MoneyBookers Spamming their members with Gaming Promotions

[ALEX777]

As a Moneybookers member I received a spammy e-mail from MoneyBookers team today with gaming promotions!

In sports we have again seen some exciting events this month. Fans have enjoyed the feast of rugby at the Autumn Internationals, while football enthusiasts have been watching a series of group stage matches in this year's Champions League. The last, 6th Match Day will be held on the 8th - 9th December 2009. Do not miss the chance to bet on your favourite team.

The most thrilling event of this month, however, took place in the world of poker. Joe Cada (21) became the youngest champion ever in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker and earned the top prize of $8.5 million! The final table of the main event resumed on 7th November after a break of nearly four months.

Poker fans can now look forward to the European Poker Tour in Prague which will take place on 1st- 6th December. Last call for those who still plan to qualify!

As always, we wish you all good luck and a lot of winnings in the forthcoming month.

Best regards,

Moneybookers

They also included an URL inside an e-mail which redirects to their gaming promo page: xhttp://www.moneybookers.com/app/gamblingpromo.pl

As you can see they have an affiliate links there.

What do you think guys?

[Magenti]

I do not consider one email spam and yes I received it as well.

This is a smart move by moneybookers except for the fact that they work with affiliates ununited.

[TheGooner]

Not "spam".

And you can opt out of their 3rd paty offers too.

[universal4]

If I were an operator, I would likely be less likely to recommend Moneybookers, if a different ewallet did the trick in the country affected.

If Moneybookers were to favor a specific Operator, that group could gain an advantage with customers supplied by other operators.

In fact I would love to hear the opinions of some of the operators.

Rick
Universal4

[alexpratt]

I think a lot of payment people do this - I know when they register for our events they will often argue they are affiliates as well.

Personally I think if they have an opt out from thrid party emails its fine - If they messaged without that then yea its spam

[Caruso]

Not at all spam in my opinion. The ewallets have been known to offer some spanking promos in the past. Neteller really pissed off a load of operators with 5% promo they ran a couple of years ago. Players were grateful.

[ALEX777]

Hm, are they payment processors or what? If it was not a spam - I apologise... Anyway... it is something unethical.

They betrayed the webmasters who recommended them as an e-wallet.

What next? What if Barclays Bank will start sending a CD's to their customers? Paypal will do the same? Google?

I hope no, because they are serious organizations.

Anyway.. Moneybookers have lost their reputation in my eyes... From now on I will never recommend MB to anyone.

[TheGooner]

Anyway... it is something unethical.

...

Anyway.. Moneybookers have lost their reputation in my eyes... From now on I will never recommend MB to anyone.

By unethical what exactly do you mean?

An e-wallet that has stood out there specifically saying that it accepts gambling payments - being a significant part of their market - actually dealing with gambling organisations?

Where is the ethical issue?

And as for no longer recommending them to your players? That's hardly helping your players is it? What better gambling e-wallet will you recommend?

It seems that you are not happy with Moneybookers now - simply because you might not get a cut of THEIR business with players?

Alex, I might have this wrong - but your complaint seems to be one of competition from moneybookers more than anything else?

Do you regard your position as ethical?


-----

A further example is the many football clubs that have a "partnership" with a bookmaker or betting firm and promote them on their site. My team Arsenal have had deals with Ladbrokes and PaddyPower over the last two years ...

Is that an ethical problem as well ?

I don't think so. These businesses are dealing in this field through related activities and are entitled to promote affiliate deals to their visitors and customers ... where is the conflict ?

[ALEX777]

But why recommend players to use MB, if MB can steal your players? They make money on transactions. We make money on players... If you want to help them to make money on both, It's your choice

It's their business, but I don't like how they run it, because it affects my business. It's simple as 1+1.

[Caruso]

I'm not sure about stealing players, but I did just take a look at that MB page.

They're actually recommending casinos now. I assumed this was a simple MB promo. MB is actually behaving exactly like an affiliate portal. I don't think this is at all appropriate.

There have been questions raised about MB in the past, and this only makes things look worse.

[casinojack]

This has been going on for over a year now. Nothing new

[Caruso]

This has been going on for over a year now. Nothing new

There's a statute of limitations on bad practice?

[TheGooner]

I did just take a look at that MB page.

They're actually recommending casinos now. I assumed this was a simple MB promo. MB is actually behaving exactly like an affiliate portal. I don't think this is at all appropriate.

