I was recently called, out of the blue, by an employee of a bookmaker called "Vilabet". He made offers of opening an account with free bets available for start-up. I asked where he got my phone number and the idea that I was into betting. His response was that all bookmakers use a central database of customer details for every bookmaker to access and that I had previously had an account with Ezybet (which I haven't). He said that they "price match" against all other bookmakers and asked for a miniscule amount of personal information to prove I was 18 or over and/or for security on the account.

I asked him to send all information to my email account, which he never did even after calling them a week later to follow up why the email had not been sent. A second calll days later to them only resulted in an unconvincing conversation with their manager.

Investigations into this company through Racing NSW finds that they are not licensed in Australia and therefore persons betting with them would be breaking the law by placing a bet on horses, dogs or trots with them. This does not affect sports bets which I would be more interested in. They are registered and/or licensed in Vanuatu with a physical address in Forestville, Sydney.

Being a very suspicious person, especially of people who "cold call" like that, I had concerns that the worse case scenario would result in some sort of identity theft (am I too paranoid?).

My question is :- does anybody know, or had any dealings with this bookmaker? How reliable are they? Where can one get further information about them?

Any help that anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.