Scammers have been operating before even the online betting business was started and a lot of unsuspecting punters have lost money to these crook bookmakers. The art of scamming has been a big problem with both bookmakers and punters suffering from actions done by dishonest people looking to make easy money from different scams not only in betting.
As time passes technology offers new opportunities to both punters and bookmakers looking to perform tricks on innocent individuals and over the years punters have been educated on suspicious bookmakers, also bookmakers have developed strategies to identify and stop scammers. No one likes losing money and that’s why there a set of guidelines and rules put in place to control such incidents.
Apart from the rules and regulations, we still need to identify different scams developed by bookmakers to avoid losing money. There are a good number of scam stories since the late 1970s about bookmakers using different tricks to rob you of your money, the common stories included refusing to pay winners and also complete closure of accounts to prevent withdrawals, some have gone as far as deleting details that associates them with the wronged customer.
Dealing with such punters is still a work in progress and we can see improvements unlike in the past whereby punters completely lost money to scam bookmakers. By identifying such bookmakers’ makes it easy to stop them and it is sometimes a difficult task since each year they develop new ideas to scam punters.
How to Group Scam Bookmakers
The Scams
The bookmaker may directly be involved at acquire money in a dishonest way from their customers (punters) and openly show desire to still money from registered punters accounts and may close accounts giving unrealistic reasons. They deny withdrawals from accounts and may even delete your account erasing all evidence that you excited as customer on their online platform.
Those to avoid
Some bookmakers have a history of scamming punters and we can find reviews of a dissatisfied customer complaining of being a victim of scams. Bookmakers with more negative reviews than positive, should be avoided dissatisfied punters usually expresses their frustrations and experiences online for other to be warned.It should be noted that some reviews may be manipulated, especially payed reviews and identifying such reviews is difficult and we can do extensive research to find out more about a bookmaker.
The closed
After being identified as a scammer the bookmaker may be shut down and usually they open new accounts. This is the most difficult category to identify since we may not find any previous records on the closure unless they are made public by the government or the gambling board responsible for issuing licenses.
Nowadays it’s not easy for bookmakers to be let of the hook easily and may be required by customer protection agencies to return money acquired wrongfully from punters. There other international organizations dedicated to stopping fraud and scams.
What to Watch out Before Signing Up
The betting industry is a popular industry and many bookmakers in the market, they require punters to operate. The bookie may offer bonuses or welcome offers to attract new punters and it’s much easier to fall for such websites. Although we are offered a lot of promotions we should always remember it’s our money at stake and we can identify frauds in the following ways;
Bookies that claim to be under maintenance or change their website address
Changing address enables bookmakers to avoid local licensing authority and by doing so they are able to operate without licenses. They except new punters on different domain websites and are able to receive deposits from registered punters. Apart from conning punters they are also avoid taxes charged by the local government and this is money laundering. By disguising the illegal source of income the bookmaker is able to make more profits and this may affect the local economy. The bookmaker can also shut down the website operations after reaching a target amount of money and punters will lose a lot of money in the long run.
Fake or expired licenses
Each online bookmaker is required to openly show their licenses on their platforms as proof of meeting the local authority requirements to operate and usually bookmakers may use expired licenses or fake ones to scam unsuspecting punters. It’s also not that easy to know if the licenses is legit or fake that’s why local authorities try to make them open to the public so if you notice a bookmakers doesn’t have one you should avoid registering with them.
No customer support
Unresponsive customer support or none at all should rise suspicion about a bookmaker since customer care is a basic organizational requirement to ensure communication between the firm and its customers.
Crashing websites
If you try to logging in and the website gives continuous errors it is possible that the website has invalid domains or the bookmaker changed to avoid authorities and errors are not a good sign. The website may work perfectly for the whole day and on the following day it completely doesn’t work. There may be a possible reason for this but it’s uncommon for websites to not warn users of a system maintenance and it’s hard for a bookmaker’s platforms to crush due to bugs since they do regular maintenance.
Common scam practices
Bookmakers who don’t like losing money to lucky punters may use these practices to avoid making payouts to genuine winners and they include the following;
- Reject payouts by closing your account you won’t have access to withdraw winnings and if you contact the customer support services they may provide made up stories or refuse to respond to your complaints.
- Scam bookmakers are better known for not honoring bets and will even cancel winning bets.
- The most popular practice is the bonus cheating, a bookmaker may offer bonuses or promotions that are not honored after the punter does all that is required.
- Closure of accounts for successful punters.
