888 terms and conditions - Inactive accounts beware

[coprey]

Hi

This may be commonly known, or have previously been discussed. Today I discovered that 888 will deduct funds from accounts that have been inactive for 6 months without warning. The deductions equate to 10% of the funds in the account and will be taken monthly, 10% per month. This was explained to me today by 888 representitive Kathia P. She also explained that it is in the terms and conditions. I understand that players registering with 888 are doing so to play APAT events and therefore will not be inactive, however considering most people dont read through the terms and conditions I thought it might be useful to know. It seems a strange policy and one that worries me, considering I have quite a few poker accounts with cash deposited, many of which I have not used for a while. The policy just seems wrong to me.

Col

[coprey]

This was discovered when I noticed by account had been cleaned out. Im not sure how much funds where removed, not much from memory but I will be asking 888. Also reward points were removed, and i had quite a lot considering I played on this site a lot for several years.

[AMRN]

wow if this is true, it"s outrageous!!

[Paulie_D]

I certainly wasn"t aware of it...fortunately I only use the account for APAT.

I"ve generally found it good practise not to leave ANY money on a site I"m not planning on playing for a while. I"ll withdraw to Neteller, or whatever, and leave it there where it can be transferred back pretty much instantly.

[coprey]

Copied directly from 888 terms and conditions

Should you fail to use your account for six months your account will be considered a "dormant account". The six-month period will run from the date of your last login to your account. In the case of a dormant account, the Company will levy a monthly administration fee at a rate of 10% of the balance in the account on the date that it became dormant. The administration fee shall be deducted from the dormant account commencing from the last day of the sixth month in which the account is inactive and on the last day of every month thereafter, until the balance of the account has reached zero. In the event that you login to your account during the ten-month period during which the administration fee is levied, the Company will cease to levy the administration fee but shall not be obligated to return to you any monies already deducted from the account at such time.

[mfcrocker]

That"s really poor form, and probably has lost my business. I"ll be withdrawing and depositing solely for the Online Champs & Direct Buy-ins.

[AMRN]

online poker shooting itself in the foot again. It"s all about trust, but newcomers to the industry are never going to trust a site that takes their money off them if they have a spell where they don"t play.  I"ve never heard of anything so crap!

Q. Do any other sites do this??  I"m certain the the larger sites don"t!

[mal666]

Tbf they are not the only ones doing it, heard about this loads of times.

[okidokie]

alot of sites do this, party"s another that does it. if you haven"t played a game on there in 6 months then chances are you"ve withdrawn any money.

just withdraw from a site when you"re not playing there or play a game there every 4 months or so. just check the terms of each site

[coprey]

Yes, of course there are ways around this, but to me this is legalized theft. It beggars belief how they can get away with this. Corporations robbing their customers, pure and simple.

[WarBwastardo]

That"s very strange really.  Imagine keeping a safety deposit box at a Casino you visited often only to find out that the times you hadn"t visited for six months they opened it up and helped themselves to ten percent of your money.  How do the online poker sites justify this?  Do they even try?  How does it cost them money to maintain dormant accounts?

[okidokie]

or you could look at it like it"s an administration fee for keeping your account open when you obviously don"t play there.

[okidokie]

That"s very strange really.  Imagine keeping a safety deposit box at a Casino you visited often only to find out that the times you hadn"t visited for six months they opened it up and helped themselves to ten percent of your money.  How do the online poker sites justify this?  Do they even try?  How does it cost them money to maintain dormant accounts?

but it"s not quite like that scenario. how often does the average player play online compared to live at a casino? twice as much? four times as much? obviously it differs from person to person but you get the idea. say it"s 4 times as much, in your scenario it would be like leaving the safety deposit box for 2 years before they took any money from it.

i don"t see that much of a problem with it. if you use a service often then you should get rewarded for it. if you don"t then you have to pay for the privilage.

[coprey]

Yes, thats exactly how they justify it. Administration. Exactly what administration is required to leave an account alone. The administration would seem to chiefly involve working out 10% of all the "dormant" accounts and setting up a monthly debit. Imagine $10,000 worth of dormant accounts, the interest on this deposited cash is not enough for the corporation, they want to take $1,000 per month for 10 months and tell us its for admin. Its laughable. They wont even warn you that they are going to do this, no opportunity is given to the customer to either play on the site or withdraw their funds.

[coprey]

i don"t see that much of a problem with it. if you use a service often then you should get rewarded for it. if you don"t then you have to pay for the privilage.

What reward and privilege are you referring to? Reward of not having your money stolen? Privilege of 888 allowing you to give them your money, playing on their site and generating rake for them?