Casumo Affiliate Spam Problem

[trancemonkey]

Hi Colin,

Whilst we appreciate your help with pointing out shady practices to us, I think in some parts of your previous post you are being a bit silly. The affiliate mentioned above is ASA compliant however we agree that his marketing strategy could be altered to help out the players user experience.

Each picture does state that terms and conditions apply, they are not advertising wager free bonuses as you well know.

He is posting real life wins and not fake wins, at no point does he state this was the game that the jackpot was won on. Again this could be construed as confusing, but it is compliant. We are not going to close an account down for confusing but compliant. We have however asked the affiliate to keep the games relevant to the wins for clarity in future.

With regards to casumoffers.co.uk this was seized by us in January, of course this does not mean it is us because the URL is still listed, again you know this.

Sometimes affiliates can have hundreds of pages and an oversight like this can happen, we have alerted the affiliate they must change this to reflect the truth and they are in the process of doing this. Thank you for finding that.

Best Regards

As someone who works in this industry, i find this answer concerning... Misleading players is NOT compliant under UKGC guidelines - it might be under ASA rules ( i doubt it ) but it is NOT under UKGC rules - i wonder what they would say if they were to see this reply...

I love Casumo, i think it's a great site - but you seem to be getting worse and worse, and the excuses more and more lame... Fine, CM might not be seen by every player in the world, so maybe you don't care that much about what players on here think, but to excuse this type of misleading behaviour is wrong, and this kind of thing is exactly the kind of story like the Daily Mail would love to run a headline about:

ONLINE CASINOS MISLEAD PLAYERS INTO SIGNING UP

Whilst i do agree that some people in this thread seem to be going out of their way to find bad affiliates (and it must be hard to keep on top of them all) - if you were stricter from the get-go, you wouldn't have this problem. Do they bring in so much revenue that you can kind-of turn a blind eye to it?

I spend so much time defending our industry on here, sometimes to no avail, but then to see a post which is almost excusing this type of misleading behaviour (i appreciate you have asked them to change it) is wrong...

And also, to be honest, i would very much imagine that misleading people WOULD be against ASA standards...

 

[CasumoAffiliates]

As someone who works in this industry, i find this answer concerning... Misleading players is NOT compliant under UKGC guidelines - it might be under ASA rules ( i doubt it ) but it is NOT under UKGC rules - i wonder what they would say if they were to see this reply...

I love Casumo, i think it's a great site - but you seem to be getting worse and worse, and the excuses more and more lame... Fine, CM might not be seen by every player in the world, so maybe you don't care that much about what players on here think, but to excuse this type of misleading behaviour is wrong, and this kind of thing is exactly the kind of story like the Daily Mail would love to run a headline about:

ONLINE CASINOS MISLEAD PLAYERS INTO SIGNING UP

Whilst i do agree that some people in this thread seem to be going out of their way to find bad affiliates (and it must be hard to keep on top of them all) - if you were stricter from the get-go, you wouldn't have this problem. Do they bring in so much revenue that you can kind-of turn a blind eye to it?

I spend so much time defending our industry on here, sometimes to no avail, but then to see a post which is almost excusing this type of misleading behaviour (i appreciate you have asked them to change it) is wrong...

And also, to be honest, i would very much imagine that misleading people WOULD be against ASA standards...

Thank you for your balanced answer, I am glad you find Casumo to be a good operator with a few issues and not vice versa.

I do agree that this could be confusing for players, which is why we have asked them to change the style of advertising. We are not burying our heads in the sand here, we want to fix the issues and we know this has gone on for too long.

I do think this is an industry issue and not just a Casumo issue, although we are in the spotlight here taking a beating next week it could quite easily be another operator.

However my job is to concentrate on Casumo and try to fix this.

I should probably take this opportunity to tell you we have been working hard on T&C updates for all affiliates, these will be announced in the near future once legal have gone over them.

We expect these to reduce player complaints

 

[colinsunderland]

Hi Colin,

Whilst we appreciate your help with pointing out shady practices to us, I think in some parts of your previous post you are being a bit silly. The affiliate mentioned above is ASA compliant however we agree that his marketing strategy could be altered to help out the players user experience.

Each picture does state that terms and conditions apply, they are not advertising wager free bonuses as you well know.

With respect, that is not at all true, I have put screenshots of the full adverts and linked directly to them above. Nowhere do they state terms and conditions apply at all. As for being ASA compliant, here are the actual guidelines from

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Significant conditions or limitations must always be prominently displayed within the main body of an advert. Eligibility restrictions, deposit requirements, the detail of wagering requirements, restricted odds/games, and withdrawal limits are likely to be considered significant. Our advice would be: if unsure, include it.

If time or space is genuinely limited (for example, a very small pop-up banner on a third party website) then these conditions must be made available within one click.

Not a single significant condition is listed on the first advert, and on the second, the only one is 'new players only'. Space is not limited on a facebook adverts, at least certainly not to the extent that some T&C's couldn't be listed, or even 'T&C apply', but even if you argue that, they aren't available within one click. They aren't even available within one click of the landing page. I find it extremely unlikely they are ASA compliant.

