I’m not talking shaken not stirred, suave and cool as a fan Bond, I’m talking secret agent undercover, ready to die to conceal identity type Bond, and I don’t get it.
I never understood why some people turn into a secretive and mysterious James Bond type character as soon as they sign up for an online gambling site. They don’t use their real names, real addresses, phone numbers, nothing is real. I never understood it because, if none of your information is legit, then how the fuck do you expect to get paid when you win? Maybe they’re only planning to lose… I don’t get it either way.
I’ve heard several testimonies from the security departments in various online gambling companies and the stories from reps with clients who simply refused to give their real names or provide any type of legitimate personal information about themselves, except some bogus email that they’ll never check. Some of these guys are fraudsters, some of them are shady, but many of them just don’t trust giving out that type of personal information online. It’s like they think the boogeyman is going to jump out of the computer screen and nab them or something. How would you like to be a call center rep talking to Joe Hick from some small buttfuck town, you conversation might a little something like this…
Rep: Hello sir, may I please have your date of birth and your mother’s maiden name?”
Caller Joe Hick: Why n the hell do you need that?
Rep: So I can identify you sir and verify your account.
Caller Joe Hick: I don’t want to give out that information, I don’t trust cha, just go head n “very fly” me by my voice. It’s me. Joe.
Rep: Sir, as I told you last week and the week before that, I already have it here in front of me sir, if you could just verify,
Caller Joe Hick:You somofa bitch, how the name of Sam Hill did you people get that information? I knew I shouldn’t have trusted y’all….Martha! Get the shotgun, they’re on to us.
Rep: Sir, you provided us with these answers to your security questions when you opened your account, they may be fake answers, not your actual date of birth or mother’s maiden name.
Caller Joe Hick: Oh, yeah, right, I remember now.
Martha: Y’all can go to hell in a handbasket, you’ll never find us!
Caller Joe Hick: Martha get off the phone!
Rep: (sigh) Your mother’s maiden name sir?
Caller Joe Hick: Well, hell, I can’t remember what I told ya.
Most calls with those type of people go something like that and usually involve a fair amount of concentration to decipher the southern accent.
We’ve come a long way, for a while most people didn’t like giving out their personal information online. Some still won’t. More and more, people are starting to loosen up on that stance, even though technology is actually making it easier for you to get hoodwinked online by all of those damn shut- in hackers out there. It’s taken a while to for online gaming entities to be able to convince Joe Hick that he will need to provide a valid email address instead of his usual alias [email protected]… I was reading Bill’s poker blog about Red King’s and their spammy site and it hit me, is this what Joe Hick was afraid of? Read more. Spammy poker sites, unwelcomed solicitation, junk email, these are all the things that nobody wants from their poker site, perhaps that’s what Joe Hick may have been afraid of. Or maybe Joe Hick was just afraid that the hundreds of gallons of homebrewed moonshine he’s got stockpiled in his basement might be found out.
It’s all about communication, nobody cares about the shine Joe!
Communication between client and operator will now have to be as fluid and free flowing as possible moving forward especially when you look at both the changing legal and technological frameworks of the online gambling world. In certain states, playing a little poker online could get you slapped with a felony charge, while in others you can play on your iphone on the train ride to work. Open lines of communication will certainly benefit gaming operators who are looking inform their clients of their expansion into gambling app world. At the same time, the last type of publicity an operator needs is headlines of one of their clients getting pinched, so keeping clients informed should certainly be a priority of online gaming operators. While it seems obvious and common sense, it shouldn’t be taken for granted because the bottom line is that most players aren’t really up on all the latest changes in the industry. I mean, it’s not like online gambling gets TV coverage.
