“So where IS OUR money sat I wonder cos it’s ‘withdrawn’ from our account but not landed with PayPal clearly…” one user commented in May. You can count on us to figure out this issue and find a way for you to withdraw your funds again in the future.” “What we can say is that your winnings are definitely safe with us. “We’re currently in the process of consulting with lawyers in order to provide PayPal with legal opinions on this matter,” a blog posted on 30th April reads. In April, Royal Games named PayPal in a vague explanation of the issue, when it admitted the withdrawal problem had “proven more complicated than first anticipated”. Please rest assured that all withdrawals will be honoured as soon as we get this sorted.” Candy Crush.Įurogamer was alerted to this issue by customers of the website who said they had hundreds of pounds’ worth of winnings they cannot access, other than to continue spending them within the site. Royal Games first publicly acknowledged the issues via a blog post in early February, written by site moderator The Clown Prince, which noted “a delay with withdrawals… due to an unexpected issue with our payment provider”.Īn update to this post later in the same month suggested a solution was imminent, “but we are awaiting on responses from them before we can finalise this and get the taps flowing again. At that point, the withdrawal issues appeared to be mixed up in the ongoing changeover, so players did not initially expect – and were not told – anything else was wrong. More popular King titles had been ported to HTML5, but many were lost from the site entirely.

None of these remained available.Īt the same time, Royal Games had been struggling with the loss of Flash support in browsers – a technology which had powered many of its games. Prior to the withdrawal freeze, PayPal had been only one of several methods to cash out, including a simple bank transfer. This effectively locked-in any funds paid into the site, as well as any subsequent money prizes won.Ĭustomers were initially told the issue was temporary, and it was only later they were informed the hold up was due to a legal investigation by PayPal.

In January this year, Royal Games quietly paused the ability for members to make withdrawal requests, meaning their site balance could no longer be transferred back into their bank accounts. The ability to pay into the site was switched off for new accounts in 2019, but a core community of existing fans still uses the site every day, and laments the glory days of Flash gaming via its community blog.Īt the time of writing, more than 6000 players are listed as online, and the site’s banner advertises a £1000 prize pot for a Pepper Panic tournament.

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