GP, MGS, and affiliates

[dominique]

@Dom: I'm not at all surprised that GP rejected the opportunity to interact with any team that included CAP, and we all know why.

You didn't read, it was AGD who was suggested, not CAP. I don't know why you insist on keeping to bring that into it, AGD is not CAP and has no ties to CAP whatsoever.

The rest of your opening sentence is, again, not based on known fact but your personal suspicions that eCOGRA was engaged as the most malleable option - offensive to professionals to say the least.

There maybe something outraging about being shown only one of two feeds of data, but certainly not offensive to the auditing comany. You can't work with what you don't have. Andrew was not offended when this was revealed, but righteously angry. Again, you keep bringing this into it, it is not the issue. The issue is GP not providing all the data.

Jetset, if you asked me personal questions about my statistics such as amount of income, I certainly would not post my numbers in public. eCOGRA and MGS are more than welcome to these, but not the world wide web. How much Triple7 was making from Referspot and what % of her total income that was is a PRIVATE piece of information and very unwise to post publicly. I suggest this info be sent in a PM to Bryan to pass along.

I posted the waybackmachine links which pinpoint the date of the actual switch exactly. You have to click a few links on the grand prive summary to see the actual start, they had issues mapping over and got a late start.

Maybe triple7 will answer the other questions as they apply to herself.

[triple777s]

Jetset

1. Yes, Referspot was my biggest payments, with the most depositors, GP only made a few bucks a month on. This was plainly detailed on the homepage of my account at GP. Two different charts, one for GP players and one for referspot players

2. At the time of the "closure" i was owed nothing, it is since the closure and thier decision to not pay future earnings is were my money comes into the picture. I averaged a decent amount for referspot players, so since 2008 I believe I am owed something. And i did file a claim,but was told I was owed "Zero"....

3. An estimated amount is between me and the payee but i am not looking for an outrageous amount, just something respectable.

4. I was with Referspot for over 3 years as an active affiliate. Actually it was closer to 4 years when the switch took place. And when the switch took place i had over 90 players, and suddenly went down to only 27 active players and never regained those other players under the referspot program,which i complained about back then to no avail. So you see, they are not just ignoring the referspot players and issues now, they were and have been ignoring the referspot players back at the time of the switch too.

Is that the end of the inquisition?

Pat

@Dom: I'm not at all surprised that GP rejected the opportunity to interact with any team that included CAP, and we all know why.

The rest of your opening sentence is, again, not based on known fact but your personal suspicions that eCOGRA was engaged as the most malleable option - offensive to professionals to say the least.

@ Triple7: I might as well join the speculation game as well, and comment that I have to disagree with your theory that most webmasters would have been unaware of the invitation to submit claims.

I believe that given the nature of the business, the need to keep abreast of developments impacting affiliate business and the prevalence of message board usage, the balance of probabilities is that most affiliates earning a living from promoting online casino sites to players would be members of at least one and possibly more of the major online gambling and webmaster information sites.

But then neither of us can prove the point, can we?

Quick question for you Triple7, so that I can better understand your situation.

1) Were you receiving payments derived from your 'legacy' Referspot players as well as current GP program players right up to the end of December 2008 when GP pulled the plug?

Can you say what percentage of your income was coming from your Referspot legacy players when the program closed?

2) At that point (end December 2008) were you owed any money by GP, and if so were you one of the perhaps more fortunate but mysteriously quiet webmasters who GP claims received a compensation offer?

3) Can you estimate what you think you were owed by end December 2009 when you submitted a claim to the eCOGRA investigation?

4) Can you recall what date the Referspot program was switched to a GP program? How long were you a member of the Referspot program?

[triple777s]

I have a question please...

When i was earning with "referspot"....i always got paid through Neteller...and it was always from GrandBay Casino.....never referspot....now my question is...i no longer have an account at Neteller because i am in the US, but if i write them and ask for a print out of all my account activity from 2003 til 2008 would they send it to me? Do they still have the records?

Thanks for any info
Pat

[jetset]

I suggest you refresh your knowledge of this incident, Dom - it is public knowledge that CAP and AGD made a joint approach to GP, and that approach was rejected for reasons known only to GP.... although I can think of at least two.

Are you denying that your implication earlier on was that eCOGRA was chosen because it was the softer option?

I'm afraid it's no use getting riled about my mentioning elements that are integral to this whole ball of wax - you can't expect to have the sole rights to discussing events surrounding this issue and those involved when you are so vociferous yourself.

@Pat - Honestly, I don't know whether Neteller would still have that information, but that line may provide useful information for you to use and is worth a try imo. Anything that delivers hard facts and figures rather than thumbsucks is in my view worthwhile.

If the allegedly numerous aggrieved GP affiliates ever join together in making a few legal enquiries regarding the viability of a class action and mandatory disclosures with GP in mind, it would certainly be useful to put some numbers on the table to start with imo.

And thank you for answering my questions - not an inquisition btw, so please don't start implying sinister motivations when there are none - merely interest in your predicament.

Finally, for clarity, can you advise whether GP approached you offering compensation when they shut the program down....or not?

[triple777s]

LOL, sorry about the "inquistion" couldn't resist.

