Underage Gambling at Casumo.com

[Livlooly]

Hello, I'm looking for some advice if possible?

Earlier this week I found my daughters bank statement stuffed down the side of her bed and saw £620 worth of card payments made to 'Casumo Malta' in lots of separate transactions of £10 and £20 between 31st July and 3rd August.

My daughter is 17, she turns 18 at the end of the month.

She has registered for an account at Casumo on 31st July, using:

*My first name

*Her own surname (we have different surnames)

*Her own address (which is also my address)

*A made up date of birth that doesn't belong to anybody living at our address.

*Her own debit card from her own bank account

She is in a world of trouble, but putting that aside for a moment, I dont understand how she was able to create the account and deposit all this money.

She was never asked to provide any documents verifying her ID, address or her age, and she wouldn't have been able to even if she had been asked, as her ID wouldn't have matched the details that she used to register.

Their terms and conditions state that they use technical partners to verify identity and age, however the details that she gave do not match a real person, so I don't understand how these checks were passed.

I emailed Casumo on Tuesday stating all of the above and also asked them to permanently delete the account, but i have received no response at all. I also sent a copy of her passport, a picture of her holding her passport, her birth certificate, my passport, a picture of me holding my passport, a pic of the front and back of her debit card and a picture of her bank statement.

 I've also attempted to contact them on live every day since Tuesday and nobody is responding at all, I just keep getting a message that somebody normally replies within 20 minutes, however its now been 4 days and nobody has acknowledged or replied to any messages.

They have obviously seen my email or messages because if you now try and log into the account the following message comes up "We've paused your account for security reasons. Contact us and we'll get it up and running again.'

I have emailed the UK Gambling Commission and received and automated acknowledgement, but no actual response yet

Does anybody have any suggestions for how I can actually speak to somebody at Casumo about this and get them to reply?

Any advise anybody can give at all would be much appreciated.

[pinnit2015]

Long story short, they shouldn't have accepted a bet from her/you/mismatch of details. Their age verification has, if the above is correct, failed. Or not done.

 if an operator has not yet verified the name, address and date of birth of any customer, they will need to have completed verification before allowing that customer to gamble. Operators will therefore need to prevent any unverified customer from gambling until they have gone through the verification process.

That came into effect in May-20. 

Casumo's support has really gone downhill - last time i waited 4 hours for a bog standard CS query.

Utilise the complaints procedures, here or elsewhere. 

They've had their knuckles wrapped a few times by the UKGC and IMO are becoming as dodgy as any Curacao casino with some of their practices. 

Put a Subject Access Request and see what checks were actually done/if any. 

[Livlooly]

Thanks for replying, I will submit a complaint here and send them a SAR too. 

[pinnit2015]

Looks like a very clear case of breaching their regulatory requirements.

I find it hard to believe though that Casumo use UK based  electronic verification - reason being is you always need to send them in documents IMO - compare that to Bet365/Sky who, because UK based i think, do it in the background. So if they never asked for it...then i'd be very surprised to hear they're using Equifax etc identify verification even with reference to 'technical partners'.hmmmm. 

Mrs P signed up to a place last month and because they don't electronically verify, had the a/c paused instantly upon registration until she suppled them with stuff.  Which is how it should work.

If they did get a 'positive' match from their 'technical partners' then they might want to have a word with them because it may not be working. 

 

[pinnit2015]

Side note - there were rumours of Casumo leaving the UK - they told affiliates not to market to UK etc. They've been hit with fines for various regulatory breaches (they're still breaching as we speak in other areas) so i wouldn't be surprised to see another UKGC fine coming their way in the near future. 

Whilst the UKGC don't respond individually, well i've seen some some specific responses, the whole underage think will likely perk their interest - maybe more so now as their whole existence is under scrutiny after the last parliamentary report. 

 

[Livlooly]

I'm surprised that the bank allowed the transactions to go through as she is under 18, but apparently gambling transactions are only blocked by default on children's accounts and she upgraded her account last year to a classic account so that she could have a contactless debit card.

I've emailed [email protected] and requested a SAR.

I even emailed Reading FC last week as Casumo sponsor them, I know it has nothing to do with them at all, however i was just hoping they could provide some contact details for someone at Casumo that would actually respond. They were really helpful to be fair and their head of partners responded to me whilst he was on holiday and said that he had contacted his contacts and was advised by them that someone would be in touch with me and to let him know if that didn't happen. This was on Wednesday and  nobody has contacted me yet, however i don't want to keep disturbing the Reading FC man whilst he is on holiday so will give it until the end of tomorrow until I go back to him.

