The great lie of the web is that we all “agree to the terms and conditions” when buying or downloading things. Most people don’t bother to look at the T&Cs, much less read them in detail.
As such it is often the case that customers are not aware of certain terms that can come along and bite them on the ass.
A case in point is Ladbrokes Poker, which sent me the following email yesterday:
My initial reaction was outrage. That was swiftly followed by utter outrage.
I checked out the Ladbrokes terms and conditions. Here’s the offending clause:
15.3 . If you do not use your account to carry out any betting activity for a period of 12 consecutive months, such account shall be deemed to be inactive (“Inactive Account”).
15.4. Any Inactive Account will be charged an administration fee (the "Inactive Account Fee") in an amount of £2 (or currency equivalent) or 5% of the balance of the account on the date the account becomes an Inactive Account (whichever amount is greater). Subject to clause 15.5, the Inactive Account Fee shall be deducted from the Inactive Account at the end of the day the account becomes an Inactive Account and on the first day of every following calendar month.
15.5. The Inactive Account Fee will be deducted until the earlier of: (1) the account balance being reduced to zero; or (2) the account being reactivated by you using the account to carry out betting activity. In each situation the Inactive Account Fee shall cease to be deducted.
15.6. We reserve the right to close any Inactive Account whose balance has been reduced to zero for a consecutive period of 6 months.
As a persuasion tactic this sucks and is borderline unethical considering that it relates to gambling.
I can see no good reason for charging customers an 'administration' fee for dormancy. Terminating dormant customer accounts might be a smart idea, as far as data cleansing is concerned, though that assumes that they cannot be reactivated. But this isn’t termination, and it feels pretty close to blackmail.
The thing is, I can’t actually remember using Ladbrokes to play poker, as it was so long ago. I dug up my details and logged on, to a) see if had any money in the account, and b) close it down, on the basis of this ridiculous email. My account balance is £0.00 (and based on the above terms I shouldn't have been notified of a charge, precisely because my account is at £0.00). I have written to Ladbrokes to ask it to terminate my account. Way to lose a customer...
The back story is that I joined on 24 March 2008. Ladbrokes allows you to search through your account history, but only as far back as 1 January 2010, for bewildering reasons. I haven’t used the account in that period, and I’d wager that I didn’t use it in 2009 (I’ve asked the question). Which begs the question as to why I’m suddenly being pushed for a £2.00 inactivity fee in March 2011. I'm wondering whether the fee was introduced in November 2010, when I received an email notifying me of changes to the T&Cs. Hmmm.
Ladbrokes isn’t alone in employing this low-rent fee as a wacky customer retrieval / removal tactic, but it’s certainly the first time I have had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of one. It's not about the money, you understand. It's about the shakedown. Credit cards and banks
So I guess by responding I’ve helped it to improve the health of its customer database, though for a measly £2.00 Ladbrokes has left an indelible stain on its brand. I won’t be back.
I think we need a new metric for the opposite of customer retention; something along the lines of ‘ex-customer lifetime avoidance’.
Three incidental points:
- The site's security certificate is not trusted.
- Using a ‘noreply@’ email address suggests that you are doing customer services all wrong.
- Before you say “Ah, but clearly this tactic works based on your response” please note that I only responded to this in order to write about it. Ladbrokes would otherwise be whistling for its fee…
What do you think? Is it just me that thinks this sort of thing is totally counterproductive, borderline unethical and downright offensive?
Chris Lake is Director of Product Development at Econsultancy, an entrepreneur and a long-term internet fiend. Follow him on Twitter, Google+ or connect via Linkedin.
12:45PM on 30th March 2011
I got this email too. And the same from Betfair a couple of month ago. I couldn't remember my Betfair login, they make it a pain to get a reminder, so I just cancelled my account, whatever it might have been.
12:48PM on 30th March 2011
I couldn't quite beleive my eyes when I read this. An "administration fee" for doing NOTHING!
This is on a par with Ryanair's recent cookies scandal.
Why to so many companies think they can use the web to blatantly rip us off and expect to get away with it?!
12:49PM on 30th March 2011
I had exactly the same thing from Betfair poker today. Instantly cleared out the account and won't ever use them again.
Way to go, idiots.
12:57PM on 30th March 2011
That is awful, they can consider me and im sure many others as customers lost! Thanks for making this public!
12:58PM on 30th March 2011
Got the same e-mail, will terminite my account. Ladbrokes are going for negative PR with this move.
