Let me first say I inherited the sum of £13,613 on the sale of my grandfathers house following his passing. What followed was a mixture of temptations & my own stupidity from local bookmakers. They should take some responsibility too as I never intended it to go this far. To cut a long story short I lost the entire amount in the space of 2 weeks but that story is for another day. What I want to focus on is what I believe to be crookedness from one bookmaker in particular.
Early in the morning on the 19th April 2010 I went into Ladbrokes bookmakers on Market Place in Leicester city centre. Even though I had only began to use the shop for around 2 weeks, I think I became known to the staff due to the fact that I was withdrawing & staking large £100 sums on blackjack on the fixed odds betting terminals. Anyway I ended up walking away with a loss of exactly £800 after spending no longer than 5 minutes on the machines. To say the word "fixed" is an understatement but I had no proof of this so I will not focus on that any further. After work, I visited Ladbrokes again & made a withdrawal of £200. Slowly but surely I turned it into £1,300 & quickly hit the collect button. At this time my overall losses were at about £3,000 so I was happy to collect the £1,300 & write off the rest of the money & put it down to experience & work a bit more overtime to offset the loss. Anyway trying to collect the money didn't go to plan. I handed over the slip to a cashier who first of all was bad mannered & said "we couldn't pay that amount". I said "sorry" & he said rudely "I have another customer" & made a hand movement as to push me to the side. After he was done with 2 customers he claimed that the shop didn't have that cash & I informed him that I'd already put £1,000 into the machines. He said, "don't lie." At this point I was shocked that I was being spoken to in that manner so I asked him to call the manager. The cashier said "he's outside & will be back soon" so I waited for several minutes. The (what I know to be now) manager walked through with a stubbed out cigarette in his hand & went into the booth where they both had words. I asked the manager that I be given an apology for being treated in such an unprofessional way (I work in retail too & would never call a customer a liar). The manager made perfectly clear he couldn't care less & protected his member of staff. I asked them both for their names & told them that I would make a complaint to Ladbrokes head office only to be told by the manager that they wouldn't care & that it was my word over theres. I decided then just to forget the whole thing & just take my winnings by whatever means they offered. This is not what happened.
The manager said "we're not paying you today", so I said, "ok, give me a cheque". He shook his head and said that he would need to investigate my claim with head office, I them informed him how much I had already spent in the shop & that this was just a partial return. He made no comment & there was no expression on his face. At this point time was getting on so I asked for a receipt & he said they couldn't give one & that he would remember me & (can't remember the technical name). Anyway he wrote something on a betting slip & scanned it. That was it. I asked him to telephone me as soon as it was sorted & he told me that I would have to come down. On return the next day I was told by the same manager that the regional manager had told him that they could not pay out due to insufficient evidence that I had placed the bet & that I would need to contact their security department. After 2 months of liaising with them & Ladbrokes customer service, they told me that they wouldn't be paying out & wouldn't offer me a valid reason. They also said I could not get in contact with IBAS as this was out of their remit as they only dealt with settlement of bets & they didn't dispute the fact, that the slip was made up from legitimate returns.
I was that angry & thought that even if I could attempt to sue Ladbrokes it could take over a year & it could cost me an arm & a leg in the process, so I went into a different bookmaker "on tilt" the same day trying to recoup the £1,300 they owed me & lost over double that amount on a mixture of blackjack & roulette.
Total loss around £6,000, I joined up with the nearest casino where as you can probably guess I blew the remaining inheritance & about £2,000 of my savings on lower than expected table limit blackjack & roulette. I was hoping to just put £5,000 on one hand or one spin but they simply would not allow that & my whole bankroll sank over the evening.
I put this all down to a knock on effect of Ladbrokes crookedness & my stupidity falling for the marketing & social acceptance of roulette which is being shoved down our faces in various mediums.
I have now got myself a second job to try to recoup my grandfathers money which I will continue with for 2 years until every penny has been paid back, then I can use it wisely as intended.
Lad brokes refuse to pay me out & loss of inheritance on
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GeoffSharman
- Junior Member
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2010 2:02 am
- Location: Leicester
I agree, give me corals all day long. They're far more presentable and cleaner than ladbrokes.
Also a few of the staff in my local ladrokes are right miserable sods, unlike the lovely becky in my nearby corals!! She lovely lady!!
Sad story tho, apart from the claim part I'm sure ur not the only one.
Also a few of the staff in my local ladrokes are right miserable sods, unlike the lovely becky in my nearby corals!! She lovely lady!!
Sad story tho, apart from the claim part I'm sure ur not the only one.
i dont get how they refuse to pay
they have at least 30 days worth of security footage at all times,
all they have to do is use the machines records and the security footage and a bank statement, and they can track what you put in,
are they allowed to refuse to pay you out?
id take this to the newspaper... try and find someone who is already lobbying against fobt and get them on board... at a push id go for that anne robinson tv show thing
unless there is a known fraud on the fobt, there is no way they have the right to no pay you, unless there is something you havent told us?
they have at least 30 days worth of security footage at all times,
all they have to do is use the machines records and the security footage and a bank statement, and they can track what you put in,
are they allowed to refuse to pay you out?
id take this to the newspaper... try and find someone who is already lobbying against fobt and get them on board... at a push id go for that anne robinson tv show thing
unless there is a known fraud on the fobt, there is no way they have the right to no pay you, unless there is something you havent told us?
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mr lugsy
- Senior Member
- Posts: 5776
- Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:19 pm
- Location: looking over your shoulder
- Contact:
Spyder wrote:i dont get how they refuse to pay
they have at least 30 days worth of security footage at all times,
all they have to do is use the machines records and the security footage and a bank statement, and they can track what you put in,
are they allowed to refuse to pay you out?
id take this to the newspaper... try and find someone who is already lobbying against fobt and get them on board... at a push id go for that anne robinson tv show thing
unless there is a known fraud on the fobt, there is no way they have the right to no pay you, unless there is something you havent told us?
agreed ,they have the footage .................the very same footage they would have been able to use instantaneously if you had barricaded the doors and went for the world greenstick fracturing record.
they have the statistics for every credit played on their machines .they have to keep a copy of every betting slip for so many years also.
you've been f##king mugged geoff ,as already stated some members of the press would lap this up.
alot of people do need to return next day to collect sizeable winnings ,i've had to wait till next day for 470 quid at a laddies before,but welching is certainly something i've not heard alot about.
:x
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maverick69
- Senior Member
- Posts: 2227
- Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2006 4:08 pm
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maverick69
- Senior Member
- Posts: 2227
- Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2006 4:08 pm