He is posting real life wins and not fake wins, at no point does he state this was the game that the jackpot was won on. Again this could be construed as confusing, but it is compliant. We are not going to close an account down for confusing but compliant. We have however asked the affiliate to keep the games relevant to the wins for clarity in future.

That is pretty weak. The first url ends in casumo-starburst-latest-big-win/, the second casumo-twin-spins-big-win/, both pages have a counter that goes to £277000 under pictures of each game respectively. Looking at the directory on his server he also has same pages for different games. Nowhere does he state the win doesn't apply to the game shown. I would suggest it is misleading at best, rather than confusing.
How about I create a page with a url ending /casumo-casino-steals-money-from-players, then as the page have a large picture of your homepage, with a counter running up to £1000000, then text underneath stating 'This is the amount of money stolen so far'. Would you be ok with that, if when you contacted me, I stated, I haven't actually said which casino stole the money?

With regards to casumoffers.co.uk this was seized by us in January, of course this does not mean it is us because the URL is still listed, again you know this.

Sometimes affiliates can have hundreds of pages and an oversight like this can happen, we have alerted the affiliate they must change this to reflect the truth and they are in the process of doing this. Thank you for finding that.

These are adverts that have been created in the past week, and they don't have hundreds of pages. At least they were updated yesterday to show the content was written by them rather than you. As this was pointed out to you a while back though, I find it hard to believe it was an oversight, this was still showing as casumooffers on all their pages up until yesterday.

 

[colinsunderland]

As someone who works in this industry, i find this answer concerning... Misleading players is NOT compliant under UKGC guidelines - it might be under ASA rules ( i doubt it ) but it is NOT under UKGC rules - i wonder what they would say if they were to see this reply...

I love Casumo, i think it's a great site - but you seem to be getting worse and worse, and the excuses more and more lame... Fine, CM might not be seen by every player in the world, so maybe you don't care that much about what players on here think, but to excuse this type of misleading behaviour is wrong, and this kind of thing is exactly the kind of story like the Daily Mail would love to run a headline about:

ONLINE CASINOS MISLEAD PLAYERS INTO SIGNING UP

Whilst i do agree that some people in this thread seem to be going out of their way to find bad affiliates (and it must be hard to keep on top of them all) - if you were stricter from the get-go, you wouldn't have this problem. Do they bring in so much revenue that you can kind-of turn a blind eye to it?

I spend so much time defending our industry on here, sometimes to no avail, but then to see a post which is almost excusing this type of misleading behaviour (i appreciate you have asked them to change it) is wrong...

And also, to be honest, i would very much imagine that misleading people WOULD be against ASA standards...

thanks for that, I agree with everything you say, but can I just point out, in case it was directed at me, I'm not going out of my way to find bad affiliates. The adverts pop up on my facebook newsfeed, and its only the really bad ones that appear multiple times a day I have mentioned. Regarding the emails, I could post up another dozen I have had, for casumo, in the last week alone, I only post an email if I have had the same one on multiple occasions or I am 100% sure the email address they are using has been stolen from somewhere or given out by another company. If its a one off then I just delete them. This isn't limited to casumo, I have posted emails from LeoVegas affiliates, Videoslots affiliates, and I think Verajohn a while back too. I have asked for proof of opt in for 4 mailing lists from casumo so far, and been provided with none. The difference between them all is, other casinos actually take action against the affiliates, casumo defend them, as you can see from Alex's post today.

I also think casumo are a good casino, if they would sort their dodgy affiliates out I wouldn't have a problem with them at all, I said earlier in the thread they were in my top 3 casinos to play with.

 

[trancemonkey]

Thank you for your balanced answer, I am glad you find Casumo to be a good operator with a few issues and not vice versa.

I do agree that this could be confusing for players, which is why we have asked them to change the style of advertising. We are not burying our heads in the sand here, we want to fix the issues and we know this has gone on for too long.

I do think this is an industry issue and not just a Casumo issue, although we are in the spotlight here taking a beating next week it could quite easily be another operator.

However my job is to concentrate on Casumo and try to fix this.

I should probably take this opportunity to tell you we have been working hard on T&C updates for all affiliates, these will be announced in the near future once legal have gone over them.

We expect these to reduce player complaints

I wholeheartedly agree it's an industry issue... Which is why you need to stand out like Trada do and make sure when it comes to Casumo you are Whiter than white because eventually (although we might all be dead by then!) something will have to change and regulators will have to step in. It will probably come through a court case of someone taking a casino to court over an advert like the ones mentioned.

Don't be that casino....

 

[trancemonkey]

Advice to Casumo

Here's a simple term to add to your affiliate T and C...