12:59PM on 30th March 2011
@Ladbrokes. You are driving customers away. Not only directly, but probably some of these accounts are dormant because people changed email account and they have an active account at their new address. How are they going to feel?
You know what a competent online vendor could do? Send special-offer coupons to re-engage the dormant customers.
1:03PM on 30th March 2011
"I’d wager that I didn’t use it in 2009" - oh, the irony.
/scurries off to find out if he has a Ladbrokes account & empty it if necessary.
1:04PM on 30th March 2011
Wow this is scandalous!
"or 5% of the balance of the account"
if indeed you had a fair bit of money in there and didn't successfully receive the email (i.e. "junk" mail), we could be talking some serious wad!
1:08PM on 30th March 2011
They don't actually 'charge' you anything though, do they? Nothing comes out of your pocket. If you leave funds in a dormant account, they will eventually (after 12 months) start to slowly deplete them until the account balance reaches zero, then they will close the account.
They're a bookies, not a bank. You can't expect to use them to store funds indefinitely. That surely DOES cost them money, administratively, as well as entering them into potential legal areas where they would need to fulfil money laundering laws, more stringent ID checks, etc that banks are required to; I can see why they would want to avoid it.
And while one may argue it's a way to inflate profits by reclaiming money, they're not exactly being sneaky about it. They contacted you 28 days in advance to let you know; you could have drawn the balance of the account out there and then and lost nothing. Then they would deplete the balance by 5% / £2 over a number of months, leaving you ample time to log in and claim back the lion's share of your balance.
In your case, you would have had 7 months from this email (28 days before your account was marked inactive, followed by the 6 months granted by clause 15.6) where literally nothing would have changed, then they would have automatically closed your account.
I think you're being a bit heavy handed about this particular case, TBH.
Director of Product Development at Econsultancy
1:12PM on 30th March 2011
Glad (kind of) that I'm not alone. It's a bonkers strategy. Maybe somebody will come along and explain it. Seems to be no more than a way of driving up profits by chipping away at quiet accounts with money in them. Since I know that my account has been at a £0.00 balance for almost 16 months I'm wondering why Ladbrokes didn't just terminate it.
@Rob - couldn't resist that one ; )
@Pete - that's absolutely it. Incentives always beat penalties and threats. Ladbrokes is offering a "welcome bonus" of up to £675 for new poker players. Shows you where its priorities are.
Director of Product Development at Econsultancy
1:18PM on 30th March 2011
@CheShA - Good points. I just don't think this is a good way of going about reactivating me as a customer. Based on your points, some questions...
1. My account has been inactive and at a zero balance for *at least* 16 months, so why not terminate it?
2. Why did Ladbrokes send me the email if I'm at a zero balance and isn't going to charge me anything?
3. I appreciate that it isn't a bank but it's not offering credit and is sitting on unused / dormant funds - not exactly sure how that is a cost to the business?
Not trying to be heavy-handed for the sake of it. I just think this is a myopic tactic that leaves a bad taste...
1:29PM on 30th March 2011
Got the same email. Same scenario. Except I logged in to find I had £2.90 (woo hoo!). So I went mad and put it all on India to score a 4 in the next over. But they hit a sticky patch and I blew the lot :(
So Ladbrokes now have an additional £2.90 in the short term. And one less customer in the long term as I also decided to close the account. Hmmmn.
1:33PM on 30th March 2011
With a little less emotion, this would be a valid article about poor customer service and brand engagement.
As it is, it comes across as ranty and bad tempered, and the use of a prominent blog to publicly criticise and lambast a company for exercising the right under its Terms and Conditions that you did accept.
I think this post de-values what is generally speaking a very good blog with directly relevant, insightful and useful information.
Just my 2 cents (or £2.00).
1:48PM on 30th March 2011
O.K, here's the last word. I work for Betfair (name above is not real!) and was involved in the recent inactive account charge being implemented.
Firstly, we did it because everyone else does. No, that won't placate you but a couple of the posts above have mentioned that online gambling companies aren't banks and that's quite right. There are overheads involved in keeping that collective amount of money safe on your behalf. It certainly doesn't cost nothing to administrate. Additionally, customer funds have to be (by law and for regulatory compliance) ringfenced which means if the company goes bust you still get your money. Unlike, say an Icelandic bank. Anyway, some accounts had literally thousands hidden away from the tax man, ex spouses and so on. Bear in mind, with reference to Betfair, 'inactive' means 13 months or more of doing nothing. Not just not betting, not even logging in, so why should a public company have to shelter those millions indefinitely for no return?
