Account verification taking forever PokerStars holding deposit as ransom
The gaming operator took a transfer of 500€ from my credit card and immediately after that they locked my account for verification.
The game client tells me that "These security checks are usually completed within minutes". In my case I received an email from them requesting pictures of identity documents and utility bills. I supplied them on the same day. I did not receive a response from them. After two days I inquired about the status of the verification and did not receive any response. After third email request I managed to get a hold of them via chat on their gaming client on Dec 6th.
At that point they finally told that they did not accept the utility bill picture I sent. Seemingly they had zero interest on informing me about that before I continuously contacted them via multiple routes. I submitted new utility bill picture immediately.
After that they didn't do anything to inform me about the process or contact me. I did another chat on Dec 9th where a customer service representative told me that they would reinstate my account in 15min. I has now been several hours since that and my account is still "locked for verification".
I do understand that the verification may take some time and they need to screen their customers.
But it is unacceptable that they do not communicate about the process. It wouldn't disturb their verification process to give the customer a simple email to tell that they have received the material and tell the customer what is the expected timetable and steps for the process.
Now they do not communicate proactively and the last communication from them seems to be a lie as my account is not reactivated.
The whole process of first taking my money transfer and then locking up my account so that they have the money and I can't use it, is very oddly designed. If they want to do verifications, they could deny the transfer and request for identity verification. And when verification is done, then the customer could do a transfer.
I have played on their service for multiple years and this is the first issue I've had (not considering very biased RNG), but then again I haven't had need for contacting them before.
At this point they could just refund the last transfer and I'll switch to another service.
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