138 Affiliates - Holds Affiliate Accountable for Customer Complaints

Hi Gibber - welcome to ThePOGG.com!

We do have a separate service specifically set up to deal with Affiliate Complaints at POGGWebmasters, but as that site is currently a little broken and will be merged into ThePOGG.com in the coming months we'll deal with your issue here for now.

I am aware of your complaints service - it predates our own by some ways.

I would ask your team to forward on all communication you've had with 138 Affiliates regarding this issue to [email protected]. Effectively what I'm going to need to establish is exactly what term 138 Affiliates feel give them the right to withhold past payment. In most cases the at 'at their sole discretion' term would only allow the program to close your affiliate account. It would be unusual for it to justify non-payment of historical earnings.

As this issue involves the discussion between your team and the operator of player complaints - who have not given you permission to share their information with us - I need to ask your team to be very careful to remove any information that could be used to identify the players in question (names, email address, phone number etc etc) from any communications you forward to ensure you remain compliant with the Data Protection Act.

Once I've reviewed the communications and the 138 Affiliate contract I'll contact the program and see what we can do.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Hi Gibber,

Just to keep you informed, we have contacted the affiliate program and had a basic response notifying us that management are reviewing this issue. I'll let you know as/when we have more information.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

hi Gibber,

We've had a response from 138 Affiliates regarding your issue.

There are a couple of differing aspects to this issue and I'll go through the crux of the disagreement first.

138 Affiliates are unhappy about the negative complaint reports posted on your complaint site. With the best will in the world that's not all that shocking nor would we encourage you to change content simply because a program doesn't like what's posted. However 138.com are asserting that these issues were actually resolved with the players in question directly. As I'm sure your ADR official will be aware there are a fairly substantial cross section of operators in the industry that are unwilling to share account information with affiliate based complaints services because of concerns about said information being distributed. They don't want to discuss the accounts directly.

Where 138.com feel there is a problem is that they are stating the issues have been resolved and would like your team to contact the involved players to confirm this assertion. If the involved players either confirm this or offer no response it would seem fair to conclude that these complaints no longer accurately reflect the current position of the players in question. I will say that as a standard, where a player is non-responsive and the operator is saying they have resolved the complaint it would be our procedures to mark the complaint as resolved and leave the door open for the player to get back in touch with us if that is not the case.

With regard to your affiliate payment - my current understanding is that 138 Affiliates are now planning to honour the outstanding historical balance. They should be in touch with you shortly to confirm this.

Looking to the future the conversation I've had is that 138 Affiliates would still actively like to work with your network. They simply don't feel that holding complaints at a rogue status without checking with the players to confirm whether there's been a change is fair to them. I personally suspect that there's been a breakdown in communication here regarding what the program were asking for. If that's the case I think there's an opening to wipe the slate clean and start again.

I'd appreciate it if you could get back to us and update us as to how this issue progresses.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Thanks for the message.

1)The player has indicated that the issue was not resolved and no information has been provided to show otherwise. I have e-mails where 138 said that the issue was resolved, then said that it wasn't because the player was a fraud. This is consistent with what the player is telling us. t.

2)No sensitive information is requested as part of the dispute resolution. The player has already provided all the necessary information. All that is requested is how the issue was resolved in general terms. There is nothing sensitive about his information. In addition to this when the player requests the help from the mediation site, they create client relationship and authorize them to access information on their behalf.

3)You are correct, I have received an e-mail recently saying they will pay what is owed. They however have not included our commission from the month in which they closed our account being September.I am being told that July and August Commission will be paid on Dec 20th.

I have been told that the person running the mediation site has been in contact with the player more recently and that there hasn't been a change but I will follow up on this directly myself and let you know where I get to.

Thank you and I appreciate your time on this.

Richard

Sorry one more note. With regards to working with them in the future. If we can prove that they have resolved the player issue (I will try to confirm) and pay all commission owed to us including September then we would consider it. Our current concern is the tactics used with the player and with us: we don't like what you are doing (not sure what it was with regards to the player), we will not pay you and we will shut down your account. This is a strong arm approach is concerning.

Hi Gibber,

I'm not sure if the above was meant to be a second message. Your response to my post on the 22nd begins "sorry one more note", but there's nothing immediately preceding it.

With regard to payment for historic traffic, my understanding is that this IS going to happen. If it does not then that's something we'd need to take up with the program again so please keep us informed.