 

[blondie]

For me it also seems strange that no verification was required when she deposited so much in a matter of a few days in small, consistent amounts. Also the fact that they didn't check that the bank card name wasn't the same as her player name (if I understand correctly from the description).  I wish you luck and I think there is good chance of winning the case you submitted (AGCCS) as they should have done a KYC check especially since the regulations in the UK are much stricter than in other countries.

[pinnit2015]

Speaking of sponsors of teams - Not sure if they still do but that 1xBet (from what i've read a really dodgy operator, some weird KYC practices about sending it to weird Russian addresses etc)  used to sponsor Barcelona: now, you'd think when you see a footy team being sponsored, it would give the appearance of legitimacy (maybe that's the business reason) but it actually means nothing: even 888 i think used to sponsor clubs as well and they were/are, well, uhm.

I don't know what happened to Casumo over the last few years - from reading about they're back to their old tricks: holding withdrawals until SOW is processed which the UKGC has made very clear (so, no, it's not the UKGC's fault this time), is a no, no. Their support has gone to the dogs as well. That's if you can even get hold of them. Their reps on other sites don't answer questions etc. Personally, and never thought i'd say this about them, stay away if you're a relatively high roller, or even low roller, particularly if from the UK. Their compliance team/legal team cannot even read UK Regulations properly. 

[pinnit2015]

22 minutes ago, blondie said:

For me it also seems strange that no verification was required when she deposited so much in a matter of a few days in small, consistent amounts. Also the fact that they didn't check that the bank card name wasn't the same as her player name (if I understand correctly from the description).  I wish you luck and I think there is good chance of winning the case you submitted (AGCCS) as they should have done a KYC check especially since the regulations in the UK are much stricter than in other countries.

Yeah, i think if what the OP has posted is right it's pretty open and shut. Name mismatches/DOB mismatches. 

Which makes you kind of wonder why, UK at least, they're so obsessed with SOW if they can't even get the basics right.

Be interesting to hear about the outcome because I've heard in the last week something similar from a friend of a friend. 

[Livlooly]

Just after i posted my last response I opened a new incognito browser window and attempted to contact them by live chat again using a fake email address and said I was having problems depositing and an agent called Martin responded to me within 1 minute asking what the problem was and how he could help, I then replied stating who I really was and why I was contacted them and they havent responded since, that was 2 hours ago. So I think they are definitely seeing the messages, but just choosing to ignore them.

[Livlooly]

To be honest I had never heard of Casumo before last week so I can't personally comment on what they used to be like before vs now but I've been doing some research on the over the past week and it does seem like their reputation used to be a lot better than it is now, even the reviews from their staff on glassdoor.com used to be all 5 star and are now generally 1 star reviews, this is the most recent one 

[pinnit2015]

That's what i do sometimes - tell them you're having problems depositing and they can't respond quick enough - funny that 

Yeah, they've got this horrible AI/Bot thing where u ask a question, it doesn't answer it and you ask for the Team...you then wait, no exaggeration 3 hrs, come back and they've responded after 2.59 hours but, because you only seen it 2 minutes after they replied, they log off with 'sorry you missed us'. It's a farce their chat now. 

[pinnit2015]

They're definitely went downhill over the last few years, from a player point of view (can't comment as employee because they tend to embellish things) - they were, at one point, excellent. Their 'Chat Ambassadors' were one of the best - i have seen first hand, funnily enough, a customer support agent saying the advice etc given by one of their colleagues to the customer was a joke - which was refreshing, but now not so much. 

Don't know if they've got bigger etc but they were a lot more flexible in the past, they dolled out offers, their withdrawals were consistent. Don't know what happened - they did start as a smaller business obvs and sadly, it's what tends to happen when companies grow - look at Bet365 etc - maybe Valdes will back it up, i'm not sure, but the larger they get the more disconnected/unwilling to really participate in complaints (many big companies just ignore) they get. Doesn't make them bad per se, just takes away the personal touches that made them stand out. 

[cocopop3011]

4 hours ago, Livlooly said:

I'm surprised that the bank allowed the transactions to go through as she is under 18, but apparently gambling transactions are only blocked by default on children's accounts and she upgraded her account last year to a classic account so that she could have a contactless debit card.

I've emailed [email protected] and requested a SAR.

