Owl.games confiscated 0.1 BTC for rediculous reason --> RESOLVED

[GekkeBelg]

Hello,

On November 10th I joined owl.games and made a deposit of 0.2 BTC. I placed several sports bets in the 2 months after that and built up my balance to 0.3BTC with this.
Then I requested a withdrawal on 4th of January for the full amount of my account (0.30087266 BTC) and after a couple days of waiting and it sill not being processed I decided to go and check what was wrong. I could not get into my account anymore as there was a popup message saying I needed to submit KYC. Fine, so I did. Then a couple days later I was told I also needed to do a Skype video verification, which I also did. I had to show my passport, my driving license and answer some questions. All was succesful and on Skype they told me my account was re-opened. So I could log in again but then I saw my balance looked strange. My pending payout was cancelled and my balance was showing  a very strange amount of 0.20117097 BTC. So I wondered what was going on since there was roughly 0.1 BTC missing.
I spent the next 3 weeks tying to get answers and was met with a HORRIBLE customer service. I sent about 20 chat messages (90% of them zero response, some of them not even read after 5 days of waiting), 1 email (no response) and contacted them on Twitter both via DM and a normal tweet (no response).
The very few times they did reply it was "hello how can I help you" when I just explained the whole story 1 line above this text.....so I felt not being taken seriously at all.
Now, yesterday, finally a real answer came.....and it was really short....."we confiscated your winnings of 0.1 BTC since you are from a restricted country and you should withdraw your initial balance now". After this I said I am NOT from a restricted country and explained to them the situation, both in their livechat and in the Skype chat to their verification team. But again, zero response on both even though I can see they read it. So I wanted to post about this in their regular topic in the gambling section on this forum, but it turns out they temporarily closed their thread on January 5th to "focus on better customer service and we are open 24/7 for questions" : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5378280.1200
Quite a joke, if you see how they are treating me.....except I cannot laugh about it.

So after having tried everything for 3 weeks now to solve this between me and Owl I now see no other option than to hopefully attract their attention via this thread.

As things stand now I am being scammed, but if they can credit back the missing amount and let me withdraw the original amount of 0.3 BTC then I consider it solved. I still have a small hope this is not them acting malice and that it's just incompetence but they have ignored me structurally so it looks very bad.

These are the facts:
- I never used VPN, placed all my bets from regular German IP-address
- I was born in Netherlands so I have a Netherlands passport (which is something I cannot change) but I have been living in Germany for 17 years already and everything I have is German: bank account, electricity bill, tax papers, car papers, driving license etc.
- On the Skype verification call I clearly said I live in Germany and they did not dispute this or ask me why I have a Netherlands passport.
- On the Skype verification call I showed them both my Netherlands passport and my German driving license
- If they looked closer at my Netherlands passport they could also have spotted that it was given out by the Dutch consolate in Dusseldorf, Germany, so this alone should also show that I live in Germany, but okay that is a small detail so I don't blame them for missing this.
- At no point during this verification call they asked for a utility bill to prove that I really live in Germany so I supposed they fully accepted my remark that I lived in Germany. But if they had asked I would have gladly provided them this. And also now I can still provide them this if they need it.
- At no other casino/sportsbook I ever had a problem with my Netherlands passport combined with a German driving license. They always simply accept that where you live is what counts, not where you were born.

So the worst of this all is that they simply decided on their own that I was from a restricted country, probably because it gave them a reason to confiscate 0.1 BTC.
And they did not even inform me of this. On the skype verification call all they said was that the verification was succesful and my account was open again. And in the livechat I had to ask about 20 times combined in about 3 weeks of time before I finally got one line out of them "we confiscated your winnings of 0.1 BTC since you are from a restricted county and you should withdraw your initial balance now" after which they became silent again after my follow-up questions.

So either this is a scam plus horrible customer service, or at best this is complete incompetence and a very bad experience but hopefully they finally see the light now and will credit me back the fair sportsbook winnings of 0.1BTC. In that case I hope they can learn from this and improve their customer service dramatically.
I have to say I am shocked by this behaviour since the reason I joined Owl in the first place was because they seems to have little or no complaints agianst them and I thought they have a fairly decent reputation.

