Earlier this week, we received an anonymous tip about certain shenanigans at Nairastake, an Enugu-based online betting startup.

Good day,

Trust your day is going well. i write to you to report some horrible experience with one of these Nigerian betting sites. I have been using them for quite some time now and you can imagine how much i probably most have lost because i’m a bit of an addict. i finally won some few cash and decided to withdraw to my bank account. the withdrawal as stated by the company should take 3 working days. However, i have made the withdrawal since 13 March, 2015. Up till this very minute, my bank account hasn’t been credited. All the customer care numbers are switched off. They keep enhancing the functionalities of the website which means they are still in business but they’ve refused to pay up. Each time i send a mail to their customer care address, i get the same reply saying ” i should exercise patience, they are working on it “. It’s so bad it almost feels like an auto-reply function. Kindly find attached screenshots to back up my claim. The name of the company is Nairastake and I believe they quite as popular as the other sites too, at least i know a bunch of people that use them. Please I would appreciate if you sensitize people so they don’t fall into the hands of this dubious people.

Thanks.

The screenshots:

 

We reached out to the company for a comment, but no response so far. It also turns out that our anonymous tipster isn’t the only victim of Nairastake’s shenanigans. As early as 2013, various commenters on a certain blog shared similar experiences.

 

 

On 12 December, 2014, an Nairaland user called “Iyke4real” voiced his complaints in a thread called “Whenever You Hear NAIRASTAKE, FLEE!!!!!!!!”

This is one of the companies that started football betting in Nigeria and they seemed to be reliable back then. Unfortunately, they refused to grow and were not innovative enough to improve their website and the services on offer. Though, they did quite well to change the trading currency from DOLLAR to NAIRA, they should have done more to compete when other betting companies came to the fore. I have tried their services and that of other bookmakers and its obvious that they lag behind in everything. Their customer service is almost non existent, their payout now takes 1 month to 3 months to complete, their odds are inconsistent and the most intriguing thing about them is that they put their agents in all sorts of problem. Some months ago, I chose to become an agent for this company because their terms were very attractive. Since then, Its been one problem or the other but the most consistent thing about them is that they pay winnings after 1 month even when they stated that it only takes them two days to complete payouts. A customer once won N135,000 in my shop and after waiting for 2 weeks, I had to pay the customer from my personal savings and I eventually received my fund back after 42 days. I thought that was a one off but another customer won N58,000 and after three weeks, I am still waiting for them to send me my fund. My brother who is also trading with them told me that he has a pending withdrawal request of N50,000 since the 6th day of November. My fellow nairalanders, I have learnt my lessons and I wouldn’t want any of you to make the same mistakes. I will definitely get my fund from them but when next I hear the word NAIRASTAKE, I will FLEE!!! I expect you to do the same.

Another Nairaland user called “ccollins” had a similar experience

Hello nairalanders, I made a payout of 48k since monday and till now no response.. This week, I now realised that what people are saying of nairastake being the biggest internet scam is true.. How can I withdraw this little money from them as their clear policy is that withdrawal is done immediately after two days but in reality, its different, delay and anoyance is getting unbearable and I use this medium to advise punters to desist from using nairastake the most fraudulent site! This is their customer relation website www.support.nairastake.com/ and all the unprofessional agents always say is to wait, that payout will be done soon even after weeks or month. (Please, should I hope to get them arrested and sued for this crime or what should I do??)

The Nairastake support forum is inundated with customers with the same issue. Did Nairastake bite off a little more than it could chew? Why can’t the company fulfil customer requests.

If you’ve had a similar experience with Nairastake, share it with us. Email editor[at]ynaija[dot]com.