Premium Charge Payers , Attention Please !!

[kevinkev]

hi gruss forum

i am a PC payer for many years , betfair have taken over a 6 figure sum and have been taking 60% of my profit .

i got fed up with this and stumbled upon a term used by the OFT ( office of fair trading ) called " abuse of dominant market position " .

so i sent the OFT an email outlining all the reasons i thought the PC was an abuse of market position , as betfair have all the liquidity , so they are in a position to abuse its users as there is no where else for users to take bets in-running on football, tennis, racing,cricket etc , you get the gist . below is there reply :

robert.cassell@oft.gsi.gov.uk

Dear Mr xxxxx Complaint about Betfair

I am writing to inform you of the outcome of the OFT’s consideration of your complaint about Betfair.
You e-mailed the OFT on 4 January 2014 to complain about Betfair’s charges.
You comment that Betfair is abusing its dominant position by charging some of its successful customers a “premium charge” of between 20% and 60% of the customer’s winnings.
You believe this needs looking into by the OFT.

On the xxxxxxx you e-mailed again to ask what action the OFT would be taking.
By way of background, the mission of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is to make markets work well for consumers.
We achieve this by promoting and protecting consumer interests throughout the UK, while ensuring that businesses are fair and competitive.
Our primary duties include the enforcement of competition law, and the application of consumer protection legislation in respect of matters that adversely affect the collective interests of UK consumers.

The main law covering competition in the UK is the Competition Act 1998. The Competition Act contains two prohibitions.
The Chapter I prohibition prohibits agreements that prevent, restrict or distort competition.
The Chapter II prohibition prohibits conduct which amount to an abuse of a domiinant position.

The OFT can only open a formal investigation into an anti-competitive agreement or abuse of a dominant position where it has reasonable grounds for suspecting an infringement of the Chapter I prohibition
or the Chapter II prohibition of the Competition Act.
Based on the information provided so far, we are not in a position to consider whether the practice you describe would fall within the Act.
However, in determining whether any further information you could provide might help us, we have to consider whether the issue raised falls within our administrative priorities.

As you are aware the OFT has finite resources and must prioritise its work.
In exercising this discretion we assess a complaint by reference to our published prioritisation principles.
1 In order to make the best use of our resources in terms of real benefits for UK consumers, we need to ensure that we make appropriate decisions about which projects and programmes of work we undertake
across all areas of our responsibility. The OFT considers a range of factors, including impact on consumers, strategic significance, risk and resources.

We have considered your complaint against our prioritisation principles in the round and do not consider it appropriate to use our limited resources to make further enquiries into this matter.
Accordingly, we will be taking no further action in relation to your complaint at this time.

This is an administrative priority decision and does not reflect a substantive view on the merits of the case.
We realise that this is disappointing for you, but we, nevertheless, appreciate the time you have taken in bringing this matter to our attention.
The OFT is keen to ensure that markets work well for consumers and the complaints we receive are used to help assess and shape the work of the OFT in the future.

In this context, we will retain your complaint on our database and take them into account when considering areas for future investigation or study.
Our view not to make further enquiries into this complaint at present does not preclude the OFT from revisiting thhe matter should further information be provided to us......................


as you see, the main reason they did not look into it was because they did not have the resources , so i am calling on the gruss forum and betfair forum users for us to get together and try and get them to look at this , but keep in mind that the OFT is no longer and they go under the banner of the CMA i believe https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... to-the-cma

i am banned from the betfair forum , i am also going to be in a position where i will not be able to further communicate on this forum for the next few months , so it would be good if someone else could take the mantle , hopefully someone will step up and take charge .

what i recommend is that a notice to all PC payers on here and the betfair forums ( tennis, football , cricket , racing ) and the " premium charge must be scrapped " thread , are made aware of the collective action , so could some one please make that thread aware of what we shall be trying to do .

i suggest :

we all email the CMA within a certain time frame with our complaints to get them to sit up and take more notice , i am probably the only one to ever complain about this , if 100 people or more did they may take a look .
we want fairer charges for all , even if that means raising the standard commission rate for everyone to 7-8% so be it .
we will not pursue for previous ammounts paid in PC if the CMA see in our favour , so the ball will be in betfairs court to get off their arse and do something.

