Full Tilt Poker affiliate complaint

[GaryWatson]

Give a newbie sope hope. I found the site under the assumption that you cover genuine complaints.

I followed your posting rules so I cannot post without clearing it through you.

Although you have been active since, I have had no response to my PM's. That is fine, Im sure you are busy.

Could you please respond whether or not I can post my very valid complain against a very prominent site. And if not why?

[Casinomeister]

Originally Posted by GaryWatson

Give a newbie sope hope. I found the site under the assumption that you cover genuine complaints.

I followed your posting rules so I cannot post without clearing it through you.

Although you have been active since, I have had no response to my PM's. That is fine, Im sure you are busy.

Could you please respond whether or not I can post my very valid complain against a very prominent site. And if not why?

Go ahead and post, but show some patience. You PMd me yesterday (Friday) twice at around 4 PM. I was literally swamped at that time and the last thing that was on my agenda was to run over to 2+2 to read some thread about Full Tilt Poker. Like most normal people, I don't work weekends.

[GaryWatson]

Sorry Casinomeister. I was posting out of frustration with Full Tilt. I should have kept my head down & soaked it up for a week but their scamming just got to me yesterday. OK ill go through it.

On February, I was reccomended to sign up as an affiliate under Full Tilt. Big mistake. Since then I have introduced 55 players/20+ real money players

On march I picked up a player. looking at the stats. I saw that he only produced $30 in rake but cost me more in transaction fees. This confused me as he was a penny rake player. I guessed he made a large deposit but I contacted full tilt just to check & give me a breakdown of the charge. No response which I have since come to expect as the norm.

Awaiting march payment, it never appeared. I checked my stats. On the day of payment a $460 charge had been thrown in on top of the charges the player had already cost me. It was deemed a fraud charge. Now as I am only charged 20% of the actual cost of the fraud to Full tilt, this was a fraud of $460 x 5 = $2300.

I consider $2300 fraud as pretty significant. To cut a long story short it was explained that it was my fault for allowing the player to click on one of my banners from the WWW

I asked for further information. I was ignored several times in email untill I got this response..

Hi,

We can remove the player XXXXXXX who is the reason that deductions were made to your account. We can remove this player from your account therefore the charge will be removed and you will get the commission generated by the rest of your players.

If we do remove this player then we will not be adding them again in the future when their fradualent activity stops.



Best Regards

KXXXX

The Affiliate Team at Full Tilt Poker

OK, I thought this was an odd response. It is basically stating that Full Tilt allowing a $2300 fraudulent player to continue on their site but I had no other option but to accept the loss of the player to receive my affiliate payments from the other players I had aquired. I never received payment. I foolishly decided to sweep it under the carpet and give Full Tilt another chance.

Although the player fees are a bit questionable to say the least, I received my april payment. the same players give me about 4 times the value at other sites. I can question their calculations of rake and deductions but that is a whole different case.

Now this same player is still on my books. I have acccepted that they delete the player so they could receive 100% of the rake that he brought in so I just assumed that although his name still appeared on my list, the fact that he had no transactions over April & May that the account was no longer there.

So again I am waiting for May's payment.$400 was deducted. I had checked the stats the previous day so I was a bit surprised. Low and behold this same player had appeared on my active player stats again. No player activity other than a $400 fraud deduction. Again that is a $2000 fraud.

My problen with this issue

1) Player fraud but no explaination as to what the fraud was about

2) The email clearly indicating that the fraud was not fraudulent enough for full tilt to close the players account.

3) For Mays fraud charge, the player was no longer on my affiliate program

4) not once did Full Tilt contact me to tell me of the deduction or that there was irregular activity reguarding one of my players

5) after committting a $2300 fraud, the player was allowed to commit a further $2000 fraud 2 months after Full Tilts own detection

Yes I am suggesting that Full Tilt are running a scam affiliate program.

If any site is going to run poker bots on their site it will be a dishonest one. I consider Full Tilt in that catagory. The site uses Blackhat SEO techniques, they scam their affiliates. Who knows how they are extracting money from the players, over and above the rake they are collecting?

[vinylweatherman]

Looks like affiliates are an extension of the blackhat SEO, in effect, free advertising, and affiliates do all the hard work and get hit with a raft of questionable deductions so they do not receive what they expect.

They are having a laugh at your expense when suggesting it is somehow "your fault" that they were able to click through on your banner. Did YOU single handedly design the HTML protocols?, did you program Windows? Are you offering your own web browser for download? if your answers are in the negative, then is isn't "your fault".
THEY seem happy for this player to continue their "fraud", so it can't be that bad, and if Full Tilt were REALLY being scammed out of 5x what they deduct from your account this player would have been given the size 12 boot ages ago.
Maybe this player IS running bots, but is generating so much rake that Full Tilt can still make a profit even though other players are being played by a potential bot.
I have seen this specific allegation elsewhere, that less reputable sites will turn a "blind eye" to small time bot operations provided it does not have a negative effect on the site's profits from rake (perhaps by driving other players away).

