We are sorry to learn that we have been removed from the Accredited Section, since the Casinomeister Forum has always been of a high priority to us and so far all problems have been resolved in a timely manner or are currently being investigated. We constantly monitor the Forum and deal with whatever issues in the threads and all questions and queries. We absolutely care. However, in this particular case, we do feel that things have been blown out of proportion. We believe this is partly down to ourselves as communication could have been better. Early in the thread, we found ourselves in quite a complicated situation when dealing with the spam complaints didn’t seem to be enough. We had players dictating terms and suitable punishments for Affiliates. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Punishments for Affiliates will be decided in-house, not on the Casinomeister Forum, and it has escalated in such a way that we would like to take this opportunity to reiterate certain points.
Starting with the fact that we have clear T&C’s in place. The Affiliates that were in breach of these T&C’s have been contacted and reprimanded and commission will be withheld. On top of that, an urgent newsletter has gone out to all of our Affiliates reiterating our rules, regulations and principles regarding communication, mailers and how to avoid spam at any time.
All Affiliates involved have been contacted and advised to change their marketing strategy. The players have been removed from their mailing lists, even though one account was able to show proof of the opt-in time and date. Currently, the other two affiliates have been provided with a deadline. These two affiliates have been told to stop sending traffic and we have absolutely no problem with closing these two individual accounts if they cannot provide us with proof of opt-in. This is a T&C that we feel strongly about.
On a separate note, we have claimed the casumooffers.co.uk domain and shut down the website as the affiliate was not following our T&C’s.
Although quiet in this thread, we have not been sat around idly; we know our responsibilities being licenced by the UKGC and MGA. We do not take spam or misleading information lightly and we are in fact taking action behind the scenes.
This entire situation has made us feel quite helpless, since we feel we have taken all the proper steps. Decisions have been discussed on a company wide level and actions have been taken accordingly. As a matter of fact, there have been instances of us closing Affiliates down for shady advertising, but we will not discuss this on a player forum. We need to follow strict rules, since this can be quite a tricky and sensitive matter. Once we are notified of an Affiliate breaking the rules, we will internally decide on the repercussions and we will not have this decision be made for us by the Forum members. Punishments range from a warning and a fine (withholding commission for example) to complete closure of the account. Needless to say that the type of punishment depends on the severity of the offence, the affiliate’s track history (repeated offender or not) and a range of other factors.
We are of course happy to assist with any player issues, whether they are spam related or not, but we will refuse to be dragged into a public debate on suitable punishments for affiliates.