The letter.

Below is a copy of the letter I sent to the Head of Customer Services of Boylesports.


Dear Linda,

Username: ****

I have been moved to write an official complaint for what I regard as being treated with a level of customer service that I regard as negligent.

The incident relates to your removal of your BPG guarantee facility from my account.

Here is the transcript of a conversation I had with one your representatives earlier this week:


Connected to cim.boylesports.com
Session ID: 173727
Cathal has joined this session!
Connected with Cathal. Your Reference Number for this chat is 173727.

Welcome to Boylesports live help. How can I help you?

Hi. Can you please explain why my bet today was settled at the price I originally took and not at the BOG price?

One moment please and I will check that for you.

(after about five minutes of waiting): Any joy?

You placed the bet at the early price this is why you did not receive the bpg.

You advertised BPG - since when have I not been entitled to BPG? I have had no notice.

we offer bpg on the sp. Not on antipost prices or early prices. If the price is better then the sp we offer the better price.

What?!? Best Price Guaranteed means the best price is paid out, whether that be the SP or the early price. That is the way all my bets have been settled up until today.
What you have just typed is just plain wrong!

apologies .

So back to my original question - how come my bet has not been settled at the best price as you took my bet on a BPG basis?

Your account no longer avails of there bpg. You would have received an email in regard to this.
This was a management decision. It is nit just for your account but for numerous account.

I have just checked my in box on my email account - I have received no email. Can you please forward the original email sent so that I can check you have the right address? Please forward the original though, so I can see when exactly it was sent.

The email address I have for you is ****** is this correct.

Yes - but I still want you to forward the original email so I can see when it was sent. I have received no email.

I will organize for the email to be sent out for you.

The original?

That is correct.

Thankyou.



There are two points I would like to raise.


1. How can your representative be so blatantly wrong in his description of the BPG principle? Either he requires considerably more training, or he was attempting to pacify me by lying.

2. You may note that I asked for the "original" email that your representative stated to me had been sent, warning me of the imminent withdrawal of BPG from my account. I asked for this, because I checked my email account and no such email had been received.

This Live Chat conversation took place at approximately 6.00 - 6.15 in the evening. At 7.06, I received an email saying that my entitlement to BPG had been withdrawn. It was not a forwarded version of a previously sent email, rather an email sent for the first time.

The following morning I consulted one of your reps via Live Chat again. During the conversation, the lady admitted that I had been given the wrong information the previous evening, and in fact no such email had been sent to me prior to the removal of my BPG entitlement. In other words, Cathal had, in fact, blatantly lied to me, a customer.

Being lied to is, as I suggested previously, inexcusably poor customer serice. I would like your opinion on this.


The lady I conversed with in my second Live Chat conversation pointed out to me that it is stated within your Terms & Conditions that you may, at any time and without prior warning, withdraw a client's entitlement to the BPG offer you provide. I accept that entirely, as I do the fact that I opened an account with Boylesports having freely accepted those Terms & Conditions.

However, it is my belief that a company's Terms & Conditions of Business are rendered redundant if they run contrary to statutory or common law.

In this context, please note that without prior warning of the withdrawal from my account of the BPG facility, I placed my bet via the Boylesports website because I believed you were providing me with a BPG guarantee. When I placed the bet, the BPG symbol that you use with a tick next to it, advertised the fact that a bet placed on that particular race was subject to BPG, would you not agree? That tick purports to an advertisement and therefore my business was thus secured via a form of false advertising.

Please can you state your position on this?

Many thanks for your consideration on these issues and I await your response.


I'll let you know the response after the weekend. Let's see what they say.


Today's Betting

A marginally profitable day to end the working week.

On The Nose found one to place at decent odds (Honeymead - Musselburgh - 14/1) from their two selections for a little profit and Winning Racing Tips picked an each way double in which both horses placed and another single which also placed to return stakes.

No luck for Northern Monkey (0/2) or The Market Examiner (although TME came close with a 14/1 shot that finished a head second).

The profit was provided by Summer Of Football who had a winner in the French second division (Troyes - 10/11).

Northern Monkey: Staked 1pt, -1pt.
The Market Examiner: Staked 3pts, -3pts.
Winning Racing Tips: Staked 1.1pts, +0.049pts.

Summer Of Football: Staked 1pt, +0.9pts.


Long weekend. Hurrah! No post tomorrow - see you Monday.