Do you believe you've ever had players shaved by an affiliate program?

[MichaelCorfman]

One of the concerns that some affiliates raise are fears that players may have been shaved from their affiliate accounts. These concerns relate to a variety of possible practices including:

1. Cross-marketing existing players to other brands where the players are not considered the affiliate's players when the play under other brands.
2. De-tagging players that were previously associated with the affiliate after some period of time.
3. Failure to properly associate all referred players with the affiliate in the first place.

In your personal experience, do you think you have been the victim of one or more forms of shaving? If you do, is it a fear you have because of seeing revenue changes that you feel can only be explained by these sorts of activities or is it the case that you have absolute proof.

Share with us your experiences, the reasons behind your beliefs, and whether you think the risks today are better or worse than they have been in the past.

Michael

[Dominique]

Yes I do believe so. I am not one to go around moaning and groaning about it, there is just no use in that.

If there were ever an auditing place that would conduct proper, regular probes in the backend accounting of cooperating programs, you betcha those programs would be preferred by all affs.

I know they would be my favorites in no time, even if they did not bring the most money. It would be nice to be able to actually trust.

[Former Member 14]

Hi Michael (all),

Great idea for a poll and discussion

Do affiliates get shaved and what not...Yes they do.

I'm not saying all programs do it.
However when 100% of the trust is laying on the side of an affiliate program, there are those who will take advantage of that fact.

With more than a few affiliates busting aff programs/casinos pilfering their players to other casinos through unethical cross marketing - not all are dodgy clip joint casinos, whilst others have had friends sign-up, deposit and not been tagged to the player.

There are also a million and one ways to rort affiliates without un-tagging players.

The stats most programs provide affiliates with are less than acceptable. But even if they did provide better stats, they & the casino are in 100% control of the back-end. If they are dodgy they can do what they like and affiliates in most situations either don't know their being shafted or if they have a gut feeling they are, can't do jack about it!

The casinos generally own the affiliate programs. Hence the conflict of interest is another key issue. Using a totally separate 3'rd party as the casino affiliate program may level the playing field.

However where money is involved (especially the BIG bucks in this industry), manipulation of affiliate's earning is likely to happen no matter who's running the affiliate program.

I'm sure you wouldn't give your house keys to just anyone walking down the street. However affiliates give their players to programs, operated by people they don't know and have to place 100% trust in the programs these people operate on behalf of the casinos (affiliate managers are employed by the casinos) which get the affiliates site visitors.

Looking at it like that...puts it into a stark example, doesn't it!

Since the UIGEA and with other Countries placing bans on online gambling, casinos are feeling the pinch. We've all seen a rise in aggressive email marketing (cough spam), which now includes casino groups you'd never expect to go down the spam road before the UIGEA.

The online gaming industry is incestuous - just about everyone knows everyone. I'm sure deals take place every day and selling or trading data is more common that people give credit for.

Some affiliate managers change programs like you or I change socks. I've been contacted more than enough times by these aff managers to know they MUST collect a running database of affiliates at each place they work. They have no scruples doing that (I'll add without affiliates permission), the likelihood to this example...they'll do just anything to turn a buck.

Maybe that's a selling point to their prospective employee, maybe they actual hand over this db (or sell it) to their new employee, who knows.

What I do know, affiliates are getting shafted a lot harder now than they ever have before. The longer your in the business, the clearer it becomes you have to keep records and data. Because if and when you get shafted least you've got some proof that things are not Kosher!

As a side note, I advise every affiliate to get everything in writing (email). If your discussing business deals or anything that affects your business, get it in writing and don't just agree to things via spoken word. Also take screen caps of stats and if possible obtain weekly audit reports. The more you have on file the easier it is to prove if things don't add up.


Cheers



Dave

[giggles7p]

Well i am going to tell my thoughts and maybe someone can chime in and tell me if this is possible....or if they were in the same situation.

I had an account with Wager Profits back when they had Sci fi and Breakaway, and i had my first Whale with them which lasted until they turned over all accounts to Pantasia when they left RTG.

Now, Paul was and still is one of my favorite AMs and back when i complained about the fact that i was positive i lost all my players in the transfer of my players to pantasia, he told me to get in touch with them and find out. WHich of course i tried to no avail. Now i had a few players at both Sci Fi and Breakaway, including my whale which played every month, and now every since Pantasia supposedly took my players i have not had 1 Deposit, not one signup, nothing...and thats been about what 4 or 5 years now??? Like i said, I totally believe i lost every single one of my players....i don' think they ever transfered them to my new account as they were supposed to.