any other suggestions would be great .
firstly , before eveyone who participates in this emails the CMA , would someone kindly get the right office/department/email for us to send our complaints to.

i shall be away for the next few months but will try my best to look in.

we have nothing to lose by complaining , but much to gain

i hope other PC payers and non PC payers will get involved and see if we can rid this extortionate charge

Kevin

[doris_day]

Nice one. Like you, I started paying the PC as soon as it came in and I'm also banned from the Betfair forum (was called DrWho) for bringing the PC into disrepute. I now bet very little on Betfair because of the PC and I'll be contacting the CMA with my complaint in the next week.
It certainly would be a good idea if one of this forum's members could post this thread on the Betfair forum. It'll be pulled but not before a few others see it.

In the end doing away with the PC will do Betfair a whole load of good, even though they don't realise it.

[milfor]

Those who want to get rid of the dreadful premium charge should send me a PM.
I won't post the loophole publicly for obvious reasons.

[houchy]

Are you for real Milfor? Would love to know any loopholes as long as they are legal.Left you a message just in case you really do know something none of us have have already discussed on B/F forums over the years.You talk the talk-but can you walk the walk? I have my fingers crossed you really do have a "cunning plan"

[milfor]

Strange. I didn't receive a PM from you.

None of the people who tried my solution complained until now here.
I take this as a good sign that it works for everyone, not only for me.

[houchy]

Some one sent me a message who had already contacted you.Seems you are asking for money or a winning strategy as payment for revealing your "cunning plan". Thanks for your pitch but I won't be investing so "I'm out"

[Captain Sensible]

Here's the pitch I got houchy, I passed too.

Code: Select all

Hello Captain!

I had to pay premium charge from when it was introduced until last month.
Since then I don't pay it anymore with the help of a company.

Telling you the name of the company would be very valuable for you.
May I ask you for something valuable in return? This could either be money
or an additional winning strategy.

Regards
Milfor

[KESIMKESIM]

Ha !!

just seen this thread ... I wonder if the company name is BETDAQ by any chance !! - no PC there.

[milfor]

No, you will still be using Betfair. Just without premium charge and with a guaranteed commission below 4%.

[xraymitch]

For the last few weeks I have been using BetDaq and from the Thursday played all of the Doncaster races commission free ! I am a only a small player so not affected by PC but have always thought it was wrong.

Keep using Betdaq and Betfair will get the message.

[doncht]

I'll also be keeping an eye on this. So far, everything looks good.

[doris_day]

Surely this forum is for sharing between like minded people ? And I think its a shame you're asking for a cash payment milfor for some information that could benefit users. That's not really in the spirit of things and I'd ask you to reconsider your position.

[Spike]

I also won't be sending him anything of value - or indeed anything at all. Presumably all he's got is some sort of churning bot. If I wanted one of those I'd write my own, there's a reason why I don't which I dare say he'll discover in time.

[milfor]

No, it's not a churning bot. It's a company that has received privileges regarding premium charge and commission from Betfair. Just become a customer of them and you will have those privileges too.

I still don't pay premium charge and a lower commission than ever. Those of this forum who tried it aren't complaining either.

I don't have a bad conscience asking for a two-digit sum from people who would save three- or even four-digit sums in premium charge during the coming years.

[Captain Sensible]

Let's hope you won't be offended either when you next ask for help on the forum and get charged either

If people are willing to deposit and send all their betting strategies and betting traffic via a proxy bookmaker somewhere overseas , usually Russia/India/Pakistan, good luck to them. They'll no doubt be betting via a sub account from bookmakers master account who due to the volume of winning/losing trades don't come into the PC charges plus the bookmakers also get commission payments from Betfair based on volume, bit like the trading rooms used to for generating volume on the exchange. Been quite a few stories on the web regarding slow payments so make sure you check them out well before depositing as your contract will be with the master account holder not Betfair.