At last a bit of good PR from UNiTAB. Even so, it should never have got to the stage that I needed to expose such practices. A few lines of code to stop the bet and re-submit at the new odds if desired would do the job better than anything. It never had to get this far, and I wonder about all the other thousands of people that let the bet ride and accept such a situation.

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I agree with your comments regarding the price you accept should be the same as the price you are quoted. As a punter myself, I would be filthy if this    happened to me. That said, all I can do is explain the process that led to your predicament. When you send your prop number & investment, our system
requests the price information from Tabcorp. This price is then reflected on your screen, when you click send again, we have to send the bet details down
to Tabcorp again, they then send the accepted bet. Unfortunately, within the space of 1 or 2-seconds the price can change both ways, in or out. Fluctuations happen regularly & definitely more often on Saturdays & this part of the problem cannot be fixed.

While this is not a common problem we do acknowledge that something has to be done to prevent it from happening in the future. We intend to implement a
change to our system within the next month to speed up the price request process from Tabcorp.

Please accept our apologies & our ex-gratia payment of $300 equal to the difference between your payout & the expected payout at the price of $7.50,
which will be deposited into your telephone betting account this afternoon.

In addition, I would appreciate if you would contact me directly should you have further problems as I will only be too happy to handle the matter.

Regards, Shane xxxxxx

UNiTAB Limited

Ph: +61 xxxxxxxx

Mob: +61 xxxxxx

Fax: +61 xxxxxx

xxxxxxxx@unitab.com.au

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The history......

On February 4, 2006, I put a bet on with TAB Sportsbets using the UNiTAB website. I punched in the number for Personify,  that was showing fixed odds of 7.5. When the bet request went through first time I got the confirmation screen of this ...

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Confirm Bet

Bet

HORSE RACING

QN ADELAIDE STKS (FNL FLD)

11170 - PERSONIFY

WIN: $7.50

Cost   $150

Proceed?
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I did the whole lot within a couple of seconds... the moment I saw the screen with the odds $7.50 I hit "proceed". I was staggered that in the timeframe of 2 or 3 seconds, the bet returned to me at a payout of $5.50 .

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BET SOLD

"HORSE RACING - QN ADELAIDE STKS (FNL FLD) 11170 - PERSONIFY $150 @ $5.50 =
$825"

Cost $150.00

ACCEPTED!
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Never in the past had I seen them drop a price more than one roll of the board... I thought it a possibility but the worse I expected was to be returned odds of 7.0 which would have been bad enough, yet I have been ripped off of $300 by them on this bet alone....  This is nothing short of fraudulent, but they continue to get away with this, apparently even after three years of such underhanded and devious behaviour.

This is no different at all to me walking up to a track bookmaker and handing the clerk $150, seeing the odds are 7.5, in that moment I look at the clerk with my money, and as he looks up, the bookie brings the odds to 5.5, the clerk called the odds at 5.5 and yet I'd be given no opportunity to cancel the bet. It's like once they have my money in their grubby hands they can call it anyway they like and tell me "tough!", nevermind that the bookie next door has the horse still at 7.0. There would be a riot on any racecourse if a bookie tried to pull this stunt, yet our TABs "fixed odds" service can get away with this??!!!