Question about Gambling websites with Curaçao license using incorrect Merchant Category code (sida 543)

Thank you, that is a bit of a help. I do understand why you have to be guarded as you never know who is reading this thread. Sorry to sound snappy, it’s just so frustrating trying to recover bank transfers as I know you will understand. 👍

I've got a gut feeling it's the same group of people making clone websites with different names, and making multiple third party merchants to move/launder the money, keep seeing a common themes of eastern european names coming up on shell company registers, cyprus and curacao addresses and seen the name Mario Fiorini mentioned a few times too, after that report of it costing the UK £2.7billion it wouldn't surprise me if there's a single organised crime ring behind all of these sketchy websites. I think they use the curacao license to make it appear like they have some kind of legitimacy, as from what i've read the guidelines to get one are very lax, and the average gambler doesn't know about licensing laws in terms of online gambling.

One of the moderators has said there's people who have contacted them to try and get this thread shut down, it's definitely been monitored by the 'casinos', as well as some opportunists who will try and use these methods to help people get their money back as long as they get a commission fee of sorts.

Me too, it took me around 4 months of my time to understand what was going on aside from this forum. But I hope the whole operation gets shut down so everyone benefits rather than just a select few.

But yeah, keep an eye out - not everyone is who you think they are.

Spot on.

i can name and shame the latter but I’m choosing not to

It's a shame really, especially considering they most likely found the forum because they're in a similar position, you'd think they'd be more empathetic but instead they try to profit off of it.

Dig in to it you will unravel it all the money we win back will just be an irritation to them its not real !

They use the caracao license in europe and its the costa rica one or something here as they are not allowed to use curacao they pretend its valid in the UK they switch it there is deffo a massive network all the same people behind it

I think there will always be a general consensus around gambling from people who are unaffected by it that it’s self-indulgent and not much sympathy should be given. I know we could say this about many addictions but I would argue different authorities are doing more to fight illegal websites promoting eating disorders, selling addictive prescription medication without needing a prescription etc. We at least hear a dialogue around this in the mainstream media but people never like to view gamblers as vulnerable, they want to see us as greedy. I really do think that’s where it stems from. I am glad that journalists are now investigating this issue as it is a dark path for many people, myself included, who are on GAMSTOP and even more vulnerable to the clutches of these criminals.

we both probably know who the operators are since we signed NDAs with some of them…

It just occurred to me that it would be fantastic if we had more YouTubers/influencers exposing this rather than promoting these sites, kind of like what Coffeezilla does with crypto scams.

Yes I have it all

I don't think any of the regulatory bodies are harsh enough on their punishments they dish out, like the spanish gambling commission fined santeda the max fine, 5 million euro, if santeda pull in 0.5% of the UKs reported £2.7billion in costs alone that's £13.5million, and they're one of the larger culprits of the illegal activity

Someone mentioned upthread the unlicensed gambling market in the UK alone is 2.7 billion pounds, that’s 10x the tampon industry in the UK which is crazy to me. It really is affecting way more people than I expected.

Hi. To anyone who disputes/chargeback requests via their bank, do you mark it as fraudulent or a legitimate transaction with errors? I don't know which choice to choose and want to do this correctly.

That's the figure that was quoted in the Guardian article posted earlier in the thread, gambling is quite a big thing in the UK, if you go to your local pub, ask 10 men if they've put an accumulator on for the football, at least 6 or 7 will say yes

True. Last week on X all I saw on my feed was people, mostly men, talking about Cheltenham bets. I knew gambling was a big thing but I didn’t expect the unlicensed gambling figure to run into billions, it just shows how GAMSTOP is not helping people really they are just turning to riskier places now where deposit limits don’t even exist and you can lose everything even quicker.

Saw the same, big money goes on cheltenham, then you've got big events like the super bowl, world cup etc, gambling is very popular in the UK so i can see it hitting big numbers for sure, then you've got the "marketing emails" and things like that, sign up bonuses should be banned too, in my opinion it's the same as a drug dealer giving out a free sample to get someone hooked

The bookies are not much better they let me lose £5000 on the slots and £2500 on horses one day not even asking are you sure etc just kept letting me use my debit card Ladbrokes it was, the slots are just as rigged never go near bookies now it was a very dark day for me I will never forget how I felt after it

These safer gambling regulations really aren't enforced, the black market casinos are obviously an issue but in terms of UK sites, they're not completely innocent either, i don't think many of them carry out the safer gambling checks to the extent they should, regulations should be a lot stricter. Obviously we have to take responsibility and accountability too but it's not like they're innocent either.