Rights if a Software Update Causing Losses

wsmurray1

For a hobby I use a piece of software to place small £2 or less bets on Betfair. A recent upgrade caused the software to place hundreds instead of one £2 bet. The loss was over £1000 by the time I noticed what was happening.

The licence Agreement has a "no warranty" clause. I can understand this clause whereby the company cannot be held responsible for someone losing money on poor bets or following a poorly designed system. However surely if the software is not fit for purpose and directly causes losses that would not have been incurred had the software been working correctly, then they must be accountable? The software had not been tested properly and the following day it was fixed, tested and is now working fine.

The warranty clause says.

No warranty. This software is provided "as is" and any expressed or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the regents or contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damage (including but not limited to, procurement or substitution of goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

Do I have any rights for compensation?

Many thanks

Stuart

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

wsmurray1 wrote: »

For a hobby I use a piece of software to place small £2 or less bets on Betfair. A recent upgrade caused the software to place hundreds instead of one £2 bet. The loss was over £1000 by the time I noticed what was happening.

The licence Agreement has a "no warranty" clause. I can understand this clause whereby the company cannot be held responsible for someone losing money on poor bets or following a poorly designed system. However surely if the software is not fit for purpose and directly causes losses that would not have been incurred had the software been working correctly, then they must be accountable? The software had not been tested properly and the following day it was fixed, tested and is now working fine.

The warranty clause says.

No warranty. This software is provided "as is" and any expressed or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall the regents or contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damage (including but not limited to, procurement or substitution of goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

Do I have any rights for compensation?

Many thanks

Stuart

No


And as these were financial transactions, they are exempt for DSRs as well! Never mind.

wealdroam

You'll only stand any chance of recovering your money if you can demonstrate that the loss was entirely due to the faulty software.

Can you do that?

Just to add... saying "I only hit the button once but it placed 500 bets" is not proof.

halibut2209

I assume this is the software in question?

http://betsender.com/

wsmurray1

It would depend on what is meant by "proof" I guess. They have admitted it was a bug in an email. You can see from the bet history in the software what it was supposed to do. As the whole thing is set and forget you switch it on and in theory you never need to check it again (although I check it every morning).

So I guess I did hit the button once and let it go but then that's what you are supposed to do. In fact it wasn't even supposed to place £2 bets. I don't know where it got that number from as the one bet should have been less that that.

Many thanks

Stuart

wsmurray1

Yes that's the software. How did you know?

Stuart

InsideInsurance

wsmurray1 wrote: »

Do I have any rights for compensation?

"Rights" is a very strong word and it doesnt feel likely that there are any statutory rights you can claim against.

Where is the software company based/ what legal jurisdiction does the terms identify as governing the contract?

To be honest, I'd probably learn to check new software that can automatically spend my money before letting it loose and walk away. You may want to see if legal jurisdiction governing the contract has any rules on caps on liability, some wont allow gross negligence to be excluded but then you are probably talking spending more in expert witnesses/ international legal action etc to prove that they were grossly negligent and it wasnt the result of a series of rare events/ coincidents that resulted in the problem etc.

halibut2209

wsmurray1 wrote: »

Yes that's the software. How did you know?

Stuart

Googled betfair betting software

AJXX

Good luck getting anything off them.

On the bottom of the website they claim to be "Betsender Ltd" which is NOT registered at companies house = instant alarm bells.

The website itself is registered to someone in Ukraine

Registrant Name: Decker Ange
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: Mira 10
Registrant City: Kiev
Registrant State/Province:
Registrant Postal Code: 04140
Registrant Country: Ukraine
Registrant Phone: +380.449571322
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: ange.decker@gmail.com

Basically I'd forget it and move on.

wsmurray1

That's not sounding good is it!

In fairness to them the software has worked well for years with loads of upgrades. I think they just rushed an update out after a I found a small bug (which was annoying rather than expensive) and didn't test it.

Lesson certainly learnt to watch it very carefully before letting it loose.

Stuart