What makes me think i will never book serious time at FTP or keep much funds on there is the way they dont communicate with customers.
Fwiw, i had an account locked within 24 hours of opening it at Betfair. It peeved me at the time, but im glad that they imediately sent me this:
[ QUOTE ]
Reference: XXXX1111
Dear Phillip
Please be informed that your account has been temporarily suspended
as part of our standard verification procedures.
In order to assist us with this security measure, we ask that you
send us a photocopy or scan of one document from each of the three
categories listed below:
---------
--------- Various stuff about CC bills etc removed
---------
Please include your username on all correspondence.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Kind Regards
Verification Team
verification@betfair.com
www.betfair.com
Helpdesk Tel: 0870 0110 444
---------
---------Random "who we are" stuff removed
---------
[/ QUOTE ]
What is key here is:
1 - they told me straight away why it was locked and what i had to do if i wanted it unlocked. I suspect that if they locked it for other reasons they would email saying it had been locked (if they didnt say why).
Locking it with no contact is 100% not acceptable and 100% unprofessional and bad business practice.
2 - they have a number i can ring to speak to someone about the account. I actually did so to double check a couple of details. The person who answered was cool, answered my questions as fully as possible etc.
For Full Tilt to not have a contact number and to not reply to emails virtually imediately is not acceptable. Stars gets a pass because of their speed of email reply but id still be more comfortable if they got a call centre.
Ive rung up another site recently about a withdrawal issue - the site in question uses flash, is buggy as hell and looks like its made by a 17 year old web design student. But what sets it apart is i had a number to ring about my account. Hell, thats almost good enough to wipe out the negatives of the site donking out and crashing every so often.
If a site which has just a couple thousand users can afford to have a contact number, i really dont get why FTP and Stars cant.
Hell, even Party has a call centre - and according to my housemate when he had to ring them when he got hacked they were great about the issue but his FTP account which was hacked at the same time was a real problem simply because getting into contact with a FTP support relied on them eventually reading and responding to his email.