Equally, we had to tell hundreds of thousands of people they had money in their account. Have you considered the flipside of that? Many of those accounts were registered around the grand national or a major football competition and had unclaimed winnings...those people were pretty pleased to get their email and nice, unexpected windfall.
Also, and I can only speak for Betfair here, whilst the fee does filter in the main to the bottom line, it's only when the fee was first introduced that it amounts to a large amount of money (in PLC terms at least)...going forward the sums will be much more in line with what it actually costs to administrate dormant accounts.
But of most importance is that the charge is meant much more to win customers back - Betfair only take the charge if you stay inactive. And you can become active simply by logging in....you don't need to place a bet or spend a penny. In fact you log in, withdraw half the balance and leave the rest for another 13 months when you're account would become inactive again. And even if you do incur the fee, you can claim up to six months of it back as soon as you log back in.
So, whilst I understand a lot of what's been written above my comment, I hope this sheds an alternative light on the situation.
Director of Product Development at Econsultancy
2:08PM on 30th March 2011
@Ed - I set this blog up in 2006 and we do a strong line in ranty, bad-tempered posts, among our more insightful, balanced articles. I encourage writers to emote, and to write with passion. Occasionally I / they will overdo it.
@Jim - Great to hear from you and to understand your position. You make some very interesting points (taxman / divorce lawyers etc). I ultimately think that there are better ways of reactivation a customer without damaging perception of the brand. Of course if you're telling people that they have funds then that's going to put smiles on faces, so yes, there's a flipside to consider. Thanks.
3:48PM on 30th March 2011
I work at Ladbrokes.
Jim is bang on the money - not much more to add. I was not involved in the decision to implement charges for inactive accounts so cannot comment on why we went ahead (can only assume the same reasons as Betfair)
The only this I would change and will be on to those responsible to change is the negative balance. That, I feel, is OTT.
I cannot see this as a way of reactivating a customer though. As you say the are better ways with positive messages which do not damage brand perception.
4:06PM on 30th March 2011
Recieved the same email today re account.Kind of understand the Betfair guy's point but not for accounts in the black and will be closing my +ve balance account (and hopefully getting my money back) today. They've kind of shot themselves in the foot.
5:02PM on 30th March 2011
Ladbrokes won't miss me. There is only £4 in my account.
Unfortunately this is below the minimum £5 which can be withdrawn.
I have written to ladbrokes to tell them that I wish to withdraw MY money and close the account.
Rubbish customer relations. Changes to t&C NOT agreed to by customer at sign up.
5:10PM on 30th March 2011
Got the same email today - logged into my account to see I had 1 pound lying dormant. Seeing as the minimum withdrawal is a fiver I thought bugger that, and stuck it on a long shot in the 2:50 at Catterick.
Gee gee comes in a winner and I take my £13 and close the account!
Bye bye Ladbrokes, you've lost another customer...
Director of Product Development at Econsultancy
5:15PM on 30th March 2011
@Peter - Good to hear from you too. All of Jim's points make sense, I guess it's just about how customers like me perceive this kind of messaging.
So was this clause added at some stage, maybe in November 2010? I wouldn't have spotted it when signing up, I just wonder if it was added after March 2008?
6:07PM on 30th March 2011
Yep, got the same email through. Somebody has dropped a serious bollock on this one as I'll certainly never use them again.
6:56PM on 30th March 2011
I managed to withdraw my paltry sum (by depositing more first to take it over the minimum...)
I want to close the account but don't like the idea that "the account can be reactivated at any time".
Do I have the right under Data protection to demand that my details are deleted from their system altogether?
8:19PM on 30th March 2011
great explainations.
i googled this to see if hoax.
simple - ive logged in and closed my account.
not a company i want to do business with.
sorry don't believe the reasoning!
10:03PM on 30th March 2011
I just found the same e-mail in my junk mail, my initial thought was that it was a hoax, it was so unbelievable! But then I logged in, and found the same message there - I've withdrawn the whole penny that I didn't know was there (I'm buggered if they're having it!), and requested the account be closed immediately. Astonishingly poor PR!
11:20PM on 30th March 2011
My first reaction on receiving the same email from Ladbrokes was that it must be some kind of phishing scam, because surely no legitimate business would act this way. Having Googled for details on this I found this blog post...and apprently it's real?! Chris' post sums up exactly how i feel about this, and how i imagine many others will too.
This is very bad PR, whether it's the industry norm or not, Ladbrokes may now find this poor practice will be strongly, if not entirely, associated with them. #ladbokesfail and all that.
