Brightshare following the likes of other rogues?

[FictionNet]

CAP has now 'suspended' Brightshare and 'rogued' Roxy.
http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.c...ghtshare-.html

No matter what GPWA does now, it is/was the last to act, and even if GPWA does the right thing now, it will be seen as following the rest, due to pressure, not because it was the right thing to do.

GPWA missed a chance here. Big time.

[Webzcas]

Got my Brightshare Blacklisted page up. Now to remove All Slots from all my site :s

If I have missed any site that has blacklisted Brightshare from the list of sites on that page, please post your link in this thread and I'll add it. I'll even add the link to this thread, when the GPWA see the light and do the right thing and suspend Brightshare's sponsorship.

[MichaelCorfman]

I would like to provide a status report about interactions between the GPWA and Brightshare. There have been a number of email communications over the past few days. And earlier this afternoon I had an extended conversation with a senior representative of Brightshare. Someone who I knows cares very much about the relationship the program has with its affiliates, and whom I trust to be honest with me. Based on both the email communications and the phone discussion I am cautiously optimistic that matters will be put in a better place, although there is no guarantee that will be the case at this point in time. I will be in further communication with Brightshare over the next few days in an effort to facilitate an outcome that reflects the concerns that have been voiced by the affiliate community.

Michael

[Viriatu]

There are several serious concerns here and we are following up with BrightShare about them.

We have sent BrightShare an email detailing the problems that we see and expressing the seriousness of the situation.

well serious enough is this - https://www.gpwa.org/forum/message-l...tml#post708345

the guy that put up the basis of the program, spilled the beans saying with all words, "they told me to lie and scam affiliates" i for one only signed up with them due to AGD certification, if i had seen that post first i would never bother no matter what they did or how many seals or sponsorships they paid...

Sad is to see GPWA and others protecting the likes of them in any way, or delaying the action, that should have been quick and decisive.
Its not the first time im disapointed with you guys, i have nothing to say from Mr corfman, always ready when i asked for any support, universal4 and others members here are the cream of the crop, despite this, we have to agree that insisting on representing the likes of stanjames, europartners, affiliateclub, betfair, Affiliates United (formerly cPays), and call them partners? sponsor them should be out of the question for simple question of honor... They are partners of gpwa perhaps, no partners of mine, and im sure the others here with a memory can recall how many times we affiliates are represented like money sucking vampires, despite most this brands being absolute rubish if not for the exposure they got from partners and webmasters over the ye ars, before enough money was done for buying stadium banners, TV ads and flyers and all that ****...

Who does not remember Luckyacepoker making a super spam campaign, agressive towards players and affiliates alike just to leave us hanging with x.xxx€ on balance and refusing to pay claiming "you have bonus abusers" and players that signed up because of said bonus not being paid because they are "cheaters".

Who does not remember the many Radio shows, migrations errors and stolen stats that was done when europartners migrated to a new platform and 9 month lates a lot of us said "partners" could not yet see the money from our players, even when we had the guys in our forums posting the deposits, the wins and all that ****?

well i for one will never forget and will never work with said brands, people working with said gangs at the time, if you work with a scammer we will remember...

this is what makes GPWA less and less influential, and its imo following the redundant CAP way... im not that experient or big cap member and it was here that i learned a lot, im not disputing the value of the content in this boards, but when it comes to sign up to a new program, GPWA is no longer my top choice for recomendations...

I do this critic because i love this forum and members and not because i think it sucks,
i just call them like i see them...

[Webzcas]

I would like to provide a status report about interactions between the GPWA and Brightshare. There have been a number of email communications over the past few days. And earlier this afternoon I had an extended conversation with a senior representative of Brightshare. Someone who I knows cares very much about the relationship the program has with its affiliates, and whom I trust to be honest with me. Based on both the email communications and the phone discussion I am cautiously optimistic that matters will be put in a better place, although there is no guarantee that will be the case at this point in time. I will be in further communication with Brightshare over the next few days in an effort to facilitate an outcome that reflects the concerns that have been voiced by the affiliate community.

Michael

Michael I truly believe you let the ball drop here in this regard and I will state exactly why.