With regard to complaints - I absolutely understand and agree that your team need to reach out to the players in question. The issue here appears to be that 138 feel it's unfair to judge them based on players that haven't been asked, or if they have, haven't responded. Having managed over 1k complaints myself I can say that a large body of players will become non-responsive to us if they no longer have an issue. We've got a half dozen complaints open right now that are due to be closed on Friday because the players in question have not responded to repeated communications for an extended period of time. If we were to close all of those complaints assuming that the players haven't been paid regardless of what the operator were telling us a lot of operators would view this as very unfair. Just because a player doesn't take the time to tell us that the issue has been resolved, which is very annoying and wastes a lot of our time, doesn't mean the operator can or should be penalised for it.

This seems to have been the crux of the issue. 138Affiliates seem to have felt that your service is treating them unfairly when the players in question simply haven't updated you as to the outcome of their issues. I think this has probably been a case of misunderstanding, where your team have felt that they're demanding that you mark the issues as resolved because they've told you they're resolved, without any opportunity for the player to contradict that assessment. I don't agree with the actions they've chosen to take in this situation, but I can understand their frustration if they felt they cannot get these reports updated even though they genuinely believe the players in question to be happy now.

I'd appreciate you keeping us updated regarding how this progresses.

ThePOGG

HI and thanks for the follow up. The follow up was only for the text following it. I understand the dilemma and their position. That being said as you mention, after a long time has passed there is a high chance of not getting a response from the player and we can't just trust the Casinos word without new evidence. In this case we have even more to go on as they indicated it was taken care of in an e-mail and then indicated it wasn't. They aren't willing to share information but were willing to call the player a fraud. We know that the legal system isn't perfect but we try to conduct ourselves as a court would as there are many similarities. Collecting information, client relationship and making a decision on information at hand. There is no way a judge would change a decision based on one party just saying that it was fixed. We are always trying to learn and improve our way of handling things so I am interested how you would handle this situation which has many similarities to the current case: How do you deal with a Casino that says we can't talk to you, but this is dealt with and a player that explains and provides all the information?

Hi Gibber,

I would agree - but if this was in a court NOW, the court isn't going to uphold one parties complaint when they don't show up to represent themselves.

I'm not suggesting this is an easy situation. You are right that you may not be able to reach the player given the length of time between now and the submission of the complaint. I also agree that the operator could, if they chose to, provide supporting evidence. But the reality is that's not going to happen and it's not unusual with the bigger groups. Bet365, William Hill, Ladbrokes, 888 - the list goes on and on. Big programs generally won't discuss complaints with affiliates.

Here's what we would generally do in this situation:

- Firstly at the time of the complaint if we're told 'talk to the hand' we would rule the complaint in favour of complainant. For this site that would result in an immediate change of status and loss of links for the operator involed.

- If the operator tells us AT THE TIME 'we can't share evidence' but this is resolved I'd check with the player and no response would result in the complaint being marked as Resolved and no change of status for the operator.

- If the operator tells us years down the line 'we can't share evidence' but this is resolved, I'd check with the player and no response would result in a Resolved ruling, but the restoration of links would not be immediate. We'd then have a 2 year probationary period where the operator would remain at Needs Work status. They would never actually get beyond Needs Work status because they don't discuss complaints, but if no further issues happen in that time we would include links again.

The above is tailored to OUR system and much of the sanctions involved are based on complaints dictating who we'll work with. I understand that your service functions differently and think there are strong arguments in favour of your system.

If I was operating under the strictures of your system I think I'd be inclined to move the status to 'Unsure' for a year and then to 'Satisfactory' if there was no contrary communication from the player in that time.

That seems a reasonable middle ground, but I do stress that you're absolutely entitled to set your own policies. I do understand why you'd insist in this situation that you have to hear from the player. I would simply suggest that an operator who is 'half trying' (read - the staff member's hands are tied by internal policy, but they do want to do what they can to give you what they can while working within the rules) can't do anything to fix a complaint even if they have genuinely addressed it.

I don't know how much use any of the above is. It's simply some rambling thoughts on your position.

All the best,

ThePOGG

Hi Again, I appreciate the feedback. It always helps to get other thoughts on complex issues like this.

The player did show up to "COURT" the first time and the Casino did not. This is not the Players fault. There are cases where a court will call everyone back it has to be close to the court date. After a year it is very rare.

Point taken with regards to certain groups just refusing to discuss any complaint. This is where the entire system breaks down. Like a court, if you don't show up, even if you are in the right, you likely get ruled against. The only encouragement that mediation sites have is the chance of a bad ruling. If this wasn't the case, I think we would all be greatly contributing to the demise of online gambling mediation and more casinos saying they can't talk.