@Jim makes some good points but i've had to pro-actively seek out some sort of reason for this - perhaps some explanation in the original email would have been a good idea? Even then, surely targeting those with suspect accounts would have been a good place to start instead of those of us with zero balances (thereby implying that we will actually owe them money unless we start using our accounts again). Certainly being transparent about 'the fee' up front is an absolute must for anybody not involved in a Nigerian scam ring.
For these reasons I can't help but think this is simply part of a demented customer reactivation policy.
9:41AM on 31st March 2011
I work in bookmaking industry and I too was very shocked by this. All bookmakers do NOT pursue this policy. Dormant accounts require minimal administration other than the work which should be carried out to try to reactivate them. How this cost is worked out is beyond me; perhaps it's derived from how much this new revenue stream has to make in order to be worth the PR pain but I realise that I'm being ultra-cynical here. In fact, funds sitting in these dormant accounts, even ringfenced, will very likely be earning interest for the bookmaker.
Leaving this all aside, I think the key is how it is communicated. If you tell people why this is policy is being enforced and the real facts behind it, as Jim and Peter have attempted to do here, then you have a much better chance of avoiding this type of blog reaction. Never leave the customer speculating, especially with a communication which has a financial implication. To me this is just isn't good marketing – send a controversial email, put the tin hats on, run for cover and wait until the ensuing barrage stops.
CNO at coming soon
9:54AM on 31st March 2011
Well done Chris for highlighting this I am very glad I read your blog today. I never received the email from Betfair as my email address they had was several years old. I too had a tiny balance 0.60 and they can stick it where the sun doesn't shine. This I think is the real reason for the change in T&Cs, just imagine all those macro amounts they are sat on flooding into their coffers. I am sure that a wise bean counter spotted the fact that they are sat on millions if not more of macro funds that could be theirs all theirs by spooking customers who only bet once a year. Another customer bites the dust, have fun with my 0.60 Betfair!
CNO at coming soon
9:57AM on 31st March 2011
PS - Have shared for discussion on Linkedin Digital Marketing group, will be interesting to see the reaction there as well as here given the groups 75K+ membership.
11:32AM on 31st March 2011
@CheShA, @Jim Westwood, @Peter (Ladbrokes),
You all make very good points about the logic of Ladbrokes' policy, but I don't think that's at the heart of this issue.
The fact that there is a well-reasoned purpose to the policy only makes the email communication more of a travesty.
The real issue is that the reasonable-ness of the policy is not communicated in a way that is professional, friendly, charming, helpful, or enticing in anyway. Instead it reads like junk mail: manipulative, pernicious, poorly structured, and using colloquial grammar ("we hope we will see some activity"..? I think there's even a threatening tone to it. Is this from a bloke down the pub?).
Employ some talented copywriters and watch the issue dissolve before your eyes.
BL.
1:53PM on 31st March 2011
just to butt back in here...in the case of the accounts with large sums in, the majority would have received a telephone call as, although they were 'dormant' (>13 months lapsed) accounts, they would most likely have been key accounts previously. I was just highlighting the burden of holding such amounts in customer accounts free of charge.
In response to a common thread here that 'there are better ways of reactivating customers', I couldn't agree more, but, again speaking for Betfair, those efforts have been exhausted. The CRM process talks to customers as they are a)relegating from one value band to the next, then b) lapsing and finally they are offered a generous winback based on their highest ever value band - which is effectively a free, no risk bet. If even the offer of free (absolutely no catch) money doesn't work to win them back then it's time to consider the value of having the account at all as it dilutes lifetime value metrics, churn rates et al.
I think it takes a brave company to be prepared to alienate parts of its base but ultimately it makes sense to continually cleanse the database and the fee is a part of that wider process. Some users will be pleased to learn of unexpected funds, some will be put out but reactivate and others will close their accounts altogether. The last group actually helps the overall CRM process, although I do, as previously stated, appreciate that you can't please all of the people all of the time!
11:35PM on 31st March 2011
I only have a couple of quid in there and received this email; what's the bit about the possibility of having a negative balance? If I am zero'd then fine, but are they going to charge 2 pounds every month after that?
4:05AM on 1st April 2011
I got this too. I will never do business with them again and will close my account asap. There is MINIMAL cost in maintaining dormant accounts and considering all these betting companies try to entice new customers with healthy sign-up bonuses it seems crazy to me to alienate existing customers over such a trivial issue.
What an almighty f**k up.