[pokeraddict]

You might want to post this at Poker Affiliate World. This seems odd and maybe others there have had an experience with this. You say your players generate more on other networks. There is a reason for this. Full Tilt deducts the following from MGR:

1. Deposit fees

2. Items bought in the store with player points

3. Tournaments entered into with player points

4. Overlay in guaranteed tournaments

5. Overlay on freeroll, including Iron Man

6. Any bonus

[GaryWatson]

Yes, this is the statement that proves to me that Full Tilt Poker are running a large scale scam. For me its only dollars. I can brush it aside and walk away from a crooked site.

If we do remove this player then we will not be adding them again in the future when their fradualent activity stops.

Yes, they have blatently conned me & the affiliate team are either stupid or dont care wether I know it or not.

It is theft. They have stole free advertizing on my sites and the proceed that go along with it.

They are a party to what they consider fraud. As such they have as good as admitted they are fraudulent.

I am not a big fish. There is very little I can do about it other than walk away. Those who certify them as legit dont care as long as Full Tilt pay their certification fees.

I am not the first, and I wont be the last person Full Tilt steals from. I have explained the situation to a few members who couldnt get their money out quick enough. I do not have the time or the inclination to go on a crusade agaist a site like Full Tilt. I will just explain that their dishonesty is likely to be far reaching so beware of leaving money in Full Tilt.

I have done my time with them. Case closed. Anyone considering affiliating or playing at the site, I suggest you think carefully and just remember this statement...

If we do remove this player then we will not be adding them again in the future when their fradualent activity stops.



Best Regards

KXXXX

The Affiliate Team at Full Tilt Poker

[pokeraddict]

You certainly would not be the first affiliate that did not promote them due to their affiliate department policies and issues. If you don't like how a poker room is run don't support them. It's the only way they can learn.

[phynqster]

My reading of what they are doing is, giving you the option of removing the player, but if they collect the money back, NSF, Charge Back, than they will not give you the credit if they collect.

[GaryWatson]

They recorded the player as Fraudulent. This was nothing to do with chargebacks or player fees which is a different catagory.

I accepted that they remove the player to release thge funds on the other players that month.

I would assume that a site who promotes their high levels of security would automatically close a fraudulent account as would any legit site.

My funds were not released for the other players.

2 months later, the same player another $2000 fraud. Now this time was even stranger as the player had shown no activity on his account through april or may. On the day of payment (mid June) the player appears again added to May's active players. A $2000 fraud with no player activity on his account.

It look more like the full tilt affiliate team cooking the books to avoid releasing affiliate payments.

Not only this. They have not bothered to respond to any e-mails reguarding this issue. I would assume that if there was any irregular activity on an account they would at least offer an affiliate an explaination. The above message has been the only resonse or correspondance I have receivrd from them other that their daily promo spamming.

The above e-mail clearly indicates that they allow fraudulent account to continue. If it was a bot, It would have shown up by the level of rake. The rake generated from this player was only $37.40

The cost of his fraud was

$460 x 5 = $2300 in March
$400 x 5 = $2000 in May

The players fees/chargebacks were $32.68
Bonuses paid to player = $12

My total balance for this one player

(minus)$467.28 in March
(minus)$400 in May

Total balance = (minus) $867.28

Now I cannot come to a conclusion that makes Full Tilt anything other that a scam site. The fact that they do not bother to respond to my emails lead me to beleive that it is a scam on Full Tilts side. I highly doubt this player was indeed involved in fraudulent activity and if he was, Full Tilt are in breach.

Now as the player conducted a $2000 fraud in May and had no player activity . I can only come to the assumption that it was chip dumping. If he had already done this for $2300 on March and got caught, why was the account allowed to remain open 2 months after detection so he could do a further $2000 fraud on the same account?

[The Ronin]

If he had already done this for $2300 on March and got caught, why was the account allowed to remain open 2 months after detection so he could do a further $2000 fraud on the same account?

That is the $64,000 question! Also, after you requested they drop the player from you, why did they turn around the next month, and add him back to your affiliate account, charging you again for the "fraud"?

This seems extremely odd, especially since full tilt has such a strong brand name, with almost every "pro" wearing their gear all over the TV.

I hope this works out for you, and all other full tilt affiliates, I am also taking a serious second look at promoting them.