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Hi LuckyNoob - welcome to ThePOGG.com!

Please ensure you have read our <a href="https://thepogg.com/how-to-report-complain-about-an-online-casino/">Complaint Guidance</a> to ensure that you fully understand how our complaint management process functions.

As we are the ADR for the Aspire Global license under the Malta Gaming Authority license there is certain information we have to provide you now.

You can find all the relevant information about this service here – http://thepogg.com/terms-of-use/ and the terms of use for our complaint service here - https://thepogg.com/terms-of-use-for-dispute-resolution-service/

To summarise.

– Use of this service does not preclude your seeking redress through court proceedings .

– This service is free to use for both the complainant and operator.

– At any point during the procedure the submitting party retains the right to withdraw their complaint. This does not preclude our right to continue the discussion with the involved operator of general issues related to the complaint (i.e. insufficiently clear terms and conditions).

– You are not obliged to obtain independent or legal advice or representation, though you may choose to do so.

If you have any questions about the above, let me know.

Specifically what reason has the operator given for voiding the balance?

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Hi ThePOGG Team, thank you for your time and for considering my case.

The operator has not given any reason whatsoever for voiding my entire balance; this was not discussed with them beforehand, or announced by them in any way whatsoever. They simply waited until I achieved a certain balance of real money after completing all of my bonus requirements, then went ahead and deleted the entire balance before I could click the Withdraw button.
(NOTE: numerous screenshots of these facts are available; I will upload them and attach a link to them at the end, where you may review them anytime) 

For context, according to Karamba's Terms and Conditions (which are NOT displayed prominently on their homepage or as part of their bonus offers), if a player requests a withdrawal of funds that resulted from bonus money and the player has placed any bets over €3.99 while playing with that bonus, the casino MAY withhold a certain amount of money from the withdrawal request, and MAY even go so far as to pay out only an amount equal to the initial deposit. 

However, what Karamba did instead, is to simply delete my ENTIRE balance, without ever giving me a chance to request a withdrawal in the first place. 

100% of my balance was seized, including my initial deposit, before any possibility of withdrawal.

After I contacted them about this, requesting that they pay out at least the balance resulting from bets made with bet size below €3.99 (amounting to approximately €3,828.48), they lied and claimed that they could not do so because they "had no record of any such bets". 

When I requested to help them locate the Game IDs of those winning bets, because I was well aware of the game, time and bet size at which they occured, they denied me access to my account, including its game history, and kept stonewalling and refusing to send me an excerpt of my game history in an alternate form, such as an Excel file, because it was a "complex matter".

This also violated all sorts of GDPR regulations relating to access to personal data.

In another major violation of its own Terms and Conditions, Karamba Casino also claimed that not only would it not pay anything related to my bets, but that it was even unable to return my initial deposit (€180) to me.

After I submitted a complaint to the Malta Gaming Authority and Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland and notified Karamba about it, Karamba suddenly had a change of heart and decided that they were actually able to return the initial deposit, which they eventually did to my Skrill account.

After being further reminded that it was completely unreasonable to deny me access to my game logs and that this violated GDPR, they allowed me access to my account, at which point I easily (less than 5 minutes of effort) located the winning valid Game IDs and all of their details (see attached). 

Now, after having been caught in false claims that they were unable to locate my Game IDs, and that they were unable to return my initial deposit, Karamba Casino is now back to claiming that this somehow settles all of their obligations towards me, and refusing to make any further payouts or even to settle for a partial amount (I offered 50% just to get done with it and they rejected it as well).

Being forced to fight a casino at every step of communication, with the casino claiming that it "can't do anything" and suddenly remembering its legal obligations only after being reported to the authorities, is simply frustrating, and is really not what I would expect from a proper MGA-licensed establishment.

As an additional note, I have accounts at other MGA-regulated casinos, the most prominent being Unibet Casino (Trannel International Ltd, MGA/B2C/106/2000), where I spend heavily, and have never had any problems at any of them. All of their operators and customer support officers could attest to the impeccable nature of our relationship and me never having had any unreasonable requests.

ATTACHMENTS: Conversations with Karamba support via chat and e-mail, account balance, game logs
[EDIT]

Best regards,
LuckerNoob

Hi LuckerNoob,

So, to be clear, you have accepted a bonus and while completing the wagering requirement for that bonus you have placed bets that exceeded the maximum allowed bet term associated with the bonus?

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Hi ThePOGG Team, that happened in the beginning by accident (numerous games are automatically set to high bets when opened), and I contacted the customer support about it, requesting a solution.

Here is a screenshot that proves that they explicitly requested that I finish playing the entire bonus regardless of those accidental bets:

[EDIT]

So clearly this did not bother them at all at the time. Then after I got significant winnings, they went back on their word and started acting maliciously, as described above:

A) Deleted the entire balance from my account after the bonus was completed to prevent me from requesting a withdrawal at all
B) Lied that they were unable to return my original deposit
C) Lied that I never made any bets that resulted in significant winnings
D) Prevented me from reviewing my game logs and other personal data

All of this violated not only all sorts of regulations, but even their own terms and conditions!

Hi LuckyNoob,

Firstly - your bet sizes are your responsibility. While we understand that different providers, and even different games offered by the same provider, will load with different bet settings as default, the idea that you would simply have started spinning without ever checking how much you were betting is not a reasonable one. Even setting aside bonus restrictions this would leave you betting blind - with no idea whether the bet was far too low to be interesting or far too high to be sustained. Given that the entire attraction of gambling is correlated to the risk involved, it is not unreasonable to expect players to set their risk level before they start spinning.