11:44AM on 1st April 2011
I personally do not blame the bookmakers for doing this, as previously mentioned these businesses are not banks.
And to all the people that angrily decided to close their accounts I have to say that this is one of the reasons why such policies were implemented. If you have £2 in your account and haven't used it for more than 13 months then trust me the bookmaker will not miss you.
1:40PM on 21st April 2011
This is the response from Ladbrokes I got.
It may be Paltry to them, but it is mine!
Dear Mr D*********,
Thank you for contacting Ladbrokes Poker.
This is a policy for inactive accounts that have remaining funds. Having
checked your account I can see you have (one pence) in your poker
account. Although a paltry amount, this would automatically include you
in the automated search for inactive accounts with remaining funds. Rest
assured once the one pence has been removed there would be no further
charges. There would not be a negative charge, however we are bound to
advise you of funds remaining in your account regardless of the amount.
If you would like me to remove the remaining funds for you before any
charges are made, we do have a system whereby we can submit this to
charity.
If we can be of any further assistance, please contact us again and we
will be more than happy to help you.
Kind regards,
John
Poker Agent
Ladbrokes Multi Player Poker
Head of Professional Services at Venda
11:26AM on 6th May 2011
I received the email today from Ladbrokes informing they had charged me £2 (the warning one had gone into the spam folder). I too thought it was a hoax - but searched and came across this from Chris.
I think the charges are fair: I think the only reason why everyone is a bit shocked about this is that the UK is one of the only countries in the world with free current account banking, so the expectation has been set on that basis; but as @Broke Lad said - it was communicated very poorly - both the emails were written extremely badly and could have been worded better.
There is irony attached to the comment 'a couple of the posts above have mentioned that online gambling companies aren't banks and that's quite right.'....is that on the Ladbrokes site (appreciated not the Betfair site), when I finally got my login details from an extremely nice and helpful person at the Ladbrokes call centre that communicated very well and logged in, there is actually a link at the top to a section called 'banking' - a little confusing given the 'non-bank' status discussed and I am sure for another forum altogether.
My final conclusion is that despite the really poor email communication from Ladbrokes - the call centre operative made up for that, and I am quite happy as I forgot that I signed up for a free £10 bet with Ladbrokes 14 months ago (which is now unfortunately £8) so if anyone has any good tips let me know!
9:42PM on 4th July 2011
Who cares as a customer if the bookies are not banks? Not me. Account closed and will never use them again, or any other that does this.
1:57PM on 14th July 2011
I didn't get the email from ladbrokes since I had changed my email address but I did hear second hand via a Paddypower email about the charges. Checked my Ladbrokes account and they had helped themsleves to nearly fifteen quid!! Cheeky feckers! Emptied my account immediately, then got onto customer services (0800 7316191) fuming and ready to go in all guns blazing threatening county court action to get my money back, when I said I wanted to make a complaint about the inactivity fee he just said do you want a refund. Took it and will empty that out once it is in my ladbrokes account and will be leaving my account there dormant with FA in it! Try taking 2% per month from that you greedy cnuts.
10:09AM on 7th October 2011
I went in to my Ladbrokes account today and found they've taken 5% of my account money! If this was to clean up accounts with small amounts they shouldn't be charging 5% on larger amounts. I rang them back and demanded a refund which I got. I changed my e mail address a while ago and never got a notification they were going to do this,it's criminal!
"They are not banks",quite right,they don't pay me interest on my winnings which they have access to in my account!
For the record I bet on a regular basis at about £60 a time,the reason I haven't used them recently is that their odds are so uncompetitve! I use oddschecker.com to find the best odds,ladbrokes are never good enough! I am also closing my Betfair account,although I bet with them regularly and haven't had a deduction yet,I cannot be involved with a business that employs such tactics.
Vote with your feet people,there are plenty of reputable bookies out there who offer incentives to stay with them!
9:19AM on 11th April 2012
I JUST logged onto my Ladbrookes account to discover that 50% ( almost 200 pounds ) of my money had been syphoned off by Ladbrookes by this scam.
Calling Ladbrookes and complaining off the inequity of the crime came to no avail.
It wasn't until I realised that my account was opened way before these new "Terms and Conditions" were implemented ( By means of an email that most likely ended up in junk, not by anything I agreed to).
Upon calling back to point out that I had never signed up to these terms and conditions, I was put on hold for a few minutes and the money was credited back into my account.
I realise this won't necessarily help people with more recently opened accounts , but I hope it helps some of you get your money back from these scam artists.