If an affiliate program makes retroactive and predatory changes to their terms and conditions which affects all existing affiliates going forward, then action needs to be taken, by associations of the likes of the GPWA immediately as a consequence.

As far as I understand it and please correct me if I am wrong, the management at Brightshare did not consult with either yourselves at the GPWA, Andy and his team at AGD or Warren and the Affiliate Media team at CAP, before forcing these changes on us.

By taking such unilateral and punitive actions towards their 'partners' and I use the term loosely, Brightshare have basically made their intentions known.

There was no discourse, dialogue or agreement.

Therefore, associations such as the GPWA should take action and suspend Brightshare's sponsorship immediately. Until such time the management at Spiral Solutions comes to the table and actually puts right the damage these new terms have done.

Furthermore and in addition, back in December 2012, Lloyd Apter the former program director of Brightshare and a very highly respected individual in the industry made some very worrying statements as to what was and possibly still is going on at Spiral Solutions.

This and this alone should have merited a serious consideration of Brightshare's forum sponsorship of the GPWA.

Affiliate Guard Dog and CAP have taken the right course of action, but I am afraid the GPWA looks like it is seriously dragging it's feet here.

Many individual affiliates who meet the quotas now imposed by Brightshare have also taken action. Failing to do nothing is what Brightshare is hoping for. As no doubt are many other programs who are watching this situation develop.

I hope seriously you reconsider your decision not to suspend Brightshare and take on board the views and feeling of many of us who view this inaction by the GPWA in this regard as damaging to the GPWA as a whole.

[rod.collins]

This really sucks but I Started noticing the changes sometime back when they changed their statistics, essentially where they no longer tracked visits, when I started with them I did pretty well, as a newbie I was really proud of myself. For the last 9 months or so had no new players, now after the changes I have new signups, maybe just coincidence, but this really sucks for me because most of my content on my two sites are focused on their casinos.

Fortunately I have a new site. I am ready to launch but the big question now is who to start promoting. So essentially back to the drawing board, especially in my case where I have trouble generating the required volume to make brightshare worthwhile.

Rod

[lots0]

I have had Brightshare Blacklisted since 2008.

http://casino-directory.lots0cash.co...tion-1741.html

I was very very suspicious of these guys, but could never get any solid proof, until a few months ago when Lloyd(BS's EX affiliate manager) decided to "let the cat out of the bag", so to speak and talked about how he was told by the owners to Rip Off and lie to Affiliates.

Any of you affiliates that trust ANYONE else besides your own gut feelings and site stats, is a moron and deserves to get ripped off, IMO.

There have been numerous threads in several different places letting people know BrightShare was ripping people off(including right here at GPWA)... But money talks and bullshit walks...

Brightshare spreads a little money here and a little money there and all the Brightshare problems just seem to go away...

***********

As far as CAP, GPWA and casinomeister... They make money from promoting affiliate programs to affiliates, this is part of their business model... And you as business people TRUST their reviews/sponsorships?? Well that is not very smart now is it...

I aways though gambling affs were some of the smartest in the aff business, but... Trusting people that are trying to make money off you is just plain stupid.


Added: to those that say..
"But I was being paid by Brightshare...."
Ya, you were getting a small percentage of what you should have been getting.
Just look at those payments you got from BS, multiply those numbers by 10 (in some cases much higher). That is much closer to what you were actually earning.
According to what I understand BS/s policy is to only pay affs what they HAVE TOO to keep the affilaite... So if you were happy making $500 a month, BS was paying you ~$500 a month no matter how much you REALLY earned.

[rod.collins]

I think for a lot of old timers its pretty easy to see the writing on the wall, but for newbies or people starting out in many cases there is not a lot of support, its all trial and error, after a few years we begin to understand traffic to conversions etc, which in my case I did not at first. Now I have a pretty good idea of conversions and casinos and if I see within a few months nothing is happening with said casino you drop them, move on and try again. The unfortunate thing about all this is losing trust across the board because so many casinos have gone rogue, they seem to forget that the affiliate support is what got them where they are today.