Thanks for the feedback on your system. I have recently updated our system. We will not change the report but if you don't have 3 bad reports in the past three years then you are not in our worst of the worst list but reports will not change. Not exactly like yours but I do agree that over time managers and ownership does change as to how some casinos act. I am not sure there is any perfect answer but I do feel that the Casino's basis for not talking about complaints is weak. Unfortunately in my years of experience in business and law, I would say that usually the ones that take the 5th have something to hide. This should not always be the assumption but unfortunately it is.

Yes, we have a bit of a different set up. A portal business side which I take care of and the mediation which I have really nothing to do with and it is autonomous. At times things can get a bit complicated when casinos try to put pressure on my financially as in this case in order to pressure the other site to do something which doesn't have much basis for.

If the casino hadn't changed their story with us and been as heavy handed, I would of tried to pitch the mediation operator to change it. Given my experience with them, I can't actively suggest that our members play there as I see a pattern. I do however greatly appreciate your help in getting commitment to pay the funds and your thoughts and time.

Cheers,

Richard

Hi Gibber,

Firstly apologies - for whatever reason your previous two messages went into our spam folder. Having just found them I've restored them.

Broadly speaking I agree with your position here. My only hesitance would be the potential to right-off an operator who have fixed an issue based on a complainant that is non-responsive. While I do agree that where an operator refuses to discuss a complaint often they are simply hiding behind what they will present as law to prevent independent oversight, in situations where the player has been paid regularly we never hear from them again. The basic facts would be there's no incentive left for them to respond to our enquiries. We here back from the more polite and respectful individual who have appreciated our involvement and the rest we receive the 'dead line' treatment from.

That's a general observation though. If your complaint manager's checked in with the player and received a contrary story this is a 'dead line' of discussion. No complaint should be ruled in favour of the operator if you have a contrary claim from the player and the operator is not willing to provide evidence to support their claim.

With regard to affiliate payments - at the present time the only agreement we received from the operator was to pay you for the revenue generated before this conversation arose. There are no terms justifying non-payment of this historic revenue in their contract. However, they do have terms - as to all affiliate programs - allowing them to terminate any contract at any time. If there's going to be no restoration of the previous agreement or removal of complaints (by the sounds of things I don't see how that's possible) then the contract would be considered terminated from the date of the previous conversation meaning that you would no longer be entitled to revenue after the date of termination.

All the best,

ThePOGG

Thanks again for the thoughts. From our discussions we have had made some adjustments to our processes. Over time casinos will come out of the Worst of the Worst list.

I am more writing them off because of how they dealt with me directly with strong arm approach and this was similar to how they dealt with the player as well. I think any business with them is risky given how quick it got to threats and that they could not comprehend that we could not just take their word for fixing the problem.

We are still working on getting in contact of the player again.

I thought it was a long shot to get the money in the month that they took down our sites but I thought it was worth a try.

Thanks again.

Hi Gibber,

No problem at all. If anything I've said's been useful I'm glad I could help.

I'd also support trust being a necessity in the affiliate relationship. The operator has all the power - in fact affiliates have to trust blindly that operators are sending through accurate stats - so where trust has been undermined I would view that as a significant issue.

Finally I'm going to hold this complaint open until such time as I hear from you that you've actually received payment for the historic earnings.

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Hi Gibber,

I just wanted to check in and see if you've actually received the outstanding historic payment from 138Affiliates?

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Hi, Happy New Year. I can confirm that no funds have been received from 138. Thanks

Hi Gibber - Happy New Year!

Has there been any further discussion with them that I should be aware of before going back to them?

Thanks,

ThePOGG

I e-mailed them thanking them for agreeing to pay the amount and said that it would be a good start to trying to rebuild the business and relationship. I haven't heard anything since.

Hi Gibber,

I've spoken to 138Affiliates. Apparently there were some issued related to the holidays that resulted in your payment not being sent out as it should have been on the 20th of December. They tell me this should be actioned shortly.

Could you confirm when you receive your funds?

Thanks,

ThePOGG

Hi, I can confirm that the funds were just received. A big thanks for your help. A different question for you. Have you had anybody else write to you about WonClub? I am owed funds there as well. Artem promised funds to be sent over a month ago and now is ignoring my e-mails and hasn't paid. Cheers, [EDIT]

Hi Gibber,

I haven't even heard of that group. If you submit a complaint (just select anyone and we'll sort it out on the back end for you) I'll follow up with the operator for you.

Thanks,

ThePOGG