RIP - Referback

[casinogod]

So it appears one of my favourite affiliate programs has finally gone! Referback was different to other programs, I can say over the years I have made many good friends with folks there. It had so many good points and seemed to have a corporate culture of caring and going above and beyond (without listing things and turning this into a wasn't Referback awesome thread any of you that did not work with referback will just have to take my word they were better than your average program for reasons you would not expect, for example when my business partner had twins they sent a baby hamper with 2 sets of everything! what a lovely surprise).

The news today is that they have merged with wagershare to form Buffalo Partners which in itself is not a bad thing.

The sting in the tail comes with what is happening with some of their casinos. My affiliate manager tells me that RiverBelle and King Neptune Casino from referback and Mummys Gold from wager share will not be moved to the new program. All 3 of these casinos will stay open just that from 1st September 2014 they will not accept any affiliate referred players (meaning the players will be untagged and not tracked to the affiliates account).

This will of course mean a lot of updating of websites for active affiliates and for any that fail to update their websites they will be leaking traffic (in that they will be sending traffic to these casinos and not being paid for it when it converts to players).

In my opinion that really sucks and appears to be a total 180 degree in philosophy to what Referback used to be (which if you recall had the tag line 'Committed to Returns' and yes I do have the T-shirt (and the hat oh the places that had has been too lol).

I feel a bit sorry for my affiliate manager who is clearly having to try to make the best of a bad situation when he says to me that "I don't think it's malicious in any way! Stats will still be visilble in the reporting for RBC and KNC".

But honestly what good reason is there for these casinos to be removed from the affiliate program after so many years?

I would be interested in what other affiliates think on this topic, is it right that a program can simply remove a casino and thus any future traffic you send to it (which you can't stop, even if you change all your trackers I guarantee if you have any decent size network you will have some cached links that will still be leaking the traffic).

So Im feeling a bit sad about this today.

[sportsfreak]

Referback was really nice to work with... Even though its been years since I last promoted casinos (and their casinos as well) just recently I received a birthday card from them, which I personally found very, very nice.

[-Shay-]

Thieves in the night...

[ogpaper]

Referback was among the best casino aff programs; always honest, too. There was nothing better among the MG ones. Sad to see one of the few remaining quality programs gone...

[Gamer]

I had no privilege to work with Referback. However I hate this mergers and acquisitions that only hit affiliates and make them a lot of mess.
Affiliates work hard sometimes and such decisions bring in a lot of pain to them.
All affiliates are like boys for beating and noboday cares about all the mess on their sites, after such decisions.

[grem]

That leaves less good Microgaming programs to deal with. Many of the original programs have really gone downhill

[universal4]

I am not surprised to see this happen with King Neptunes, since I got burned when Referback got them.

I am not happy to see it happen, it just doesn't surprise me.

I never felt Referback gave smaller affiliates a good chance anyway...were they not the ones that didn't allow cookies to be over-written? (meaning, if affiliate A sent them the click-thru first, they got paid no matter how many other affiliates sent the same browser)

I am sorry to hear this for those that have large player bases at the affected properties.

Rick
Universal4

[casinogod]

I never felt Referback gave smaller affiliates a good chance anyway...were they not the ones that didn't allow cookies to be over-written? (meaning, if affiliate A sent them the click-thru first, they got paid no matter how many other affiliates sent the same browser)

I never knew about that Rick so I cannot comment. Although when we first started out (a long long time ago) I have to say Referback was one of the companies that really did help us out. They had the template websites which we made use of (And which at that time could be SEO'd to rank and that worked very well) and then later they helped with some coding issues I was having (in the days before we had our own in house team). So Albeit over a prolonged period of time I have worked with Referback back when we had nothing right through to present day and felt they treated us well at each stage. In all fairness the new program Buffalo Partners, I still have my Referback manager and he is still the same nice guy he always was but I suspect there has been a culture change and I know many of the other people who worked that have now had to leave.

I too am not surprised, I know that 'most' of the microgaming affiliate programs are in fact already owned by the same people so this kind of stream lining makes sense for them in terms of cutting costs why pay two affiliate managers when you can pay one?