The screenshot provided does not show the agent passing comment on the violation of terms, or even you asking what to do now that the violation has happened (though it seems reasonable to conclude that this may have occurred directly before the shown dialogue). It shows the agent giving default advice regarding a standard limitation on withdrawing. You will not be able to withdraw anything unless you complete the wagering requirements. They haven't addressed any other potential issues with this statement, simply provided basic advice that any player who has received a bonus will need to abide by. 

If you have placed bets that exceeded the maximum allowed by the bonus you claimed, the operator is within their rights to consider the bonus contract void and reset both parties to pre-bonus conditions.

We will contact the operator to determine why your deposit has not been returned.

With regard to the accessing of your account information - you are an EU citizen and as such within your rights to submit a Subject Access Request (SAR) detailing the specific personal data you wish to see. If the operator fails to comply with this we would recommend contacting your local governmental data/consumer protection agency as enforcing SARs is beyond the remit of this service.

We will revert to you once the issue has been discussed with the operator.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Hi ThePOGG Team, for clarification, the operator has returned my initial deposit, but only AFTER I reported them to MGA and ASAI. 

However, considering that they lied about being unable to return the deposit, and that they lied about the absence of winning bets (again, please see screenshots in the folder I linked: [EDIT]  is it not entirely reasonable to conclude that they indeed have outstanding obligations towards me that haven't been fulfilled? 

If that was not the case and they honestly had no further obligations in this case, why would they go to so much trouble to lie, erase my balance, and even prevent me from accessing my data?

I would appreciate an explanation about that, since I really do not see any reason for such unethical behavior. It feels very extreme.

Hi LuckerNoob,

All that has happened here is that upon our contact the case has been escalated further up the management chain than you reached. Upon review by a higher authority the individual responsible identified that the deposit should have already been returned. As such this error in management was corrected.

As to your argument for "further obligations" - this is a straightforward case of failure to comply with a bonus contract. We are here to review disputes about gambling contracts, not to award damages. If you are looking for that you would need to pursue the matter via the relevant court systems.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Hi ThePOGG Team, thank you for your assistance in this and I understand that you can't do anything else. If that's the case, feel free to close this complain and mark it "Resolved".

However, I think the crux of the issue here isn't the deposit, but the fact that the casino has VIOLATED ITS OWN terms and conditions, according to which it was supposed to let me make a withdrawal, then adjudicate the amount to be paid out, possibly reducing it to the amount of the initial deposit.

Instead, they did something completely different: they deleted my balance, lied about my game history and denied me access to my data.

This is not about money, and no matter the resources it takes, I will be happy to pursue legal action to get at least an admission of guilt and an apology from Karamba Casino for this horrible behavior.

Best regards,
[EDIT]

Hi LuckerNoob,

You are arguing a technicality at this juncture - that in your opinion the process should have been different even if the end result was the same. 

The simple facts here are that you failed to adhere to the terms of the promotion you accepted. The end consequence was always going to be that the bonus contract was void. The fault in this instance was not the operator's. You may not be happy with how they managed the interaction after the violation, but that is simply a customer service issue rather than a contractual dispute.

We wish you the best of luck in pursuing the matter via legal challenges, but I would suggest that if you are looking to do so simply because you feel you are owed an apology a court may not view this favorably.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Thank you for your advice, ThePOGG team. I appreciate your help.

This player has exceeded the maximum allowed bet term while playing with a bonus. As such there is nothing we can do to help them.

Dear POGG Team, I would like to report a case in which Karamba casino has unilaterally erased my entire account balance for no reason whatsoever, thus denying me the chance to even request a withdrawal despite fulfilling all the requirements.
 
 Furthermore, Karamba casino has acknowledged that I am entitled to a payout for these winnings, but then lied that it was unable to locate the bet IDs through which those winnings were achieved.
 
 Afterwards, they:
 A) Refused to allow me access to my account so that I could locate these bets myself, and
 B ) Refused to send me an excerpt of my game logs so that I could locate these bets myself (putting aside Karamba's unethical behavior here, this also violates GDPR clauses related to access to personal data).
 
 It took an entire month of wrangling with their customer support, being subjected to all sorts of stonewalling in the process, to finally be allowed access, at which point I easily located the winning game IDs within one minute of reviewing the game history.
 
 I can attach those winning Game IDs, account status and balance, as well as a dozen other screenshots and e-mails worth of documentation, including their explicit claims that they can't locate those winning game IDs, as proof of my case.
 
 However, now Karamba is claiming, in contradiction of their earlier statements, that they do not have to make any payouts related to those winnings.
 
 Their reprehensible behavior obviously constitutes an acknowledgement that they really are liable for paying out those winnings under their own Terms &amp; Conditions, otherwise you would not have gone to so much trouble to prevent a withdrawal and a review of my game logs, going so far as to outright lie to me regarding the non-existence of those bet IDs.
 
 In the interest of achieving a fast and friendly resolution of this case, I have even offered to settle and accept a lower payout (50%) than I am entitled to, but Karamba has refused that as well.
 
 I am asking you to intervene and make Karamba Casino live up to its previous promises, paying out the amount of €3,828.48, or at least a reasonable portion of that amount.
 
 Looking forward to hearing from you.
 
 Best regards,

Karamba Casino - refusing to pay out valid winnings, denying access to account and game logs, hiding winning bets

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