KATIE MORLEY INVESTIGATES

CONSUMER CHAMPION OF THE YEAR If a company has let you down, Katie is here to fight your corner

LETTER OF THE WEEK My brain-damaged mum lost £88k with William Hill

My mother had a drinking problem for much of her life and she also had a gambling addiction. In her later years, she developed advanced liver disease, which left her braindamaged. She died last year from septicaemia, aged 70.

Towards the end of her life, my brother and I discovered that she had gambled away £88,000 with the high street betting shop William Hill. We were horrified to discover that she had been made a “VIP member”. As a VIP, my mother had been invited by William Hill representatives to prestigious events, such as Ascot and a Stone Roses concert.

Presumably, this means they were able to encourage her to gamble even more money. It should have been abundantly clear from my mother’s demeanour that she was fragile and in an unfit state to be gambling at these levels. We found records that showed she had forgotten her account password many, many times, phoning up each time to get a new one.

William Hill would have had many opportunities to spot that something was up with her. Yet I can see no evidence that it conducted any checks that would have protected her from harm. I feel the VIP club was an abuse of trust and an immoral way to encourage her to gamble more money.

My brother and I have complained to William Hill about our mother’s treatment, but they said we don’t have a claim. As a result of her gambling, my mother lost all her savings, and in the end her estate was worth less than £5,000. She also racked up thousands of pounds of credit card debt to fund her habit. She was not cogent enough to show it while she was alive, but we knew that she felt great shame for what she did. Really, I feel it is William Hill that should be ashamed.

SH, VIA EMAIL

Your mother was a troubled character, with issues stemming back to her childhood. Your relationship wasn’t straightforward, and although you loved her, you weren’t particularly close. Evidently, she had an abusive relationship with alcohol and money. She should never have been allowed to gamble such vast amounts in short spaces of time, you say. I was inclined to agree, but before taking your case to William Hill, I wanted to see hard medical evidence of your claims about her health and mental state.

You supplied this readily. A note from her doctor stated that in 2014 she had been diagnosed with encephalopathy, a form of brain damage arising from alcoholic liver

Write to Katie Morley, Telegraph Money, The Daily Telegraph, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT

Please do not send original documents. Include an address, phone number and separate notes addressed to all organisations authorising them to talk to Katie. For full terms see p9 or visit telegraph.co.uk/go/ consumerchampion. You can also email kminvestigates@ telegraph.co.uk disease. The doctor described your mother’s case as “severe” and said her brain damage was “significant”, resulting in compromised mental capacity and rendering her “extremely vulnerable”. Clearly, this was not a woman who should have been allowed unfettered access to a gambling platform, let alone been made a VIP member. The thought of her schmoozing and boozing with William Hill staff who wanted her to place big bets made my skin crawl.

I took your mother’s case to William Hill, showing it the doctor’s note and asking it to prove how it had adhered to Gambling Commission rules, which state it must protect vulnerable customers from harm and exploitation from gambling. According to the rules, firms must interact with customers in a way that minimises their risk of experiencing harms associated with gambling.

I also asked it to explain why it had failed to spot that your mother was vulnerable, both at VIP events she attended and over the phone, when you say she repeatedly forgot her password. I also wanted to know how and why your mother was selected to become a VIP member and what checks were done on her.

The response that came from William Hill was light on detail, to say the least. It said that, despite a number of interactions with your mother, it saw no indication of any health issues or other incapacity. It insisted all its policies and procedures designed to ensure customers played safely were followed. It said it had informed the Gambling Commission about the case and suggested the next step would be to take it to an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service.

I told William Hill that this was out of the question. ADR services are supposed to come in where complaints between customers and firms cannot be amicably resolved. Clearly William Hill wanted this over with, but I had barely even got going.

It tried to tell me that your complaint could not be progressed until you had applied for and received a grant of probate. I argued that you didn’t need probate to discuss your mother’s gambling account, as we were merely seeking data and exploring whether wrongdoing had occurred. As she died with less than £5,000 remaining, you hadn’t needed probate. I felt asking you to get one now was obstructive, and a lawyer who specialises in wills agreed with me. I also put in a request for your mother’s full account data from 2014 to 2018, including all recorded phone calls. William Hill needed to realise that this was not going to go away.

William Hill ignored my request for data, but invited you to a meeting with a senior member of its legal team. You said you wanted me by your side, but William Hill banned me from attending. So off you went alone, while I lurked in a nearby café. I had prepared you for a number of possibilities, including being pressured into accepting an unfair offer and being asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

I asked you what you would be prepared to accept as compensation. You told me no less than the full £88,000 your mother had gambled away. Quite right, I said.

After the meeting, you felt it had gone well. You had not yet been made an offer or signed anything. I asked you what you thought William Hill was going to do next. You said you thought it would cough up the full £88,000. But you strongly sensed that it wanted me out of the picture. I couldn’t help but chuckle, as it was way too late for that.

Some days later, you phoned me with an update. William Hill had made you an offer. You said you couldn’t tell me the amount, but, my dear reader, you didn’t need to. The twinkle in your eye and the warmth of your smile were there in your voice. Your instinct proved right and so did mine. In what looked like a desperate last attempt to kill this story, it appears you were offered at least £88,000 in compensation, but only if you signed a settlement agreement containing a nondisclosure clause.

I asked William Hill to drop the clause, but it ignored my request. Eager to get your money, quite understandably, you signed the paperwork and kept shtum about the details. It appears that William Hill did the right thing eventually, but throughout this process it obstructed and refused to own up to its apparent failings. This is far from the behaviour of a responsible company.

In the end, it faced a choice: cough up the money or show us the data. Its choice tells us all we need to know about the shocking revelations the data likely contained. Now that I’ve delivered justice for your mother, it’s over to the Gambling Commission to do with William Hill whatever it sees fit.