But all that said Referback did appear to be ethical and did give the impression of genuinely having a caring company culture and certainly the entire way the staff interacted with me as an affiliate was different to any other program more of a friends thing rather than a pure business arrangement (There are of course other people in the industry that I think extremely highly off and consider good friends but for Referback it was more like a company culture, so even when one affiliate manager left the next would be great too and instead of just knowing one person I knew loads on a personal level). I hope that makes sense.

I would like to think this decision was not done maliciously but even if it wasn't there is a massive lack of thought gone into it and how it will effect relationships. I never worked with wagershare before so the loss of mummy's gold does not affect me but I am sure there will be affiliates who do that it will.

Thanks for all the comments guys nice to know other care about this.

[universal4]

I never pushed them very much BECAUSE of the cookie issue.

I pulled back on most MGS years ago, so I too will not see large active player bases disappear, but I can see where this will hurt a lot of old timers.

Rick
Universal4

[casinogod]

Hi Rick

So out of interest what software types work best for you?

[universal4]

RTG and Playtech.

Rick
Universal4

[sweetbet]

ReferBack was definitely one of the golden oldies. Farewell ReferBack !!

[CPReport]

Loved Referback! My wife won a $60,000 Porsche from them in a Las Vegas drawing back in the day Sad to see them go.

[celena]

I will prefer that Referback remains independent

[elgoog]

It is sad to see another good brand disappeared.... i worked with them since 2002
Everery program has good an less good things, but i always trusted Referback and they had the best affiliate managers in the industry.
It came to my knowledge that indeed 90% of them were fired in March within one hour, wthout the possibility to contact us.
i wish them all the very very best in the future and i am sure other brands will hire them soon.
Thank you all! You know who you are.

RIP Referback

[GCG]

It is sad to see another good brand disappeared.... i worked with them since 2002
Everery program has good an less good things, but i always trusted Referback and they had the best affiliate managers in the industry.
It came to my knowledge that indeed 90% of them were fired in March within one hour, wthout the possibility to contact us.
i wish them all the very very best in the future and i am sure other brands will hire them soon.
Thank you all! You know who you are.

RIP Referback

Yes indeed a very good program with an amazing reputation destroyed in a matter of days, nice folks dropped off on the side of the road. I find this very disturbing.

One wonders why the need to close the goldmine when you constantly strike gold..........

Buffalo partners ......I do not know.......it feels and looks very very different that is 4 sure, not sure if I want the relationship anymore, the love just is not there yet when I compare the results with both the previous programs separately and them

[Nicole Sims]

Loved Referback! My wife won a $60,000 Porsche from them in a Las Vegas drawing back in the day Sad to see them go.

Winning a Porsche sounds like TRUE LOVE!!! =)))

[grem]

I thought winning an ipad was the best gift but will gladly trade for the porsche

[merlin]

Unfortunately the days of a Microgaming operator sticking with their original deals is over. Now that "WagerShare" controls their affiliate program we are going to get more of the same. They are a "Wolf" masquerading in "Buffalo" clothing. We have already had our deal change. I'm not surprised to hear someone like Universal moved away from them ages ago. We were way to trusting.

[antihacker]

Uhm...

Anyone care to explain the definition of 'lifetime commissions'?

I myself promote / have promoted those brands. And, thanks to this thread, I find out about this? Gee..

Always, when you (are getting lured in to) sign up with these type of shady folks, they shout it from the roofs: LIFETIME commissions.

Until, well, you know, it changes the way they seem fit.

We, the affiliates are NEVER NEVER NEVER safeguarded from crap like this, where the aff programs ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS secure themselves with things like: this affiliate agreement can be changed the way we want it, when we want it, and frankly we do not give a hoot about you as our affiliate, nor do we care two foeks about the amount of work you have put in. You are out and we don't care, as we will continue to reap profits out of your work.

To me, whatever the reason is, I see it as 'contract breach', so the lot will be rogued over this.

To HELL with this kind of behavior.

Again, it is time we the affiliates will be protected against this type of behavior.