Golden Goals, IT-issues & CS

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Kafkaesque
Posts: 886
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2017 10:20 am

I didn't quite know how to name this topic, but there you go. Despite my insanely long ramblings in the following, it is in the end in my honest opinion something that could concern us all. Still, this is gonna be looooong one so buckle in. To that end:

TL:DR
- Betfair may have messed up on their leaderboard settlement for round 12 of the Golden Goals campaign
- Three weeks of inept customer service ends in absolutely no answer to what actually transpired
- Betfair definitely messed up on their leaderboard settlement for round 15
- My information on the matter potentially saved them 180,000* pounds
- They hand me a 100* pounds bonus as a good will gesture for the information
- Should I be pissed and continue to follow up, or get on with my life?
- Betfair may even have a security breach in connection with round 15

* I'm assuming here that the "base" jackpot in the UK is 200,000 pounds, as this is clean, sounding number though it's actually 2 mio kr. here in Denmark, which is more, but again sounds better for them. The bonus is 1000 kr. which is then obviously also sligthly more than 100 pounds.

So, this ties into the thread I opened on customer service. That was more related to their response time, and what I should expect, so I hope, it's okay to give this a new one. I'll do this a day-by-day to keep it somewhat manageable.

November 1st:
Round 12 of Betfair's Golden Goals campaign is going on with Champions League football. I end up with two picks correct. While doing other work, I update the leaderboard every once in a while. Not that I'm really expecting the two picks to be enough for the consolation prize of 2,000 pounds (again, the number dependent on what the actual payout in the UK is), but more to see how many I would have needed. When I update at 00:15 CET, the leaderboard updates and there I sit, atop the pile. "Your position: 1" and a yellow/orange ball indicating, I was closest with the tie-breaker. I realize that there was about five minutes between the first match ending and the last one doing so. Thus I check the my choices/my picks (not sure of the wording in the UK version), and the matches/picks are set as settled. I'm still quite a bit surprised that two would be enough, so I continue to use F5 every five minutes or so, but it remains the same.....until 00:45 when it changes to several people having three correct, and I'm bumped down. Now, 2,000 is hardly life-changing money, but a nice unexpected boost to the bankroll all the same, so it annoys me, and even more so that I didn't take screenshots. At the time though, I had no reason to suspect anything was messed up, bar my feeling that two picks wouldn't be enough.

November 2nd:
I go to the customer service chat. Again, the 2k isn't that much, and I was in no way expecting any sort of compensation, unless it turned out that the last update was a mistake and I actually was the winner. It was more a case of my OCD-tendencies and my INTP-personality wanting an explanation as to what occurred and helping to stop it from happening again. I speak to, let's call it, CS rep # 1, who agrees with me that it seems odd. He'll need to speak to a manager and will mail me, once he has done so.

November 6th:
No word from CS or a manager. So I go on the chat again. CS rep # 2 promises to look into it and mail me the same day. He does in fact does so that night, telling me the case has now been passed on to the relevant department.

November 13th:
Again no word from CS, a manager, or said relevant department, so off the chat we go for round 3. CS rep # 3 cannot reach the relevant department at present, but promises to look into it for me, and have an answer for me before Friday.

November 16th:
CS rep #3 just gets there in time with a mail 2 hours and 15 minutes before midnight. "The investigation is still ongoing" isn't much of an answer though. By now, with me being given this much of a runaorund, I cannot help but feel, that I might have a case, or at the very least that there was something amiss with their IT-solution to the campaign's leaderboard, which they cannot account for. It's not like Betfair - as with all bookmakers - are adverse to straight up telling their customers so, if they believe, there is no case to be answered for.