Thanks for the info on Neteller, and ABSOLUTELY NOT, GP Never approached me with any type of offer, payment, not even a "kiss off".....and i worked closely with them for over 5 years as they sponsored my forum with contests and promotions....

[dominique]

I suggest you refresh your knowledge of this incident, Dom - it is public knowledge that CAP and AGD made a joint approach to GP, and that approach was rejected for reasons known only to GP.... although I can think of at least two.

I don't need to refresh my memory since I was involved in this - I asked Warren to establish contact (because he was the only person who could or would) and he did and he suggested an audit with AGD as observer to GP. CAP was never in the discussion as observer or anything else, Warren faciliated contact and suggested the above, for which I am grateful. Like him or not, it was the right thing to do.

Are you denying that your implication earlier on was that eCOGRA was chosen because it was the softer option?

My implication is that AGD was purposefully avoided as observer because AGD would have noticed the missing feed. There was no way eCOGRA could have known about it's existance, but an affiliate rep would have known off the bat.

If the allegedly numerous aggrieved GP affiliates ever join together in making a few legal enquiries regarding the viability of a class action and mandatory disclosures with GP in mind, it would certainly be useful to put some numbers on the table to start with imo.

This would have to originate from a country with clear gaming laws.

The numbers are pretty much gone. GP effectively eliminated all traces, and MGS says the people who handled them are gone and apparently there are no records. Or are there? Spearmaster is busy collecting what there is as far as affiliate's private records as we speak.

[jetset]

My information differs significantly from yours on CAP's approach, so we will have to disagree on that point.

I think it more likely that AGD was unfortunately perceived to be associated with CAP, which was probably enough to disqualify both. Pure speculation, however (see - you've got me doing it as well now)

I'm glad that someone of Spearmaster's integrity is hunting down numbers, because this issue is in truly desperate need of some hard facts.

I wish him every success, because those numbers could prove useful going forward. I think if I were a shafted affiliate here - especially to the extent implied by some posters - I would definitely be rallying the troops (fellow affiliates) and at the very least taking some factual legal advice on my options in preference to writing reams on message boards.

[dominique]

The reason I am prolific in this thread is because it was said that MGS is reading it, and for me it is a vehicle of communication with MGS only at this time. That is why I would like to stick to the issue itself and not get into whatever surrounding circumstances, no matter how strong the urge to explain them may be.

I still hope MGS will get in touch with me as a result of this thread, because I am not willing to post a lot of things in public, nor would MGS or anyone involved appreciate it if I did.

[Shyguy]

At the GPWA they avoid my question and here now too

There probably were 1000's that did not claim but that is surely due to the time it took in getting the investigation going. Some affs probably gave up entirely after the GP fiasco and never looked back. The 70 odd that did claim are probably current affiliates or whose that cared enough to stick around and wait for a result. It's a shame only 70 claimed and there are probably more affs out there that wish they had claimed when the chance came up.

Unfortunately the claim time was far too short and gave many affs who were out of the picture no chance to even realise there was going to be something done about it.

[Casinomeister]

The reason I am prolific in this thread is because it was said that MGS is reading it, and for me it is a vehicle of communication with MGS only at this time. That is why I would like to stick to the issue itself and not get into whatever surrounding circumstances, no matter how strong the urge to explain them may be.

I still hope MGS will get in touch with me as a result of this thread, because I am not willing to post a lot of things in public, nor would MGS or anyone involved appreciate it if I did.

They were focused on the other thread concerning their software. Not so much this one since as I mentioned earlier, there is not much they can do. I know you don't want to hear this, and you may not want to accept this, but B2B relationships (i.e. affiliate programs, media buys etc.) are not part of their realm.

They provided GP with software to run their aff program, assisted them in mapping over the Referspot players, and that was it. You keep harping on MGS, but it's a waste of time. You might as well ask them to stop Global Warming, it would have the same effect. I'm sure they would want to do something - but what are they supposed to do? Realistically.

The only way that you would be owed money, or for this to make any sense, is that GP stripped the Referspot "legacy players' out of the database when they handed this over to eCOGRA. Again, speculation. So far from what I've seen, no evidence points to this. And I mean evidence - not what people believe could have happened.

There probably were 1000's that did not claim but that is surely due to the time it took in getting the investigation going. Some affs probably gave up entirely after the GP fiasco and never looked back. The 70 odd that did claim are probably current affiliates or whose that cared enough to stick around and wait for a result. It's a shame only 70 claimed and there are probably more affs out there that wish they had claimed when the chance came up.

Unfortunately the claim time was far too short and gave many affs who were out of the picture no chance to even realize there was going to be something done about it.

Do you honestly believe Grand Prive had 1000s of webmasters generating players for them? I don't.

And I'm pretty sure everyone who would have laid claim to a case was notified. CAP sent an announcement to their database of 10,000 webmasters or so. I sent one out to all of my members. I'm pretty sure AGD and the GPWA followed suit. And last but not least, GP sent one out to their affiliate database as well.

Lastly, I'm not defending anyone here. I'm merely trying to keep the information as factual as possible with the GP situation. Too much melodrama has obscured this issue, fingers have been pointed at the wrong people, and the ones who are paying for it are the affiliates themselves.

Spear says he's gathering more information. More power to him - hopefully more light can be shed on this. But I seriously doubt anything will. Just my opinion.