[LiveCasinoPartners]

I believe I was a victim of shaving before. I won't mention the program becasue I don't have hard proof to back it up. At one time I was making mid x,xxx per month just on second tier earnings. I was promoting their affiliate program on one of my sites that targeted webmasters.

I was earning a great passive income for about 2 years. I always received the funds automatically to my Neteller account. Everything was going great until I sent an email to their affiliate manager asking if I could please have the funds sent to my Moneybookers account. The next payment was late three weeks and then after that my monthly balances were down to zero from then on out. I emailed then and they said that my biggest affiliate had a CPA deal and he left. I did retroactive analysis and could not find patterns for constant or step function CPA deals based on my revenue.

I'm speculating that my account received 2nd tier income and I landed a few larger affiliates. My account was settled at the end of each month and they didn't really analyze it. When I asked about my account they looked at it and realized I was not a first tier affiliate and I decided to remove my earnings with the given simple explanation. If they were using incomeaccess I would be able to see more information and have it more transparent. Due to their software reporting that lacked reporting for 2nd tier they could just claim that the original affiliate left and no longer promotes them.

Unfortunetely I have no proof only speculation, but I strongly suspect my questions about my account brought my vulnerable case under scrutiny.

I miss the income.

Dave, you certainly gave me a lot to comment on. lol

However when 100% of the trust is laying on the side of an affiliate program, there are those who will take advantage of that fact.

I think that affiliates can be shaved from the software management side (ie software company, casino operator who reports to the affilaite program, and then the affiliate reporting software. All three have to be trustworthy.

The software platforms we use for our brands do not have the capability to modify player revenue, player tagging, or reporting. They do this to ensure that their brand receives the integrity that will make them successful. In our case the affiliate activity is reported and managed by incomeaccess. They also do not allow any tampering with player activity or affiliate activity for the same reasons why our software companies do not allow it. So, working together in a groups effort we are trying to build a solid playing ground where our affiliates feel secure in investing their time and efforts into building a long term relationship.

So, when you are looking an affilaite program take these factors into consideration. Don't waist time and energy in programs that will not offer long term security.

With more than a few affiliates busting aff programs/casinos pilfering their players to other casinos through unethical cross marketing - not all are dodgy clip joint casinos, whilst others have had friends sign-up, deposit and not been tagged to the player.

I've seen programs (not too long ago) admit to cross marketing here at GPWA. They call it a VIP retention program that mails special offers to all players across all brands with mentioning other properties inside of these same emails. Clear case of cross branding without the affiliates getting credit. The excuse was "that's how we manage our VIP program". A few affiliates commented on the thread, and I think many didn't understand the importance. I'd have to check to see if they were GPWA certified still.

Using a totally separate 3'rd party as the casino affiliate program may level the playing field.

I agree because this would make the affiliate program accountable for the integrity. They would certainly be monitoring the integrity for their own success.

Great discussion.

[4ndy]

From a mainly sports betting affiliate point of view I honestly don't have a clue if this goes on or not.

I have more trust in family run companies such as bet365 rather than those that are publicly traded.

I have noticed over the years that when merchants change their affiliate programs from say in house to someone like netrefer/income access/tradedoubler/cj or vice versa that my stats are never the same again in the respect that the revenues always seem lower, I am not saying that anything bad has taken place during migration but this must represent a great opportunity.

I too would like merchants to be a bit more transparent and would welcome auditing and promote merchants who did this over and above everyone else.

Good luck and best wishes to all affiliates

4ndy

[Former Member 14]

I've seen programs (not too long ago) admit to cross marketing here at GPWA. They call it a VIP retention program that mails special offers to all players across all brands with mentioning other properties inside of these same emails. Clear case of cross branding without the affiliates getting credit. The excuse was "that's how we manage our VIP program". A few affiliates commented on the thread, and I think many didn't understand the importance. I'd have to check to see if they were GPWA certified still.

As it is now, least from my experience Whale VIP's receive phone calls from casino retention teams - most have their own VIP manager. They get invited to events and now in Australia (like other countries) whales a wined and dined by visiting VIP representatives.

You can't tell me that none of these VIP managers don't in idle chatter recommend their casinos to these whales, knowing they are shafting the affiliate who introduced them in the first place to one of their casino brands.

I wont go into details here, least to say I've suspiciously lost 1 huge whale and two other large depositors; who I believe were VIP's, in short period of time. What makes this extremely suss is the huge whale had been with me since April 2008 & would deposit every month without fail.

Now that could be just coincidental.
However when you factor in I'd promoted this same casino group for over 3 years (exclusively) on a number of sites and was making 5 figure incomes each month, income has been dropping since.