November 22nd:
Round 15 of the campaign is happening. This time around I do actually believe that my three picks and a pretty good tie-breaker might just be enough, as the other three were, to various degrees, unexpected. So like three weeks previous, I set about getting some work done, while updating the leaderboard and the my choices/my picks page. During one of these updates something happens, which nearly escapes my attention. It took some seconds to register, and I had actually gone back to the work at hand, before going: Hold on a minute. The choices/picks have gone from awaiting results to select your picks. I'd be hard pressed to explain the precise reasoning but my instinctive action was to have a look, if it was actually open, and I did so picking all six. The system accepted my changes. There I was sat, stirring at a screen - in theory - worth 360,000 pound (again again thereabouts), as there was next to zero chance of anybody actually picking those six beforehand. I'll freely admit that my pulse was racing for about 30 seconds at that prospect. Then normal flow of oxygen to the brain resumed. I can 100% honestly say, I cannot tell what weighed how much in my calculation among the reasons, so you decide for yourself what you think of me. But take the combination of: A feeling there's no chance BF pays out 360,000 without realizing that the picks have been changed, not wanting to cheat including taking 2,000 off someone who has legitimately won (which I was currently annoyed about myself), and not wanting to be banned from BF. So, I changed my picks back to their original settings. Given my past experience, I did however go back to take three screenshots of the process as I was able to change one pick and change it to the original setting. The page remained this way for about 20-25 minutes, until 01.45 when it changed to updated results and leaderboard. And what do you know, a next to zero chance turned out to be equal to three people getting all six correct!

November 23rd:
Quite apart from the experiences of the previous night, quelle surprise, I hadn't heard anything at all on my initial enquiry. So back for round # 4 with a double agenda this time around. I had a previous engagement, I couldn't get away from for much of the day, so it was past 14:00 when I got around to it. At the time the leaderboard still stood, as it first did. CS rep #4 could tell that my case had been "escalated" to a different department. The person it was assigned to didn't get in until 15:00, so she would have to contact me after that, and also promised to take my experiences from the previous night to the correct department. We ended our chat session at 14:45 and at about 15:30 the home page changed the jackpot from 200,000 to 380,000 (for those not familiar with the campaign, the base jackpot is 200k adding on 20k each week noone wins it), indicating that after 12+ hours of indicating the jackpot had been won, and within 45 minutes of me informing them, it changed. Sure enough, at 15:45 the three people with six correct were removed from the leaderboard. At night, I get a mail from CS rep # 4 saying that my original case has been held up, because it had been assigned to someone who no longer worked there! So, not only does BF's system say someone not there is available to take cases, but also that he's due in the same day at 15:00, as this is what I was told! Lost for words, really. The mail continues that it's now been reassigned, and they'll work hard to get me an answer the next day, but no promises because they'll have to investigate further and consult with other departments.

November 24th:
Mail from CS rep # 4. "The leaderboard is dynamic. It might be that you've looked when a number of picks weren't settled." To sum up: Three weeks, four CS reps, at least three departments, and I get a "might be". Obviously the leaderboard needs to be dynamic for rounds with different starting times for the matches, but a dynamic leaderboard that takes 2 hours or more to update the results and then takes 30 minutes to update the leaderboard a second time - for matches ending within five minutes of each other - despites picks/choices being confirmed, just plain screams terrible, terrible coding. Or worse. Speaking of which. In the same mail, they admit that selection of picks were in fact open for change, which they clearly should not have been, at the time I told them it was the case. And contestants with picks altered had been removed and they're looking into the issue. Finally, they'd like to thank me for informing them of the issue with a bonus of 100 pounds, to be credited the same day. They could have come around, knocked on my door and kicked me in the nuts, as I opened the door, and that would likely have felt better. The sum of being "cheated" of 2,000, then having a three-week game of tag with a totally inept CS with a resulting "might be", and finally potentially saving them 180,000 while passing on the chance of trying to cheat for double that, with a good will gesture of 100 pounds being the net result. I obviously used "cheated of 2,000" loosely; they may not have physically, but mentally they did. Also, they would likely claim, they would have caught 180k mistake before paying out. Given the facts that there was one issue three weeks previous, they cannot account for; that the campaign, in the first place, opened up for potential cheating without them catching it; and that it stood for 12-14 hours with nothing happening, I hardly think, they're in a position to claim with any sort of certainty, that they would have caught it. Either way, the 100 out 180,000 is a 0,056% "finder's fee", which is just plain ridiculous, and seems to me to either be an arbitrary number or the lowest, they could come up with that sounded nice. I wrote a mail back explaining these points, without the kick in the balls part, and as diplomatically as I could manage.