For Owl's reference: my username is WesjeK

Screenshots below:

Deposit on Nov 10th:


Payout on Jan4th which got rejected:

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[PX-Z]

I'll consider this as a "horrible customer service" to scamming if they won't give enough and fair reasons to labeled you from "restricted country" ^{(Netherlands)} when in fact you are now in Germany and currently living there.
They usually solve every issue throw at them in this forum so I hope this will too, especially if you did not do any against on their terms.
Plus the locking of their ANN thread and insist to cater issues on their site's customer support instead yet they even barely reply there is really unprofessional.

[Saisher]

I'll consider this as a "horrible customer service" to scamming if they won't give enough and fair reasons to labeled you from "restricted country" ^{(Netherlands)} when in fact you are now in Germany and currently living there.
They usually solve every issue throw at them in this forum so I hope this will too, especially if you did not do any against on their terms.
Plus the locking of their ANN thread and insist to cater issues on their site's customer support instead yet they even barely reply there is really unprofessional.

Yes they are I've seen them resolve two issues already but you have to send a support ticket or contact them to their official telegram channel to make them aware of the accusation here they have locked their thread here and their representative here's last login was over three weeks ago.

Last Active:   January 20, 2023, 12:39:15 PM

They have to come down here and post something any unresolved ticket is deemed bad for the casino's reputation

[crwth]

You have provided a well enough evidence that they did confiscate for the reason that is not valid for you. They might have missed it but their customer support service should've done something better and taken care of you better.

Upon checking the post of Saisher, it seems they are trying to be active and improve their support.

Even if they're inactive, maybe you could message them.

owlgames profile:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3425425

The message link posted by Saisher:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5378280.msg61549366#msg61549366

[GekkeBelg]

And here yet another example of their horrible customer service......many questions from me in the livechat.....then after 19 hours I ask if they are even going to reply......and even that is now 2 days ago and they are not even reading it!

[robelneo]

And here yet another example of their horrible customer service......many questions from me in the livechat.....then after 19 hours I ask if they are even going to reply......and even that is now 2 days ago and they are not even reading it!

They are lying when they say that they are rearranging their support system to have the best support, 19 hours is the best support that they can offer to their players, they lock their thread because they do not want their thread to be messed up but at least they should be active in addressing concerns coming from their players in their support or their live chat, so we can believe that they offer the best support.
It is when there are complaints that support should be active to address their concern any unaddressed concern or complaint will put their reputation in a bad light.

[holydarkness]

Ahh... Owlgames, a name I haven't heard in a while. And you too, been a while.

Yes, their customer service is notoriously poor. On one case I followed, they kept trying to assign the blame to the victim --that case didn't end beautifully due to the victim's own greed, though-- and diverting the matter at hand to other topic. While on the other case they almost costed a reputation of another betting platform who uses them as a third party service.

Moving to the point of the case, I don't think your accusation here will made known to them, since they're been away for a while, 20 January. Let me try to hail them via TG and let's hope they don't... block and kicked me out.




Edit:

LOL, that's fast. I was just uploading my screenshot to ibb and posted my post here and when I returned to tg to see if my message got read, I found...



As I have the CM's username at hand --luckily I took this precaution-- lemme try once again, in a good faith, to hail them, this time through PM to their CM


Edit 2:

Ahh well, they're thorough and efficient in blocking people who they don't want to communicate with. Anyone else would like to try inviting them?


 

[Beparanf]

And here yet another example of their horrible customer service......many questions from me in the livechat.....then after 19 hours I ask if they are even going to reply......and even that is now 2 days ago and they are not even reading it!

The only problem now was they are already gone in the forum and decided to focus on their live support and social media account. Their ANN thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5378280.1200 is already locked which means even if we proven them guilty which is more likely it is, We can’t still help you to recover your funds. I believe this is the main reason why they close their ANN thread so that no one can question them publicly and every user with problem will be pushed to use the customer support.

I think you should take priority first on securing to withdraw your initial balance then go to Askgambler to file a complaint about this casino.

[coin-investor]

Ahh... Owlgames, a name I haven't heard in a while. And you too, been a while.

Yes, their customer service is notoriously poor. On one case I followed, they kept trying to assign the blame to the victim --that case didn't end beautifully due to the victim's own greed, though-- and diverting the matter at hand to other topic. While on the other case they almost costed a reputation of another betting platform who uses them as a third party service.

Moving to the point of the case, I don't think your accusation here will made known to them, since they're been away for a while, 20 January. Let me try to hail them via TG and let's hope they don't... block and kicked me out.