[mattsgame]

Any of you affiliates that trust ANYONE else besides your own gut feelings and site stats, is a moron and deserves to get ripped off, IMO.

Too true, and I am glad I have opened my eyes. Now my problem is I am going over and looking through all the affiliate programs and finding quite a bit I don't like and changes I hadn't seen before.

As far as CAP, GPWA and casinomeister... They make money from promoting affiliate programs to affiliates, this is part of their business model... And you as business people TRUST their reviews/sponsorships?? Well that is not very smart now is it...

I aways though gambling affs were some of the smartest in the aff business, but... Trusting people that are trying to make money off you is just plain stupid.

This is what disturbs me the most, for a newbie like I was and any other person trying out this business I looked to these places for advice and who to promote etc, but I am now seeing it all as one big fallacy and I am gaining more and more trust in individual affiliates and taking/following their advice than those sites who say they are here supposedly to help!

I am almost at the point of "Trust No One" but that won't get me very far and I may as well give up the game.

[rod.collins]

I think GPWA where trying to save face and see what Brightshare came back with, unfortunately I personally believe they are heading the way of C-planet which is kind of the way they started out, changing terms and conditions for the worse, then not paying their customers making their affiliates very unhappy and eventually fading away.

[lots0]

The thing that leaves a real bad taste in my mouth, is that that a ex-brightshare manager comes out in public several months ago with information about how he was told by the owners of Brightshare to lie too and steal from BS affiliates and about how affiliate commissions were shaved.... and no one in ANY of the forums seemed to care. It was all whitewashed and poo pooed by the folks running the forums.

That is till either they get ripped off themselves or the voices of the people who got stolen from start to get real loud...

The only time CAP ever seems to bann anyone is after Warren(CAP's Owner) gets ripped off.

And Michael... While you are a good guy IMO, your far too easy on these programs... You can't make a deal with thieves, they aren't going to honor any deal.... they are thieves...

These thieves(and that is exactly what they are) do not deserve the numerous chances and delays that they have been given here at GPWA.
It looks bad for the forum. Michael while I understand your stand on advertisers/sponsors, you do seem to let a lot of bad programs that come out of Israel slide with a free pass.

IMO Brightshare should have been suspended(or at least investigated) after Lloyd came out with his information that affiliates getting ripped off was just part of Brightshare's business model.

I am almost at the point of "Trust No One" but that won't get me very far and I may as well give up the game.

There are honest people in this business, they are just few and far between and the last thing any honest person in this business does is stand up and tell people he/she is honest... Honest people don't think they need to keep telling everyone they are "Honest", only the crooks do that.

[casinobonusguy]

I think Lloyd's message would have meant more to me if he said it while working with Brightshare or quit because he seen we are getting ripped off.If any manager did that I can tell you I would be bending over backwards to help them in their next job.I understand GPWA not booting Brightshare based solely on Lloyd's accusation but we all spent years helping our 'partners' become successful .We expect the terms and conditions that we signed up with to be the same for duration of our partnership.With the way this is going none of us will ever be able to sell our websites and keep our accounts because within a short time they all will shut our accounts down for inactivity.

[lots0]

While Lloyds motives for coming forward with this damming info about Brighshare may not have been the most altruistic... the info he put out just confirmed the information I (and other others) had been gathering about Brightshare for several YEARS...
Lloyds info was not a surprize to many of us, we all kenw Brightshare has been ripping off affiliates for years.

[Webzcas]

So other than sitting on your hands. Has the GPWA decided to act now concerning Brightshare, or are you going to ride this out, hoping this thread drifts off to the bottom?

Edited to add that I have started a poll in the Private Forums.

[MichaelCorfman]

So other than sitting on your hands. Has the GPWA decided to act now concerning Brightshare, or are you going to ride this out, hoping this thread drifts off to the bottom?

Edited to add that I have started a poll in the Private Forums.

The GPWA has not been sitting on its hands. In fact, over the last several days I have personally had four phone calls with Brightshare and over thirty email messages working on resolving the issues raised in this thread. It is on that basis, and on the basis that I know a message will be posted by Brightshare in this thread today, that no visible action in the forum has been taken.