November 26th:
Back to my old friend CS rep # 2, who replies to the mail, almost to the minute, 48 hours later. It's been passed along to the campaigns department, and they will get back to me, it says. Brilliant, two full days to even open a mail and pass it on to the correct people!

December 1st:
Still no word, yet yet again. Also, the bonus promised on the same day a week prior still hasn't been transfered. I get CS rep # 2 in the chat. He checks and there is indeed word from the campaigns department. As the cherry on top of this CS nightmare, the campaigns department couldn't be bothered to respond to me themselves, but passed the buck back to CS, who then couldn't be bothered to let me know either. CS rep # 2 was having trouble using, well, words to any great, understandable, effect. Thus, in the end he had to copy what the campaigns department had sent to CS, which was basically just a repetition of what I had already been told, in that they - CS - should thank me, and tell me of a good will gesture of 1,000 DKK as cash. After "might be"-thing previously, in response to several points brought up, they manage a two-line response saying absolutely new. And that is the case closed for them, I was being told in uncertain terms.

Now, this brings up two issues. One for me, and one for everybody.

Me first, because that's just the sort of guy, I am ;) Nah, because that's the most straigthforward. Am I right in feeling badly treated here? Not just in terms of the level service, which is obvious in my opinion, but in terms of the amount given as a good will gesture (which incidently is just a c***y way of saying: Be glad you're getting anything!). Or should get over myself and on with my life? I'm left with the distinct feeling that I haven't gotten hold of "the right person" as a user touches on in the CS thread, and that my case has just been tossed around between the people actually responsible. And they're just busy trying keep it quiet and make it go away for as low an amount as possible. Thus the bonus question is, should I pursue it further to try to get it the right people, who actually have some pull? Any input on how to circumvent CS to do so would be much appriciated.

For the broader issue. I don't think, it was on here (but I could be mistaken), however I heard rumblings a year or so ago, when BF had a number a outages in a few weeks, that it could be down to them outsourcing some (most?) of the developmental IT-solutions. Which got me Googling after the night of the 22nd. It seems, at least part of it, is in Romania. Now, I shouldn't insinuate things with little grounds. Given CS would not answer my question as to whether Betfair Romania Development has coded and is running the Golden Goals campaign, I'm kind of left to insinuate and speculate. Two of the three people, who cheated to get six correct, has names with a very high likelyhood of being Romanian (Liviu and Claudiu), with the third (Aleksandar) also likely to be from Eastern Europe. It could completely random, but given I cannot get an answer to whether it's coded over there (or anything else for that matter), well... I should say, that I cannot state strongly enough that this is not speculation based on ethnicity or nationality. Had it been Betfair Denmark Development, and two clearly, plus one maybe, Danish names, my thoughts would have been the same. No matter which way you slice it though, it is worrisome to me on a broader scale than a finder's fee, if it is indeed the case that BF are looking to increasingly cut costs by outsourcing IT development (and possibly solutions), if it's anywhere near as poorly coded, run and as leaky in a security sense as this campaign has shown itself to be. Thoughts?
Last edited by Kafkaesque on Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
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SeaHorseRacing
Posts: 2893
Joined: Fri May 20, 2016 7:06 pm

Just too much for me to read especially being a weak reader.
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Kafkaesque
Posts: 886
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2017 10:20 am

SeaHorseRacing wrote:
Fri Dec 01, 2017 11:09 pm
Just too much for me to read especially being a weak reader.
Cheers mate, fair enough :) I did put cliffs in note form at the top. Still, closing on 50 views and only your reply would seem to suggest a "it's not you, it's me" scenario :lol:

I may well have overdone the describtion of the CS-process. FWIW, I felt it all had its place in the post to allow people to make up their own minds as to whether something sketchy could be going on, or rather that it's really just that poor CS.
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