I have a question for cwil.
In the reference link you posted, you said:
Cloudbet suspended and KYC'd one of my accounts created using a popular VPN service pretty quickly after a small initial deposit.
What do you mean with "one" of your accounts? Does that mean that you have multiple betting accounts on Cloudbet? And are you accessing all or some of those accounts with a VPN?
Someone correct me if I am wrong. Even if the account that was suspended didn't make any bets, maybe some other accounts that you have (since you said "one account" got suspended) did. If that is the case, you (
the person, not the one suspended account) would be in breach of their TOS because you were betting from a restricted location.
I am not accusing you, I am just trying to interpret your words properly.
The phrase "one of my accounts" should be interpreted as an account opened at Cloudbet. I can not say if I have opened an account at Cloudbet before the day in question prior to 2018. I began keeping better records and can say that I have not opened an account since March of 2018.
I do not concede that I have ever placed bets from a restricted location as defined by Cloudbet's TOS.
7.1.4. We reserve the right to conduct such checks at any time as we deem necessary to verify our compliance with clause 7.1.3.
7.1.6. You authorise us to use any means that we consider necessary to verify your identity and creditworthiness with any third party providers of information.
So, OP isn't giving priority to those terms and haven't done the KYC verification. I'm wondering why he (OP) is accepting a small part of the terms by ignoring the first few parts of it.
I accept terms 7.1.4 and 7.1.6. These terms state that a user will not be physically located in the listed countries and that Cloudbet may use any means necessary to collect my information in order to enforce 7.1.4. These terms do not compel me to provide information. Even if you do think they compel me to provide information, the remedy for a violation of their TOS is found in section 11, specifically 11.1 and 11.3. The only part of the agreement in which fund confiscation or the freezing of funds appears is in reference to opening multiple accounts, discussed above, or by placing a bet from a prohibited jurisdiction, which didn't happen and Cloudbet does not seem to be arguing otherwise. Absent that criteria, per the TOS, account closures include a refund of deposited funds.
The problem arises when you use a VPN with an IP address from a restricted country.
...
In this particular case, OP used a VPN from a restricted location.
I used a VPN located in Canada, this is not a restricted country per the Cloudbet TOS.
However both of them (@OP and @Cloudbet) were active, but none of them response to the recent post. We need to hear more about the @OP using multiple accounts, VPNs, etc and @Cloudbet's review against his account.
OP might not be aware of the recent posts here unless he has subscribed to a bot that notifies him about mentions and quotes, or if he isn't tracking new posts in his own threads regularly. The Cloudbet admin knows about this for sure. I PMed them asking if they can comment here. But Cloudbet might not be interested in revealing what they have or what they suspect OP is doing until they have gathered all the required evidence. The way things stand now, OP is the one who needs to react if he wants a chance to get his deposit back.
I do not frequent this part of the forum and was unaware of activity in this thread until today. My goal was and still remains to warn others about what I feel to be Cloudbet's poor customer service and inability to abide by their TOS, not the return of the deposit, as I indicated in the reference thread in the first post of this thread.
What is the purpose of asking for someone's documents if they have already stated that they want to close the account and get their deposit they never used for any betting on the site back?
How do you know that OP has never played on Cloudbet before from other betting accounts?
How do you know where OP is from?
How do you know which country OP was in when he accessed the account or accounts in question?
You don't. I don't either. Check the bolded part I posted above in the quote from OP. Cloudbet probably doesn't either, hence the questions and requests they have. Cloudbet's silence in this whole matter is a negative thing. That's true. But the issue will surely not get resolved without OP doing what Cloudbet has asked for, no matter how unfortunate and unpleasant it is.
Yeah, you have a good handle on the situation as I see it. Cloudbet wants information that I don't want to provide. I will quote the reference thread:
Let me preface by stating that I'm not looking for any resolution on this. I'm a security researcher reporting unusually poor customer service and adherence to a company's TOS.
I've been pretty up front in that my goal is to report my experience.
The only question I have is whether they have the right to request KYC verification on people who never have, and never will consume their services? I assume there must be some law prohibiting that. It is something else if the OP is suspected of having multiple accounts, but I have not seen it mentioned anywhere.
BTW, Despite Cloudbet being active again today, there has been no response to this case.
I believe that they have the right to request KYC from anyone they like, and anyone has the right to refuse that request.
Hi all,
Thank you for your messages.
After reviewing this case, we can see that as mentioned: an account was opened, a deposit was made, and no bets were placed.
Based on our review, KYC was requested due to suspected multi-accounting which was flagged by our internal systems.
As stated in our
Cloudbet terms and conditions7.1.10.2. Only one account per customer/IP/household is allowed. If you attempt and/or successfully open more than one account, all of your accounts may be blocked, suspended or closed and any Cryptocurrency credited to your account frozen.
Our team have reached out to the player privately, and hope to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.
Many thanks,
Cloudbet Team
Cloudbet did reach out to me in a PM, which is what brought me here. That message is as follows:
Hi cwil,
Thank you for your patience whilst we looked into this issue.
After reviewing your case, I can see that our internal systems flagged your account for a number of reasons resulting in our customer support team requesting KYC documentation – this is standard procedure as multiaccounting is in breach of our terms and conditions.
With that being said, we want to resolve this issue and will be returning your original deposit of 0.005 BTC to you – our team will be contacting you via email with further details.
Once payment has been received, we’d appreciate it if you could resolve the flag on our account as we now consider this settled.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Kind regards,
The Cloudbet Team
I've not yet received this email but I am agreeable to the terms stated in the PM.