If told you how much it's dropped, I think you'd fall over.

Now to me that doesn't makes sense. Why that doesn't gel is because of the untold number of players who have signed up. Given these numbers and taking into account other figures from other programs running the same software, not the mention factoring in these players are 95% Australian players, too many things are amiss here to just be written off as coincidental.


Cheers



Dave

[mojo]

I am going to be kind and say I have been undisputadly 'shorted'.

READ HERE

[graham]

Funny how there is not one NO vote yet... says something about the industry and trust between affiliates and programs.

[GFPC]

I absolutely know for a fact many programs shave in a huge way. I recently settled with a program for this reason but based on confidentiality and legal issues I cannot share.

Non the less its all over the place in a huge way! Trust no one!! Even if your grandma owns a program - don't trust her!

[ironman2000]

I am very shocked about all you people openly saying that its factual thay you know and have known for many years that programs have been involved in such act's of shortening player lists................and till now nobody has spoken out!!!!!!

Maybe its just like one or two are saying............even if i know do I have any chance of doing anything against this because I don't have the resourses to bring legal action for a long drawn out battle etc

Chose wisely who you promote and keep records and never come out and attack with factual evidence to back up yourself!!!

Have a wonderful week and stay on the ball always...............

[SlotsAff]

Loving this thread - I've worked on the operator side of the fence and I know it's happened in one instance. I can't say who but it wasn't fun for me personally as it affected my numbers, integrity and trust towards my employer.

However, that was one operator - all others I have know have been honest and transparent (this is my experience).

It's evident it happens because its talked about a lot by affiliates. The industry needs to be regulated better and hopefully time will help this.

A question: if an operator would be audited (affiliate program) by a reputable blue-chip company and publish their results, how much of a difference would it make to yourselves as affilaites?

[ironman2000]

I would openly except that a blue-chip company would step in and audit their findings etc

What would the cost's for such a comany to do this task and who pay's the bill?

How can we also know for sure that this company is not owned by one of the top gaming companies!!!!!

Interesting thread and I wonder were it will take us ..............

[Dominique]

I am very shocked about all you people openly saying that its factual thay you know and have known for many years that programs have been involved in such act's of shortening player lists................and till now nobody has spoken out!!!!!!

Maybe its just like one or two are saying............even if i know do I have any chance of doing anything against this because I don't have the resourses to bring legal action for a long drawn out battle etc

Chose wisely who you promote and keep records and never come out and attack with factual evidence to back up yourself!!!

Have a wonderful week and stay on the ball always...............

Oh, we have spoken out for a decade. It just doesn't go anyplace. APCW does the occasional audit by sending players to places and monitoring the accounting. But there is not near enough of that.

I do the occasional probe myself. But unless there is actual access to the backend by an actual accounting firm, it's a hit and miss affair anyway.

It's all based on trust and not facts, and frankly, over the years I have learned that trust in this industry is more often than not misplaced.

So I just look at results, and if they don't measure up I drop the program either to the bottom or alltogether, all the time being painfully aware that the stats I see are likely manipulated in many places.

[RBS]

I am pretty sure this has happened to me before

But the thing is, you can´t really go on the forums and complain unless you have 100% proof, so just stopped promoting them !


I would certently put some trust in audits from a independent 3rd party.

[NoLimitPoker]

Great discussion. It sure is happening, but sure as well it is hard to proof.
I was about to write about the new Bewinners program, now I see all these links .. it's a shame.

[arkyt]

100% proof? Aside from an employee coming on and posting that sort of proof, theres really no such thing! Fact is ... even when you come to them with a player number that isnt tracking they will quickly come up with half a dozen reasons why its not and in many cases might even correct the issue quickly so that they can boast they are quick to fix things that are wrong.

I would guess that many programs have their employees sign confidentiality agreements of some sorts so you arent going to see them sticking their necks out - after all they want a pay check too.

Do I think it happens - YES. Do I know it happens - without seeing it first hand or having an employee come on and state it how can I say yes I "know" for certain? Even then you couldnt say for 100% certain across the board ... but come on I think we are all mostly in agreement. I would guess in some instances that honest mistakes might be made, but I cant help but think that in many more its been intentional manipulation.

At the end of the day - we are at the mercy of the programs - theres little we can do! GP totally screwed affiliates - these days they are talked up in magazines... sponsor programs here are notorious SPAMMERS - nothings done - if they openly SPAM - how can you trust that they are not also some of the biggest shavers?

