Do NOT promote any Gambling Wages properties - RESOLVED

[VPJunkie]

1. Not only are they refusing to pay me the $24K Cirrus owes me for July, they haven't paid me anything at all despite Rod's promise to me on Aug 3 to pay me $5100 of it ASAP. He was "signing off on it right now".

They're refusing to even answer emails from me about it. I re-sent an email to them today that I originally sent on Sat (5 days ago), asking if I was going to get any responses to my email. Rod responded and told me to call John at my convenience so I did - 3 times this afternoon. He was "out for a few minutes", "in a meeting", "gone for the day". Can we all say "Game Players"?

2. Rod is adamantly opposed to the no-negative carryover policy, so watch your backs.

3. They're giving our VIP players new PLAYER ID's, then supposedly re-assigning the Aff ID. They did this to one of my players at Cool Cat earlier this month and I have the emails from John to prove it. When I asked why I couldn't see the player in my stats it was "because he hasn't made any deposits yet".

4. There still has been no satisfactory explanation for the $70,000 "manager credit" for player deposits of $5100 in July. I think it was an intentional attempt to screw my stats up so they wouldn't have to pay me.

5. RTG has just this week been made aware of all this by me, but my 2 main guys are out of the office for the rest of the week.

I have no idea what's happened to these guys since they changed to Gambling Wages, but I don't intend to do business with any property they carry. There's too much garbage going on there.

Consider yourselves warned.

[casinoglen]

The problem we have here, is that Cirrus is reneging on their own policy of clearing out the negatives at the end of each month. They state that they clear negatives at the end of the month, and they had been, until a large winner comes along. They then want to revise their policy, with no information or notice before hand.

I see Gambling Wages as being sort of caught in the middle here, although I have to admit that it doesn't look too good when emails go unanswered, nor does it look very good when angry emails are being sent back and forth either.

My view on the situation: Cirrus made a deal. They agreed that negative balances would be removed at the end of the month. There are MANY programs out there that do this. GPWA was instrumental in getting many to do this.

There HAVE been at least several instances in which a Microgaming Casino has cleared a negative balance at the end of the month, only to have the player come back and shoot the whole knot back into the casino. The affiliate then earned a tidy sum. Those MGS Casinos HAVE PAID the affiliate, with absolutely no feedback whatsoever.

What the casino has to do, is stand by their word. If they want to change the policy back to carrying negatives forward, so be it, but the fact remains, that the no negative policy was in effect at the time of this win and should be honored. Cindy is entitled to FULL PAYMENT under Cirrus' own policy. not a percentage of it.

If Cirrus cannot stand by it's own policy in this case, I honestly cannot see them standing by any of their policies, in any case.

[VPJunkie]

In my opinion, Gambling Wages is also responsible for the money owed.

When an affiliate marketing company chooses to represent a casino to affiliates, they're promising performance to both parties - the casino AND the affiliates. Even Gambling Wages has "No Negative Carryovers" printed on their site - that makes a double promise to the affiliates.

If the casino fails to carry thru on their promise to perform, Gambling Wages still has a responsibility to perform to the affiliate according to their promises, IF they want to retain the affiliate and their reputation.

Cirrus made a huge mistake here, but Gambling Wages has compounded that by trying to get out of their performance obligations, too. They've also added insult to injury with the way they've treated me. They need to understand that they didn't have to lose face here simply because Cirrus failed to perform. They should've paid me immediately WITH A SMILE and taken the issue up privately with Cirrus.

We put our faith in these 3rd party affiliate programs and we should be able to trust them to protect us. If we can't trust them, why use them?

[casinoglen]

That's a very valid point Cindy.

[chalkoutline]

Surely both Cirrus and Gambling Wages should have seen this coming? When you offer no negative carry over schemes, you have to realise that this bound to happen sooner or later. 'If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen' as the old saying goes.

[VPJunkie]

John Hartley called late this afternoon to tell me they're only paying me the $5100+ they agreed to 3.5 weeks ago, and that's all they're paying me.

He went on to say that the way I handled this situation is the reason I'm not getting paid the entire amount - and Cirrus doesn't want me back as an affiliate.

He contends that they were in amicable negotiations with Cirrus until I posted my first post about this publicly. When I asked him why that wasn't relayed to me during the week that I waited before posting, he agreed they should have done that.

He & Rod do not feel that Gambling Wages has any responsibility in this situation whatsoever, regardless of the "policies" they have posted on their site. John also told me that many of their affiliates and other affiliate programs agree with them.


Here's my take on this; When I had the conference call with Rod & John on Aug 3, Rod came up with every rationalization he could (at least a dozen) about why Cirrus didn't owe me $24K (the last time I saw the real number, before their "training accident", it was $23,968, and I picked up a new depositor after that). NOT ONCE did Rod ever agree that they owed me the money, nor did he tell me they would try to get Cirrus to pay it.

