Written by :
Published on :
Late Thursday, British bookmaker BetFred, run by multi-millionaire Fred Done, refused to budge in regard to paying the grandmother of Olympic swimmer Sam Oldham. Many across the nation – and the world for that matter – have taken to Twitter to voice their outrage and hopefully pressure BetFred into doing what they believe to be the right thing.
Linda Aldred, 66, placed a small bet on her grandson to win an Olympic medal with the expected payout of £1000. BetFred argues that she placed the wager on her grandson winning an individual medal in Athletics whereas the bronze was awarded to the team as a whole. The odds were long as Great Britain had not won a medal in gymnastics for 100 years.
Aldred said: "I thought it would be a good idea as Sam's grandad Eric was a betting man, so my sister and I thought we would put down a bet together in his memory.
"We had never been in a betting shop before. The bet was for Sam to win any medal. As I walked out I said 'this one is for Eric' but I considered the bet already lost."
The Twitter community has come out in full force over “Granny-gate”, seemingly 100 percent in support of Ms. Aldred.
This has prompted a response from BetFRED via Twitter just moments before publication of this piece.
@majer2109 We are currently in discussion with IBAS and we hope to come to a satisfactory conclusion for all concerned.
Dumbass PR here Betfred. Pay the woman or lose lots and lots of good will. Seriously, this stuff isn't hard to work out
Appalling! @Betfred refuses to pay out £1000 win to the grandmother of #TeamGB gymnastic medal winning hero -
@Betfred Out of goodwill + the amount you make everyday from the general public you should pay up. If not I hope public humiliation follows
@Betfred Not only should you apologise and pay up the £1,000, you should be stumping up for flights to Rio too.
@Betfred - what a poor excuse to not pay up Linda Aldred, the nan of Olympic gymnastics Sam Oldham. That's her ticket to Rio#CoughUp
Meany's- RT @GemmaQuainton: Huge #PRfail - Betfred refuses to honour bet placed by Olympic medallist's grandmother -
Edmund Chartier @Savvy_Edmund
A link to the abysmal marketing behaviour from Betfred -http://yhoo.it/MOE5Yb via Yahoo
Edmund Chartier @Savvy_Edmund
Poor from Betfred they lose £500,000 paying up on Man u winning the title, but won't pay a pensioner £1000 after grandson wins Olympic medal
hmm #betfred not really fair is it!! another greedy company
Pay up Betfred - It's going to cost you a lot more than £1,000 in bad publicity if you don't http://soc.li/EIxzU0e
Oh @betfred you silly silly people...surely you knew anything involving old people and Olympics would get coverage
Sort it out @Betfred...trying to stitch up a granny...shame on you
Oh dear @Betfred - winning an Olympic medal isn't winning an Olympic medal if you're in a team?
@Betfred Just when you thought Fred could not stoop any lower
Betfred & Fred Done utter rancid organisation - boycott and stop betting with the cunts
@Betfred I'm with you all the way on the granny from Margate thing. You don't want to give bookmakers a good name.
Looks like .@betfred enjoy ripping off grandmothers with medal winning kids
Anna Kournikova @LesDiaboliques
#Betfred must be the worse #BOOKMAKERS in the history of Gambling !!
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