It's not just casinos - they have pages promoting ALL of the different merchant segments that accept the Moneybookers payment system.

For music downloads, to online departments stores and yes gambling sites too.

It's moneybookers business, faciliatating electronic payments between account holders and merchants, and they are not shying away from gambling - it's not illegal in the "free world" (outside the US).


Moneybookers.com is a business, not an investment bank. You don't store savings there, there are no interest payment, it's transactable electronic cash. Obviously the moneybookers.com site is a prime place for moneybookers accepting merchants to have their stores advertised. Failing to do so is certainly missing an opportunity.

What I cannot work out is WHY affiliates think it's "not appropriate?" - exactly what is the beef with a payment organsiation promoting their merchants?

So far the "ethics" complaint seem to consist of a worry that moneybookers will compete and sell product ... and thats not a valid ethical complaint.

Can anyone explain why they should not promote their merchants?

[ALEX777]

Can anyone explain why they should not promote their merchants?

They can do whatever they want, as you can do whatever you want with your sites and mailing list You can ... hm, for example sell pharmacy... some relaxation pills for gamblers. Send them an e-mail with pills promotions, you'll earn some $$$ .......

But who will work with you after that?!

[TheGooner]

Alex, are you trying (unsuccessfully) to be funny or is the translation software not working?


Moneybookers work for their merchants and their account holders who pay fees when they transact.

Promoting these merchants to their account holders is not a weird offshoot business (like pills or any such) it is Moneybookers.com core business - they only make money when people use their wallets at their merchants.

Moneybookers.com was formed originally as an offshoot of Gamebookers,com (I believe) way before the betting site was sold off to PartyGaming.

And fortunately for European players moneybookers are not ashamed of their gambling roots, indeed they embrace it as the major revenue stream. We're lucky as gambling affiliates otherwise money movements would be much harder for players without credit cards.

Again - I don't see this promotion of merchants to account holders as a sideline but as a major thrust to encourage usage and revenue.

And we also see this approach in the physical world with all sorts of loyalty cards, and credit cards promoting where they are used and accepted.

[ALEX777]

The Googner: Now I think you are a MB employee.


-----------------------------------------

OK, I had a chat with the webmasters privately, and they fully support my position.

[Magenti]

The Googner: Now I think you are a MB employee.


-----------------------------------------

OK, I had a chat with the webmasters privately, and they fully support my position.

If you are happy with a service you should be able to make a point on how good they are without getting the "do you work for them" line.

When a company is bad you are allowed to say they are bad so why not the opposite?

I for one like Moneybookers and do not agree that they are spamming. Had I been in their shoes I would have done the very same thing, its just smart business.

[Viriatu]

Well i guess your problem is you feel they present themselves to the gaming crowd and then reffer your players to another brands and that is not true they will incite gambling yes because they are one of the elec cash site that takes presence in this market... and the fact that some webmasters share that opinion does not make it true... lets be fair they would be missing a bunch not making a go at a market they have their base for...

Not for moneybookers and a loot of my players would not be able to play and i would get no revenues... and no1 profits then... paypal offers a worst service and no gaming promos... will i would rather one promotion now and them in my email, right now all i get is a HUGE cut on my profits due to unreal convertion rates and % ..... moneybookers offers a reliable no bs service available to all plus now you can use your CC also so things look like they are improving and i fail to see any unethical behavior in pursuing sucess for your company.

and im far from being on MB payroll just so we are clear

[Caruso]

What I cannot work out is WHY affiliates think it's "not appropriate?" - exactly what is the beef with a payment organsiation promoting their merchants?

Being an affiliate or not is irrelevant.

Moneybookers is an ecash brokerage service, with players and casino merchants at either end. There is a conflict of issues here. We already know that Moneybookers reveals certain aspects of players' details to their casino merchants, though Moneybookers say they do nothing outside the law. If they now promote the casinos with an affiliate percentage, as opposed to just taking a service fee from them, they will be ever less inclined to treat their player customers with integrity.

This is not world-shattering. Moneybookers is a disreputable company anyway. All this does is give more supporting evidence.

As soon as I heard that MB disclosed confiential player details, I took all my money out and put it back into Neteller. Lesser of two evils.

[universal4]

I think that is part of the issue I am a little worried about....

I hope that is not the case but it does the potential to be....

Rick
Universal4