Regarding auditing - anything short of a totally 100% independant company showing up at the servers doorstep unannounced and gathering data - IMO, its not a legit audit. If a program is permitted to submit data to the auditor, the audit can only ever be as good as the data submitted. If the auditors are in any way shape or form connected to those being audited - any and all such audits should be considered null and void!

[joeyl]

I once promoted uk-bingo.net who allegedly sold up to an arm of 888 without the aff programme database.

Sweeney Todd style shaving.

[dhayman]

One of the concerns that some affiliates raise are fears that players may have been shaved from their affiliate accounts. These concerns relate to a variety of possible practices including:

1. Cross-marketing existing players to other brands where the players are not considered the affiliate's players when the play under other brands.
2. De-tagging players that were previously associated with the affiliate after some period of time.
3. Failure to properly associate all referred players with the affiliate in the first place.

In your personal experience, do you think you have been the victim of one or more forms of shaving? If you do, is it a fear you have because of seeing revenue changes that you feel can only be explained by these sorts of activities or is it the case that you have absolute proof.

Share with us your experiences, the reasons behind your beliefs, and whether you think the risks today are better or worse than they have been in the past.

Michael

Great post, and I believe the answer is yes, and probably in most programs. De-tagging has become problematic, and all I can say is that the programs that do so, are penny-wise, pound-foolish. They think that they may be skimming off-the-top, when in reality, they are losing money by doing this in the long term. I'm not going to bash any programs here, but they know who they are, and as a result, I'm doing less and less business with them. So tell me, who wins in that sort of environment ?

[Former Member 14]

Hi All,

What I'm about to do hasn't come from a whim, I've thought long and hard about this. It's been a BIG part of my thoughts day in day out for many, many months. Even before raising my concerns at AGD and later with Fortune Lounge themselves.

I don't want to go into detail now of how what I'm about to explain affects my income but I will be posting all the details about this in the next week once I have written it up in detail.

---------

Some of you who visit AGD may recall an affiliate raised an issue about europalace.com locking his account without any notification. I for one like other affiliates were not aware that Fortune Lounge Group were connected to europalace.

NB - I eventually dug up the White Label owner of EuroPalace.com, a Laurent Malka. He founded and was CEO of EuroPartners affiliate program between 2002 - 2006.

More than a few affiliates accused Europartners & Cpays of conducting unethical cross marketing between their programs. Speculation was both companies were tied back to one another through ownership.

Part of that thread continued into other questions being raised regarding the Connection of FL/FA/EP and their aff program WinGateAffiliates.

I wont rehash that here. You can however read from where I started asking some curly questions:
http://www.affiliateguarddog.com/for...html#post19641

Least to say I've been trying to get straight answers from Fortune Lounge Group every since September 2010 when I personally raised my concerns in email with them.

In one of my posts at AGD I stated Europalace.com open in January 2010.

However, Nitesh Head of Marketing at FL states in an email to me:

"EP opened its doors for trading in March 2010 – not in January as you erroneously state in your post."

erroneously - mistake, wrong, an error.

Digging further I find the Europalace facebook.

EP state they opened in January 2010.
http://www.facebook.com/search.php?q=europalace&type=users&s=0#!/pages/EuroPalacecom/136761673035556?v=info

Further to this on the Europalace Winners Page, 2 people won large wins on the 11'th of Jan 2010.
xxxhttp://www.europalace.com/pages/winners/

When I provided this information, Nitesh chances his story and stated:

"EuroPalace was up and available as a beta from January 2010. Players that registered and played at the brand between January and March were those that found the brand through word of mouth or limited beta test marketing. The site went fully live and available as a brand to market in March."

Seriously what a crock of crap, Beta my backside!

NB - Fortune Lounge Group (Nitesh) offered a full audit of my account by eCOGRA or a 3'rs party. However arkyt says why an audit such as this is unless and proves nothing:

Regarding auditing - anything short of a totally 100% independant company showing up at the servers doorstep unannounced and gathering data - IMO, its not a legit audit. If a program is permitted to submit data to the auditor, the audit can only ever be as good as the data submitted. If the auditors are in any way shape or form connected to those being audited - any and all such audits should be considered null and void!

I've given FL more than enough time (September 2010) to address my concerns in opened handed discussions which I entered into professionally with Fortune Lounge Group hoping on an amicable outcome. However it's clear they (FL) don't want this.

Instead favouring a labyrinth of falseness, stonewalling and semantics. When that fails to shut me up, they dig to the bottom of the barrel and attack my character with my disability as ammo.

In closing, I will be making a public statement on this issue within the next week, which may also include a Press Release.


Cheers



Dave