Veikkaus/Win2day scam -- looking for people with disconnect issues
Good day,
I don't speak Deutch but I figured here would be the best place to post this. I try to make this short, but I'll be happy to answer any questions / give more information.
My name is Miikka Anttonen, I'm from Finland and a former Pokerstrategy coach and a pretty well-known figure in the online community I guess (I post as "Chuck Bass" on 2p2 etc). A few months ago our national online poker provider Veikkaus merged with an Austrian operator and formed a joint network, with a pool of only Finnish and Austrian poker players. It seems to be called Win2day in Austria.
There's been a pretty big scandal revolving in the Finnish media about it over the last few days and I'm currently preparing a legal case against the site, which is owned by the Finnish government (in other words, this is probably going to be a pretty bad idea from me...). People are estimated to have lost six figures over the years due to a glitch in the client. I am currently not entirely sure if Austrians use the same servers as the Finns, or how exactly this merger works and I'd love it if someone could enlighten me here.
Basically, the site has had ridiculous disconnection issues throughout its run. It usually happens like this:
1) The software kicks you out randomly while in the middle of a hand. It either auto-closes itself or says there's no internet connection (while other sites work fine)
2) You try opening the client again and it says "you can only run one iPoker client at a time"
3) Despite closing casino.exe in resource management and every Playtech-related process you can't get back in and get the same popup
4) You try to reinstall the software etc but it still doesn't let you back in
5) You get blinded out of tourmaments / lose your cash game pots and generally can only get back the next day
For those who don't know, this isn't a new site, it's operated since something like 2010. It used to be our national online poker (we have a gambling monopoly), but the Austrian merger happened a few months ago and now we play in the same pool with Austrians. It has operated on Playtech software since the launch and these problems have occurred from time to time to hundreds of players. They are not very common, I play ~20 days a month and on average have been getting them maybe twice a month. But it always costs a shitload of money and Veikkaus has refused to refund a cent. I initially estimated that there would be maybe 50 affected players with total losses of a few thousand euros maybe. I was wrong. I received 1500 Facebook notifications in 12 hours and have been reported such crazy amounts of people losing the money to this that we are currently in the six figures in euros.
Now the fun part starts here. I did some extensive research via social media and found out some incredible stuff. I have been in touch with several Veikkaus employees, former and current, and they have all testified the same thing: this isn't just an incompetence issue. The management has downright TOLD all employees to perform pseudo "investigations" into these matters and then tell every complaining client that they are the only person who has ever complained about the issue, and since this isn't a widespread problem their investigations have concluded that it's the player's fault. I have literally seen screenshots of them receiving dozens and dozens of emails in the same week from 20 different players who have all reported the same problem and asked for refunds. For each and every one of them Veikkaus has responded that this is the first time they hear about a problem like this, and that it has to be the player's fault.
There's a fair bit of other absurd stuff that I'm not posting right now, but the point is that the company is completely rotten from the inside and needs a proper shake-up. The story has made it pretty big in the social media and I have spoken to many of our country's biggest newspapers. I am currently preparing a legal case about it, aiming to have people get refunded as well as forced improvements in the software and to get the managers fired. The problem is that the site isn't regulated by any gaming licensors like LGA or whatever. They are only regulated by the Finnish government (in other words, by themselves), and thus the only way to get anything done is to contact the police. Which is what I'm preparing for currently.
The reason I am posting here is because it's crucial for me to find out if Austrians have had the same problem? Veikkaus has their servers in Finland (so they are not using playtech servers, which I assume is the reason behind the problem) but I have no idea what servers they use for Austrians. So have any of you had this problem? Who do you report it to and what did they say? Does Veikkaus have Austrian support or do you just deal with the Finnish support as well? If the Austrian site has their own support, have their responses been in line with the ones we get in Finland? Is there a person in the Austrian poker community who I could talk about this and who would maybe be well connected and generally know about this stuff?
I can't promise I'm going to be able to get anyone refunded, but if anyone would like to add more claims to the pile about money lost I'll be happy to include them in my complaint. I would need your login name (not table screen name) and date/time when it happened.
Please share, and please let me know if there is another website where lots of Austrians post where I could post this. I was only suggested this by my Austrian friends.
Thanks for reading!
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