William Hill Support Staff Walk Out

[justbookies]

I am sure william hill will work this out and be happy once again with their playtech / cpays /affutd partners again, unfortunately. Such an ill-informed tie-up. Were WH so scared of the online environment they had to farm it out to such an extent without doing proper due diligence on the people they were getting involved with (CPays!)? Whatever, we no longer promote William Hill. Reason: the affiliate software is rubbish, the sales pitch is like the pushiest bunch of second-hand car salesmen (it is an insult to all affiliates who they must think are morons) and we just don't trust them. Why? Cpays. Why? We have had stats that make absolutely no sense at all. I no longer care whether that is because of the software problems (the affutd software is so dire), their lack of honesty or problems with our interpretation of their nonsensical stats. The relationship is about trust. We have no trust in them . . . and we made that decision long before this guy apparently refused William Hill access to their own data. The data he is allegedly trying to hide has your affiliate stats on it.

[smallfish]

I have to agree with the host of comments about the quality of the affiliate backend - it's terrible. The revenue share figures often don't correspond with the stats and get updated at odd times.

The WH banners now appear up and running however the tracking is still not reflecting in the backend. I can't imagine it will be down very long though considering WH at least is a listed entity in the UK.

[grem]

I hope my data doesn't go into the wrong hands.

[star]

Sooner or later William Hill will have to run its own in-house affiliate program. I wonder why this is not the case already anyway.

[JackTenSuited]

very true, you would think a brand as large as them could afford to run a very good inhouse program

[FictionNet]

I´m pretty sure that´s exactly what they used to do.

[grem]

Maybe they will plan to run their own program again

[alexpratt]

very true, you would think a brand as large as them could afford to run a very good inhouse program

I don't agree a large company = a successful affiliate program or indeed online operation....without naming names there are some v big operators out there with awful aff programs and survive more because of their brand than their program.....I think this is often because the senior management don't view affiliates as "must haves" but more as parasites they have to work with, in addition I often see internal systems or politics either slow things down or just interfere in the program. Smaller programs often depend on affiliates more as it's their major acquisition channel so decisions, changes etc can be made fast with attention from the CEO often resulting in a better and more friendly program.

That said this isn't a hard and fast rule, look at programs like bet365 or pkr (amongst others) who are big mainstream brands but still see the value in affiliates but this is because they have buy in from the senior board.

Also I am pretty sure pre the playtech deal will hill online wasn't doing that well....just dug out these pr's post the deal and you can see playtech made a big difference so if they split it isn't guaranteed that this will continue or in fact affiliates will be part of the priority which they are at the moment

35% up 2009
http://www.williamhillplc.com/wmh/me...pr/2010-01-20/

24% up 2010
http://www.williamhillplc.com/wmh/me...2011-02-25.pdf

[JackTenSuited]

Is anyone else unable to login to their stats today?

[celena]

Is anyone else unable to login to their stats today?

I have access to my stats!

[FictionNet]

I do remember that when William Hill ran their own in-house program (when the casino was Cryptologic), their affiliate managers were up there with the best in the business. Friendly, approachable and helpful.

Things have obviously changed but it´s what we´ve got to work with right now. Let´s try to make the best of it. I´ve made my thoughts known about the WH/CPays venture a few times and as justbookies has already mentioned, it will always appear to be a massive lack of due diligence on the part of WH but it´s where we are now. I expect this partnership to be short-lived. In the meantime, we either have to work with what we´ve got or not promote them. And let´s be honest, things are far better at WH (for affiliates) than we expected in our worst nightmares when we discovered the CPays involvement. Yep, the stats can be insane (all I can work out is total revenue - I´ve given up getting access to anything more detailed) and support from MOST of AffUtd staff is like talking to a brick wall but some things have been a pleasant surprise (regular, fast payments). Just think how bad things could have turned out...

Yeah, a surprisingly upbeat post from me. I think moving outta England is having a positive effect

[Benitho]

I actually dumped WH from 99% of my pages a few days before this went down. For almost a year now, I was not able to get a reasonable explanation on some statistics, especially subaffiliate revenue, where they wanted to tell me that it is simply not possible to get a proper calculation between two excel-columns going and they had to do everything by hand. But even with doing things by hand, to this day I have not received any subaff-payment. Over the years, there were lots more irregularities. I can`t even remember them all.

I also strongly feel, that not a single affiliate with active subaffiliates has EVER been paid the correct commission on the subs...

Good bookie, awful affiliateprogram, what a shame...
Ben

[theGman]

Things have obviously changed but it´s what we´ve got to work with right now.

Sorry mate - disagree with this post

Um no, you dont have to work with it - how can you want to promote them if the PLC is blocked out of reporting and day to day activityby ex Cpays staff - why would you send traffic to a place that could be doing anything to your traffic . There are enough quality alternatives to say - sod that - im sending my traffic elsewhere.

[joeyl]

There are'nt many affs out there who could'nt tell Billhill working with this shower will end in tears. For Billhill not to be given access to thier own players stats is ridiculous.

[FictionNet]

how can you want to promote them if the PLC is blocked out of reporting and day to day activityby ex Cpays staff

That´s what I´m doing at the moment.

Edit: I mean, I´m NOT pushing them, at the moment. But watching what happens.

[grem]

This story is a week old. Who has updates?

[grem]

http://www.davy.ie/LR?id=2016

http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/glob...91470&fid=1725

[TheBoyMitchell]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...Aviv-plot.html

[justbookies]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...Aviv-plot.html

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting article. You can be sure this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of dishonesty.
Who was Topping 'furious' with? Himself or the crooks he handed the business to?
Plus these crooks are planning setting up again. After cpays it's Affutd and now we are gonna get another cpays again.
The Affiliates United / AffUtd stats need to be re-run with correct data from day one.

[tomgalanis]

Incredibly interesting. Sod the stats they've been fiddling, I more worried about the money I lost playing against them on the PAF table tennis table in Barcelona! Cheats!