I even emailed Reading FC last week as Casumo sponsor them, I know it has nothing to do with them at all, however i was just hoping they could provide some contact details for someone at Casumo that would actually respond. They were really helpful to be fair and their head of partners responded to me whilst he was on holiday and said that he had contacted his contacts and was advised by them that someone would be in touch with me and to let him know if that didn't happen. This was on Wednesday and  nobody has contacted me yet, however i don't want to keep disturbing the Reading FC man whilst he is on holiday so will give it until the end of tomorrow until I go back to him.

 

Keep us posted, I hope they deal with this for you,

In terms odf the bank though, yeah also wondering why they didn't pick this up considering her age! I mean it's shocking they still allowed it even with an upgrade! Which UK high street one was it?

[blondie]

To be honest, the ignoring your messages and not getting back to you seems simple to me- they realized they messed up and now they need to figure out how they will deal with it and till then just keep being persistent as it's on them and  I believe that persistence will pay off.

[pinnit2015]

Blocking/ignoring is normally reserved for the dodgy Costa Rica licences etc.

There's probably a note of some sort as well as to a 'do not discuss' - I think i had that once from Guts as i was wanting answers to a data protection issue and i was just disconnected all the time - like you, i found it weird that the person 3 foot from me was able to get through etc. 

Kinda get it though - if it's a big issue they probably don't want CS agents saying something they maybe shouldn't but that shouldn't preclude them actually saying that X is looking at it and they'll get back to you (though, means v little)

[Livlooly]

17 hours ago, cocopop3011 said:

Keep us posted, I hope they deal with this for you,

In terms odf the bank though, yeah also wondering why they didn't pick this up considering her age! I mean it's shocking they still allowed it even with an upgrade! Which UK high street one was it?

its Barclays bank.

I have an update of sorts.

[email protected] sent an email this morning to the email address that she set the account up with (not my email address that I originally sent the complaint with and have been trying to contact them with) saying the following:

Hi there,

Hope this e-mail finds you well today! 

It seems our verification team has requested a couple of documents from you. Kindly send over the following:

• Picture of your ID: We accept one of the following photo IDs: Passports, driving licences, National ID.
• Selfie: A photo of yourself holding your ID next to your face where we can clearly see your face and the details on the document. 
• Proof of address: A council tax bill, utility bill, bank statement or government issued letter, showing your full name, address and issue date, that is no older than 6 months.
• Bank statement showing your full name, account number and at least one deposit to Casumo. 
• Birth certificate. 
• Photo of Visa ending in *9038, front and back, showing the first 6 digits and last 4 digits, full name and expiry date. 

Let us know if you have any questions and we'll happily help you out.

All the best, 

Mia 

I had already sent them a copy of everything they have asked for above in my original complaint, however i have replied to this email and sent it again. No reply as of yet but I will keep you posted.

 

 

 

[pinnit2015]

But, they say they use 3rd party independent verifications?

[pinnit2015]

Point of interest - the requesting of front and back, re payment methods, isn't actually mandated by the UKGC. 

[Livlooly]

I have just managed to get hold of them on live chat:

 

[cocopop3011]

That is really hard to read lol. But you're getting your deposits refunded, right?

[Livlooly]

37 minutes ago, cocopop3011 said:

That is really hard to read lol. But you're getting your deposits refunded, right?

Sorry...it wouldn't let me screenshot as I'd contacted them in an incognito window so I copied and pasted onto word.  But yes she said the following:

 

V

Thanks, one moment while I have a look

 

Hello?

 

V

It appears that our security team has made the decision to close your account at Casumo permanently. We will also refund all the deposits made to Casumo

9:29 pm

 

Please can you advise when the refund will be made and when someone is going to respond to my complaint ?

 

Complaints are handled as soon as possible, but I will contact the relevant team about it now as well.

 

V

One moment while I check if we need any documents for the refund

 

When will the refund be processed please?

 

I have already sent all required documents last week

 

V

I've forwarded this to the relevant team now and they will get back to you via email as soon as possible

[Livlooly]

Not sure when the refund or response will come, but its a step in the right direction.

Thank you everybody for your help and advice over the last few days, it is much appreciated.

I've made an official complaint to Barclays too, so now its just the idiot teenager to deal with

 

[Afi4wins]

No offense Livlooly, but kids nowadays can be so idiotic and hard-headed, simply refusing to listen to advice. 

[pinnit2015]

There was talk years ago about banks using codes to reject things like 1. Kids purchasing knives 2. Gambling etc but not sure what came of it - you may find Barclays, per their terms, have done nothing wrong as the onus is on the merchant really. I don't know - been a while since i touched upon banking  - it would also prohibit Lottery purchases, which at 16, is perfectly fine. 

Valid question to ask though.