Michael

[Webzcas]

Michael,

This point I made previously:

By taking such unilateral and punitive actions towards their 'partners' and I use the term loosely, Brightshare have basically made their intentions known.

There was no discourse, dialogue or agreement.

Therefore, associations such as the GPWA should take action and suspend Brightshare's sponsorship immediately. Until such time the management at Spiral Solutions comes to the table and actually puts right the damage these new terms have done.

Still very much applies IMO.

[lots0]

Interesting... I wonder how BS is going to handle this.
Of course there will be denials and accusations from Brightshare... But will anything REALLY get 'Resolved".... I doubt it.

Like I said before, money talks...

[Marcia]

The BrightShare team cares deeply about having a strong, fair and long lasting relationship with our affiliate partners.
We have carefully reviewed the comments and input we received from the affiliates regarding the changes we recently announced.

We wish it were possible to operate using the same terms and conditions as we have in the past but the online gaming marketplace has changed over the years, and it is now a much tougher marketplace with different operating margins for affiliates and operators alike.
However, in reflecting on the issues raised, we understand and appreciate affiliate concerns around earnings for previously referred players.

While we stand by our decision to implement our update as a whole, we have made a decision to apply the new revenue share terms only on new players as of May 1st 2013 and we will maintain the net revenue calculation as per the previous terms for all active players the affiliates brought until April 30th (Revenue percentage scales calculation based on Net revenues, no Negative Carry Over without a High Roller policy, and no reduced Revshare for inactive affiliates on those players).
Revenue share for previously referred players from markets that are closed (France, Italy) will be paid based on a reduced rev share percentage.

All new Players as of May 1st will be under the new terms as was updated.

We feel strongly that this is the right course of action, and that it reflects our beliefs, our deep commitment to the values of fairness and integrity.
We will develop and test the system and reports to reflect the above mentioned exception, and will update our affiliate partners once this is implemented in our system.

We encourage our affiliates to contact their dedicated account manager for any question they still have, and to inquire about other incentives we offer from time to time for ALL affiliates, both large and small, in order to continue to grow a long term partnership, as we have always supported over the years.

The BrightShare Team



(*) This is posted on behalf of Marcia, our Forums moderator, as she is not available due to personal reasons.

[MichaelCorfman]

We have carefully reviewed the comments and input we received from the affiliates regarding the changes we recently announced. [W]e understand and appreciate affiliate concerns around earnings for previously referred players. [W]we have made a decision to apply the new revenue share terms only on new players as of May 1st 2013

As everyone can see from the quotes from their public post above, Brightshare has made a decision to respect the affiliates that have worked with them over the past years by not applying terms, such as player quotas, to previously referred players. Very early on in my discussions with Brightshare is was clear that they did not initially understand the importance of this issue to the affiliate community, and agreed they would work their best to ensure that position was adopted by the affiliate program as a response to affiliate issues raised. Initially there were questions about what would be required technically to honor previous terms and conditions for players referred under the old terms, but it was determined those technical issues could be handled properly with some development work.

I think having Brightshare recognize and respect the line affiliates have drawn in the sand around the extensive retroactive changes initially proposed is an important victory for the affiliate community.

Moving forward, this means that affiliates have a fair choice about whether or not to work with Brightshare under the new terms and conditions that have been announced. If individual affiliates accept those terms, then they will choose to continue working with Brightshare. And if they don't, they are free to make a decision to no longer promote them without fear that revenue from their current player base will be shut off because they have failed to refer additional players.

Michael

[Webzcas]

Whichever way Spiral Solutions spin this, the trust has already been broken. The terms as they stand moving forward concerning new players referred are predatory and I will continue to warn my visitors as such.

There are also many unanswered questions, but how the management of Brightshare have handled this issue, to me at least, proves they are a program that cannot be trusted and as such, they will remain listed as a rogue program on OCR.

At least for players referred prior to May 1st 2013, the new terms are not now being applied retroactively. But then again, we have to trust Brightshare, that our active historical player base will remain under our affiliate account. Just commenting out loud on something a high profile former director of the Brightshare Affiliate Program alluded to back in December 2012.