Great effort on your part unfortunately they are good at ignoring people and the community, they locked their thread because they don't want to be part of the community discussion anymore but unfortunately they cannot ignore all the accusations created for them, the longer they ignore the chances that gamblers will lose trust on their platform.
In the casino industry, you cannot avoid and ignore accusations, it always makes an impact until they snowballed.

[GekkeBelg]

And here yet another example of their horrible customer service......many questions from me in the livechat.....then after 19 hours I ask if they are even going to reply......and even that is now 2 days ago and they are not even reading it!

The only problem now was they are already gone in the forum and decided to focus on their live support and social media account. Their ANN thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5378280.1200 is already locked which means even if we proven them guilty which is more likely it is, We can’t still help you to recover your funds. I believe this is the main reason why they close their ANN thread so that no one can question them publicly and every user with problem will be pushed to use the customer support.

I think you should take priority first on securing to withdraw your initial balance then go to Askgambler to file a complaint about this casino.

You are right, I indeed should secure my remaining balance by withdrawing it. I have now done this. Strangely enough they were alert this time and withdrew it to my wallet in several minutes.
But this does not solve the issue. I still need the remaining 0.1BTC which was completely fairly won. I will keep trying to attract their attention in every way I can.
I would find it really strange if they are throwing away their (up until now fairly good) reputation for such a small sum.

Thanks also to holydarkness for his efforts to bring this thread to their attention.

[Saisher]

And here yet another example of their horrible customer service......many questions from me in the livechat.....then after 19 hours I ask if they are even going to reply......and even that is now 2 days ago and they are not even reading it!

The only problem now was they are already gone in the forum and decided to focus on their live support and social media account. Their ANN thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5378280.1200 is already locked which means even if we proven them guilty which is more likely it is, We can’t still help you to recover your funds. I believe this is the main reason why they close their ANN thread so that no one can question them publicly and every user with problem will be pushed to use the customer support.

I think you should take priority first on securing to withdraw your initial balance then go to Askgambler to file a complaint about this casino.

You are right, I indeed should secure my remaining balance by withdrawing it. I have now done this. Strangely enough they were alert this time and withdrew it to my wallet in several minutes.
But this does not solve the issue. I still need the remaining 0.1BTC which was completely fairly won. I will keep trying to attract their attention in every way I can.
I would find it really strange if they are throwing away their (up until now fairly good) reputation for such a small sum.

Thanks also to holydarkness for his efforts to bring this thread to their attention.

Don't just give up on that 0.1 and keep us updated on whatever platform you file your complaint, it seems that they totally left Bitcointalk. considering that this is the place they create announcements and they even launch a signature campaign, surely they got a number of players here in this community and helped them to become a popular casino, it's ok for them to lock their thread but they need to address every accusation that comes along.

[holydarkness]

[...]
Thanks also to holydarkness for his efforts to bring this thread to their attention.

I've left them a neg trust as, in my personal opinion, their series of action clearly shows they're unwilling to cooperate. If you'd raise a flag, I'll probably support that too as the absence of their side --although they've been informed-- on this thread to give their defense and provide counter evidences is not met, as long as they refuses to come here, the case is as good as reaching a verdict that it won't be resolved.

Anyone is welcome to try reaching to them and informed them about this case just like what I've tried to do, and if they shows good intention to solve the case, I'll withdraw my neg and --suppose it's raised-- support of the flag.

[coin-investor]

[...]
Thanks also to holydarkness for his efforts to bring this thread to their attention.

I've left them a neg trust as, in my personal opinion, their series of action clearly shows they're unwilling to cooperate. If you'd raise a flag, I'll probably support that too as the absence of their side --although they've been informed-- on this thread to give their defense and provide counter evidences is not met, as long as they refuses to come here, the case is as good as reaching a verdict that it won't be resolved.

Anyone is welcome to try reaching to them and informed them about this case just like what I've tried to do, and if they shows good intention to solve the case, I'll withdraw my neg and --suppose it's raised-- support of the flag.

Like what I posted earlier on, they cannot just ignore accusations here, there should be an update of every accusation filed here, they have paid people to promote their platform two or three times in the past and I guess they want to continue operation of their platform they have gone a long way on this forum.
All unresolved accusations are the reference whenever their name is dragged to something bad here and they can potentially lose their loyal followers and will fail to recruit new ones.

[Plaguedeath]

The owlgames' representative was online few hours ago [1] I've leave negative feedback to on his account, @OP you need to create flag type 3 and use this thread as the reference, I'll support your flag.

