000 euro's will never reach my account, and it has all been a waste of time for everyone involed (obviously me aswell). 

[vanHooff]

@Sodi Hey there, how disappointing that you have heard nearly nothing from eCogra.

Unfortunately they are the only listed ADR for Casumo. If ThePogg was on there, I would have recommended them for you.

Still I would not write off all the money just yet.

I have just looked up the "ADR Policies and Procedures for Assistance" from the eCogra website:
https://ecogra.org/products-services/alternative-dispute-resolution

If I were you I would ask politely if your case has been accepted per art.9 , if the case is completed per art.10 , and when a resolution is expected per art.11:
 

1. Quote

    

   1. eCOGRA will within three weeks of receiving the dispute inform the Player and the Operator, together with the reason, should eCOGRA decide to refuse the dispute.
   2. Once a dispute has been accepted by eCOGRA and the information that makes up the ‘Complete Case File’ (relevant information relating to the dispute, excluding any additional comment made by parties to the dispute on the arguments, evidence, documents and facts put forward by the other party to the dispute) has been received by eCOGRA, both parties will receive a Complete Case File notification.
   3. eCOGRA will provide updates on the progress of the dispute at least every 30 days and make every effort to conclude the ADR process within 90 days of issuing the Complete Case File notification. Where a dispute is highly complex, eCOGRA may extend this period by informing both parties of the extension and expected completion date.

    

   Even if eCogra decides that you have lost the case, conclusion of the ADR may be used to convince Casumo to refund you your deposits of EUR 500 because Casumo should not have accepted a self-excluded player to signup and play on their casino.

Best of luck with conclusion of this case, should you actively pursue to follow up on it or not.

Edited 1 September, 2021 by vanHooff