I waited a week for that "ASAP payment", but after not receiving it, or hearing anything from them, I posted the facts of the situation publicly. John called me a couple of days later and told me how wrong I was to do that, and that I had no right to do it. That phone call didn't end nicely, as you can imagine.

Since that time they've refused to send me anything in writing, other than to tell me they've tried to call, or for me to call them. That fact alone is suspicious. Cirrus has never contacted me directly, despite the fact that I'd had a working relationship with them.

When they call, it's my "behavoir", my "unprofessionalism", my "childish expectations", my "anger" - those are the reasons I'm not getting paid. They've even implied that I've said things in the private forums that I haven't. In short, they're looking for any excuse they can find to claim non-responsibility and not pay me.

The fact that they haven't responded publicly to any of this, and insist on doing any discussions about this on the phone, with no witnesses or records, also speaks volumes about how untrustworthy both Cirrus and Gambling Wages are.

Contract Law is the same in every country, and a contract is legally enforceable in court whether it's signed or not. Both Cirrus and Gambling Wages are in blatant violation of their contracts with me, and I have no doubts they'll do it anyone, anytime they need to, to tip the scales in their favor.

[chill]

I waited a week for that "ASAP payment", but after not receiving it, or hearing anything from them, I posted the facts of the situation publicly. John called me a couple of days later and told me how wrong I was to do that, and that I had no right to do it.

But he has every right to screw affiliates without it going public?
What a jerk!

[casinoranking]

'John also told me that many of their affiliates and other affiliate programs agree with them. '

Hmmm, one must wonder what affiliafe they discussed this with? And what affiliate would agree?

Antoine

[VPJunkie]

'John also told me that many of their affiliates and other affiliate programs agree with them. '

Hmmm, one must wonder what affiliafe they discussed this with? And what affiliate would agree?

Antoine

Ya, I wondered the same thing, so I told John if he was so sure of his position to take it to the boards and see what the webmasters really thought. He declined.

Basically, he called me to tell me the same damn thing they told me on Aug. 3 - they're only paying me $5100 of the $24K; they just had different reasons for it this time. It almost makes me wonder who's really not paying whom here.....

And when do you suppose they'll be paying this $5100? They originally promised it "ASAP" on Aug 3 and managed to pay all the other affiliates in the meantime, just not me. Now he calls me 3 1/2 weeks later to tell me again they're paying it? When??

[casinoranking]

I know it's not much consolation, but I dont think many affiliates are pushing those casinos. They are probably not making the type of cash they were expecting, and that is probably part of the reason they are delaying paying you. Hopefully at a minimum the $5100 will go through.

Antoine

[MrYook]

Their are only a few reasons why that I could see
an affiliate program doing this, and they are:

The affiliate program isn't bringing in enough revenue to be able to
payout that large of a commission and therefore, they feel that it
would be better to spin together a scenario in order not to pay.

The affiliate program is new and they don't want to fight with the
casinos that they are working for, because they feel it would have
a negative effect on their revenue stream and its better to cut the
revenue of the affiliate, than to potentially harm their own revenue.

The affiliate program is dishonest and chooses to only pay the
affiliates when it is a sum that they can live with, and not when
it is a sum that might affect their bottom line, even though the
affiliate hasn't done anything that goes against the t&c's.

The worst thing that an affiliate program can do is to mess with
an affiliate, because affiliates listen to other affiliates and word
travels fast. I won't promote a program when I hear that an
affiliate isn't getting paid, or they are paying less than the
amount that is listed, etc.. If they can't get paid.. most likely if
I have a big player, I won't get paid either.. Enough said.

[spinoza]

I have removed coolcatcasino from my sites because of this ridiculous behavior. They also performed not at all given the exposure.

[VPJunkie]

Well, here we are 4 days since that last phone call saying they were paying me the $5100; 4 weeks since the phone call with Rod saying they were paying me $5100 "ASAP", he was "signing off on it right now", and I still haven't received anything from them.

[VPJunkie]

No payment yet and I've now heard from another affiliate that they're giving him problems.

[Ace Fun]

What happens if you get a lawyer involved. Is there a chance you can sue for the whole lot?

[casinoglen]

I've just been busy everyone. I am not ignoring this. We Cannot stand behind an organization that will will not pay it's affiliates, whether it is by their choice or not.

[casinoglen]

Cindy,

Have you been paid yet?

I haven't heard anything.....

[VPJunkie]

Nothing, Nada, Zip, Zilch. And I haven't heard anymore from Gambling Wages since the last phone call from John 2 weeks ago, during which he told me again they were going to pay me $5100 of the $24,000.

*IF* I get paid anything at all, it's going to be because I've gotten RTG management into this. Cirrus' RTG manager was out of town last week, tho, and with the leftovers of Hurricane Frances passing thru Atlanta this week, his work schedule has been disrupted. I left a message for him this am.

[chalkoutline]

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you Cindy.

[VPJunkie]

Rod from Gambling Wages called a little while ago and offered - again - the same $5100 to me that they've been offering for the last 6 weeks. He said the casino want to get this resolved.