SportingBet

[macca260]

My account was re-opened yesterday evening, got my free £10 plus an extra £10 for the inconvenience.

Thanks again all

[SuperCat]

The power of OLBG!
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I did rather well in the February 2008 tables!

[mgnapster]

I've always been a fan of SportingBet because like someone else said they generally offer the best odds in the morning on most races. Then last week i placed a bet on a horse 5 mins before the off. I clicked confirm and the page refreshed but instead of the green tick and your bet was placed successfully that usually comes up it logged me out..

I logged back in now 2 mins till the off and the bet hadnt been placed and my account balance was the same so i placed it again. The horse lost so i logged in to place another bet and the bet had been taken out of my account twice even though there was no sign of any bets that day when i logged back in and placed the bet a 2nd time..

I phoned customer service and i think the girl was chewing gum or something and was absolutely clueless. She didnt even ask me any security questions apart from my username. She said the bet had gone through now so couldnt be changed. I was explaining it was a fault by their website not me. I asked to speak to her manager, she said her manager was in a meeting. I asked to speak to any manager she said they was all in meetings. I asked her to leave a message for her manager to call me. I then used the live help section they have online hoping I'd speak to someone with more sense. They told me the same thing. 'The bet had been placed and there was nothing they could do'.

I thought this was absolutely ridiculous so i took all my money from my account after that and wasnt planning on using them again.. But thinking that was then end of it, a manager called me yesterday said she could see quite clearly it was a duplicate bet, apologised for any trouble and deposited one of the stakes back into my account.. So I'm going to continue to use them but have taken note of the managers name (Gemma Kelly) and will only talk to her if there are any problems in future.

She seemed like a nice lady and pretty clued up. I definitely think they need to look at there customer service staff though.. I cant even begin to explain how clueless the girl i spoke to at customer services was. I had to tell her word for word what to write on her email to her boss. Then after explaining what the problem was about 5 times she says "So what were you betting on? Were you betting on football" this after me mentioning the horse, time and venue of the race many times. Plus she had my account open on screen in front of her so could see exactly what the bet was..

In short I'd advise SportingBet to have a serious look at there customer service section or I'd imagine they will lose a lot of customers in the future.

[gecko6]

since the merge of SportingBet and sportingodds... first time I used them I had similar problem... trying to put a bet on and kept getting logged off message (although I wasnt) .. basically errors re the bet, clearing it, re-doing it... and couldnt get the bet on... I emailed them and had a rant

got a reply saying / explaining how to re-set my cache and delete temp internet files and all that..

so I told them that was irrelevant, I use firefox and they had sent me IE info, and that they would lose me as a customer and I would spread the word etc

then got another email with an apology and £10 credit to my a/c...

so fair play to them for sorting it out.. shame they have had problems but if you rant you usually get it solved (story of this country these days)

[fairfranco]

I've not had any experience with their customer service area and haven't made that many bets with them but they opened a fairly large office over here (Channel islands) late last year and as my dad started working for them I can say that they certainly take their staff training very seriously.

All of the staff were sent to the Uk for a month to get trained at head office and a lot of the UK staff were sent to work over here for the first 6 months while they got going.

Obviously if the head office are doing a bad job in the first place they may not have carried well anyway but they seem like a decent company from what i've heard and treat the staff very well.

Not sure if we have customer services over here, I imagine it's probably done somewhere cheaper to run than here! we have accounts managers and traders over here and I was seriously considering a tennis trading job for a bit but held back wanting to know exactly what you get to do before going for it. should have gone for an interview really!

what i can tell you is that their staff are very agressive on the football pitch and clocked more bookings than anyone else in the 5 a side league this season!

[sergeant_cecil]

Yet again I've had a problem with Sporting Bet.

Yesterday I backed Smart John in the Wetherby 2:20 at the odds of 2.625. I backed this through the Oddschecker site. I was surprised at the price because they had Daylami Dreams down as a non-runner, and I though the price was quite attractive. More attractive than with any other bookie. This is why I made the bet.

Having checked the result I noticed that the payout was incorrect. I viewed the bet and managed to work out that a 20p Rule 4 had been applied. It doesn't say this on the bet. It seems you have to work it out for yourself ??? I complained to them about this 2 years ago !!

I contacted them asking why the Rule 4 was applied, and, lo and behold, they say Daylami Dreams was withdrawn 21 minutes after my bet was made. I know this is rubbish, but I can't obviously prove this now.

I'm closing my account. The amount of money is pretty trivial, but I feel cheated.

What is so annoying, is that this company were excellent before being taken over.

[sergeant_cecil]

Connected to the above does anybody know where I can find the time of day a horse is officially withdrawn from a race ?

I would love to find this out as I know it's different from that quoted by SportingBet.

[princecap]

cecil, Betfair normally give the time in the Rules section next to where you can bet on horses.
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Numbers and me, Its a love-hate relationship. I love them, they hate me!

[sergeant_cecil]

The only place I've managed to find a time that Daylami Dreams was withdrawn is Bet365 which clearly states that, with them, any bet made before 11:18 was subject to the rule 4.

I made my bet at 11:53 according to SportingBet's records.

The claim, via their "Traders", was that the horse was withdrawn at 12:08, 50 minutes later than Bet365.

Absolute poppycock !!

I was starting to doubt my own eyesight/memory.

Anyone else been robbed similar to this ?

[sergeant_cecil]

An update.....

After weeks of wrangling with different, but incredibly poor, customer service representatives, I've managed to get nowhere with SportingBet.

Despite providing them with my own evidence, despite their failure to pass me on to a requested account manager, and despite their failure to provide any evidence of their own, I have repeatedly been told that the bet has been settled correctly. They seem to think that if they say it repeatedly then it will become true ! They've oviously got problems with their systems, but are unable to admit it.

Their customer service is pathetic in my opinion. I've closed my account, and will not be using them again.