This user violated a written contract with me, resulting in damages.

It's really ridiculous how the casino have been ask to submit KYC, but they're accuse you because you're live in restricted countries. AFAIK Curacao license doesn't restrict German, only few provider restrict it. But let's just assume you're live in restricted countries (not in German), you're still a Germany citizen since you can give a proof if you're from German. Many casinos doesn't a problem if the user want to use VPN as long as they can prove if they're come from unrestricted countries.

I believe owl.games is wrong here.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3425425

[salad daging]

You are right, I indeed should secure my remaining balance by withdrawing it. I have now done this. Strangely enough they were alert this time and withdrew it to my wallet in several minutes.
But this does not solve the issue. I still need the remaining 0.1BTC which was completely fairly won. I will keep trying to attract their attention in every way I can.
I would find it really strange if they are throwing away their (up until now fairly good) reputation for such a small sum.

Thanks also to holydarkness for his efforts to bring this thread to their attention.

But indeed at least you have secured the initial balance it's better than nothing, but why doesn't this casino sacrifice 0.1 just to ruin its reputation in this forum, supposedly if the customer has provided a lot of evidence then that is fair enough and clearly they have not violated the rules of the game but unfortunately that's all they are silent and I saw what @holydarkness did to the OWL.games team to avoid being accused of this, I hope you get updates on this matter, and the forum representative was online I hope he provides clarification in this matter.

[holydarkness]

The owlgames' representative was online few hours ago [1] I've leave negative feedback to on his account, @OP you need to create flag type 3 and use this thread as the reference, I'll support your flag.

[...]

I wanted to say that a type-2 flag [a violation of casual or implied agreement] is more appropriate for this case rather than type-3 [a violation of written contract] --which also the heaviest flag-- due to the reason I said on other thread snipped below,

[...]
¹by the way... i think flag type-2 is more accurate, since OP did not have a written contract with the suspect. The "contract" is the ToS that OP checked upon signing up, which basically an agreement. Unless I'm wrong and such action [checking the "i agree ..." box] can be considered as a written contract?

[...]

however, upon trying to learn more about the legal status of a ToS [or TnC, which rather interchangeable], it seems ToS is indeed perceived as contract,


https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/terms-conditions-faq/#How_Can_I_Ensure_My_Terms_And_Conditions_Are_Sufficiently_Clear

So yeah, if owlgames failed to prove that their action is justified and thus their action against you is  breach of contract, then a type-3 flag is acceptable for this case.

[PX-Z]

Ahh... Owlgames, a name I haven't heard in a while. And you too, been a while.

Yes, their customer service is notoriously poor.

This is a very obvious on what service they are trying to built. And obvious reason that they don't want to deal the community from this forum towards their platform while they get mostly their users from here.
Just like i said before limiting their support will give nothing but nightmare to those who want to access their support when their website built-in support is too slow handling issues.

[Baofeng]

It seems that there official account here is active once again,  owlgames.

If they are not going to answer then probably the second best option is to make some noise on their official twitter account to get their attention,

https://twitter.com/OWLDAOio

Best of luck, hopefully you can get back that 0.1 BTC that you have won.

Or you can reach out to: https://www.askgamblers.com/submit-complaint

[judeafante]

It seems that there official account here is active once again,  owlgames.

If they are not going to answer then probably the second best option is to make some noise on their official twitter account to get their attention,

https://twitter.com/OWLDAOio

Best of luck, hopefully you can get back that 0.1 BTC that you have won.

Or you can reach out to: https://www.askgamblers.com/submit-complaint

That's the right decision to call them out on a platform where they are more active, the admin of the Twitter handle just posted an hour ago you can tag the handle or comment on one of his recent tweets, if he blocks you or ignore you that means they have no intention to address any complaint, there will be more complaints coming and this is the kind of treatment that complainants will receive so its time for players to think if this is the right gambling platform to play.

[Saisher]

Any update on your complaint or have you sent them a message about the existence of this accusation on the recommended platform, you know it hurts when you invested in their token and they have this complaint being ignored by the developers.
I'm down 50% of my holdings on their token, some people will say it has something to do with the beat market or whales' action but you know you couldn't hold on to a token when its trustworthiness and reputation are questionable
I might dump it on other casino-based tokens like BFG which is performing great in the market and their staking is much better.