Promises. Broken Promises.

Compared with some of the illegal, criminal and immoral things Duncan Oldham has done during his time this doesn’t rank highly, but it still highlights broken promises from Duncan. You just can’t believe a word he says.

KopTalk members beware of the scam site’s new PayPal con

A former KopTalk member, Carl, has contacted the blog to warn people about yet another PayPal con being perpetrated by KopTalk.

In short, if you are a former KopTalk member who has been asked to cancel a PayPal dispute by Steve, Katie or Dunk so they can give you a refund themselves, refuse point blank to do so. It’s yet another cynical ruse by them to avoid giving former members what they are due.

The auto-renewal feature on all PayPal subscriptions to KopTalk has probably earned Duncan Oldham thousands of pounds over the years. Any former KopTalk members reading this who have not already done so should take a look at the sticky at the top of this page to find out how to make sure the auto-renewal feature isn’t still in effect on their PayPal account. And any present KopTalk members would be well advised to do the same – that way it will be your own choice, not Oldham’s, as to whether you decide to renew your membership when your current subscription runs out.

The blog has helped former members to make repeated complaints to PayPal about Oldham’s failure to advise members about the auto-renewal feature when they join, as well as his tendency to drag his heels when it comes to making refunds. As a result, whereas in the past Oldham would have banned any member the moment they dared to raise the subject of the auto-renewal, he has recently had to point them in the direction of an obscure page of the KopTalk support site when they mention it.

But it transpires that Oldham and his partners in crime have come up with a new ploy to avoid paying back former members what they are legally owed.

Carl had realised that KopTalk was a waste of his money and his time, and repeatedly emailed Oldham to cancel his membership. He received no reply but assumed that because his SMS alerts had ceased, his membership must also have been cancelled. But 12 months later, he was billed again. He naturally launched a PayPal dispute and contacted KopTalk to ask for an explanation. Steve replied telling Carl that he would be refunded the money he was owed as soon as the PayPal dispute was cancelled. On complying with Steve’s request, KopTalk, safe in the knowledge that Carl could not open another PayPal dispute, informed him he would receive no refund – even though PayPal told him they had given the payment to KopTalk and KopTalk had previously admiited receiving it.

Here’s Carl’s story in full:

Joined 3 years ago, quickly realised the forum was full of humourless morons and the insider stuff was no more insider info than you could find out off any scouse cab driver. I left the site alone after 2 months, but because I live in Australia I let them keep me listed thinking my subscription would run out in a year – I was happy to receive the sms scores and team sheets.
Then a year later was billed again, I decided it was my fault for not asking to be removed and I got back into the online aspect. For about two months I read the sites pages. I was even one of those people who offered him support and chatted in agreement with all the other twats in the forum about what lowlife scumbags the people who run Kraptalk must be to persecute Dunk because he’s “running a successful website and making a quid”. We all agreed the Kraptalk people must be sad indeed to devote so much time to try and bring an honest man like Dunk down to their level etc, etc, etc.

Basically Dunk’s scam is to make money off of the good name of the club and the city’s people. Nobody would believe that a fellow red would rip them off, and this is how the thing continues. I think your site needs to
place more emphasis on warning people about the automatic PayPal billing that Koptalk sets up and does not switch off.

Anyway – after another two months of being in the forums now and then I got sick of the clique bullshit and the downright ignorance and this time when I left and wanted to make sure I would not be billed again. So I
emailed Dunk and asked to be removed from the membership and not billed again. I sent repeated emails asking if I would be billed again, but Dunk did not reply. The sms messages stopped and I decided that
I must have been removed as requested and did not expect to be billed again.

A year later I was billed again. I launched a PayPal investigation and opened a Koptalk support ticket asking why I had been billed. Paypal said it was an authorised automatic subscription that would repeat
yearly for ever until I switched it off. Steve from Koptalk stressed that I could of had the money back If I had not launched a Paypal investigation but said now he had to wait while the investigation decided what was
going to happen. He emailed me a link to Koptalk’s rules and told me that I should get the money no problem as soon as PayPal backed off. I emailed PayPal and explained that I had been assured the money would be returned and told them to cancel the investigation. PayPal said it was an automatic subscription and I should ask for the money back from Koptalk. I told Steve I had cancelled the investigation and would like the money back.

I received an email from a girl at Koptalk linking me to a different page of their rules which said I can not have the money back and I’m stuck with another year’s membership. I emailed back and said I wanted to
deal with Steve because he had assured me the money would be returned. Steve emailed back saying PayPal were holding things up. I checked PayPal and there was absolutely nothing going on, case closed. They had given Koptalk the money and told me to get it back myself as Koptalk were so friendly and had promised it back.

Then I checked my Koptalk support tickets on this matter which had all been closed without resolve. I started another support ticket (it had been going on for about 6 weeks at this stage) and told Steve if he was not going to refund the money he could at least renew my membership, because I have recently changed jobs and no longer work in an office with all day to be launching Koptalk support tickets and talking to twats online. I could at least then receive the scores via sms. Steve replied and said he would be happy to give me the year’s membership I had just paid for, if I could solve the mystery of the missing subscription fee which PayPal say they have given Koptalk, and Koptalk are denying having received after previously having admitted to receiving!

I wrote an email to Steve explaining to him that I find it hard to comprehend any business / website operating with this ethic of ripping people off and spending hours refuting refund requests. But I did not send the email because I began to realised the whole thing is a scam and that every member will get shafted in this way when they leave Koptalk at least once – if they are lucky. Most people will be shafted at least
twice, the first time blaming themselves for not specifically demanding to be removed from the subscription list, and the second time realising that the PayPal automatic payment set up by Koptalk is a separate entity with a life of its own.

In closing, keep up the good work, it is nothing short of criminal to trade off of Liverpool’s good name and then rip people off. I hope people who are members of Koptalk read this and learn how to switch off the automatic
payments and retain the right to decide for themselves if they with to renew their memberships. And I hope Steve from Koptalk reads this because this is what happens when you rip people off. Word gets around.

Carl