"Any advert which is found to deliberately mislead or confuse through the use of images, texts, URLs or any other method, or adverts which do not contain a link to the Terms and Conditions of the offer(s) described will be dealt with by way of a warning for a first offence and the advert in breach must be removed within 24 hours of notification by us. Any further breaches of this clause will result in immediate termination of your account and all monies owing to you regardless of whether one or more adverts were found in breach be withheld permanently."

 

[trancemonkey]

thanks for that, I agree with everything you say, but can I just point out, in case it was directed at me, I'm not going out of my way to find bad affiliates. The adverts pop up on my facebook newsfeed, and its only the really bad ones that appear multiple times a day I have mentioned. Regarding the emails, I could post up another dozen I have had, for casumo, in the last week alone, I only post an email if I have had the same one on multiple occasions or I am 100% sure the email address they are using has been stolen from somewhere or given out by another company. If its a one off then I just delete them. This isn't limited to casumo, I have posted emails from LeoVegas affiliates, Videoslots affiliates, and I think Verajohn a while back too. I have asked for proof of opt in for 4 mailing lists from casumo so far, and been provided with none. The difference between them all is, other casinos actually take action against the affiliates, casumo defend them, as you can see from Alex's post today.

I also think casumo are a good casino, if they would sort their dodgy affiliates out I wouldn't have a problem with them at all, I said earlier in the thread they were in my top 3 casinos to play with.

Well, maybe i worded it badly - i was trying (and failing) to say that people seem to be going out of their way to bombard Alex with new spam campaigns almost every day on here - i think we can now all agree that Casumo (and not just Casumo, but this thread is about them) have a problem they need to get on top of. I would suggest we give them 14 days to get their house in order (seems like a reasonable time to me), and if we are still getting them after that, then we can start adding the spam to this thread again...

Just my 2p worth anyway...

 

[colinsunderland]

I forgot to mention this in my last post, but I completely agree its an industry wide problem. It ranges from the casino themselves being misleading, down to some affiliates lying, being completely dishonest, and pure spam.

The difference is how a casino deals with the problems. Due to the amount of money involved, affiliates will spam. That is the simple fact of the matter, especially when you have casinos who let them. However, if a casino closed accounts, or withheld a months payment everytime there was a spam complaint that couldn't be shown was fake by way of providing a legitimate opt in, the problem would massively slow down.

Some casinos are clearly ok with spamming (and not pointing fingers here, this isn't just casumo) due to the amount of business it brings in. Others are not ok, and in my view, you can tell that from spam you get. SkyBet/Vegas etc are extremely strict on spammers, and close accounts down immediately. I can't remember the last time I got a single bit of spam from a Sky affiliate. Videoslots too, I have had odd bits from their affiliates, but I can count on one hand how many in the past 12 months. All casinos should be strict, and the spam will reduce massively.

As far as adverts go, heres a facebook advert from Rizk, no one can tell me there wasn't room to put T&C's apply in the mobilecasinoclub ones like rizk have done here, and also their landing page. Thats a compliant advert, shows t&c's apply, then one click away, you see the significant terms.

 

[spintee]

Here's a simple term to add to your affiliate T and C...

"Any advert which is found to deliberately mislead or confuse through the use of images, texts, URLs or any other method, or adverts which do not contain a link to the Terms and Conditions of the offer(s) described will be dealt with by way of a warning for a first offence and the advert in breach must be removed within 24 hours of notification by us. Any further breaches of this clause will result in immediate termination of your account and all monies owing to you regardless of whether one or more adverts were found in breach be withheld permanently."

Careful my friend, you will have donover (Unofficial T&C Editor) chasing you for stealing he's job you wouldn't want them gint of hands round your neck I can tell you

A good rule there but I believe theses affiliates are no small fry and bring in many of thousands of players and also the affiliate is closer to the source than we think, I my opinion only there

If this was a couple of small fry affiliates bringing in a few quid a month than we would see a different story such as big ban hammers.

I also have nothing against Casumo as I think its a good site but the dodgy and they are dodgy affiliates that bother me,

 

[trancemonkey]

Careful my friend, you will have donover (Unofficial T&C Editor) chasing you for stealing he's job you wouldn't want them gint of hands round your neck I can tell you

A good rule there but I believe theses affiliates are no small fry and bring in many of thousands of players and also the affiliate is closer to the source than we think, I my opinion only there

If this was a couple of small fry affiliates bringing in a few quid a month than we would see a different story such as big ban hammers.

I also have nothing against Casumo as I think its a good site but the dodgy and they are dodgy affiliates that bother me,

Dunover scares me - so i'll refrain from taking his role from now on... if nothing else, i'm sure he could invent a new swear word to use on me, and i'd probably cower in fear!
It must be a balance for the casinos between needing new player traffic, and how you get it... But there must be ways of doing it without flat out lying/misleading...
I'd be interested to know if anyone has any examples of Trada / Rizk etc.. suffering from similar amounts of affiliate issues...

 

[trancemonkey]

xhttps://www.nativeads365.com/casumo/casumo-outbrainuk/man-played-new-game-three-minutes-later-he-had-ps30000

This link also looks a little loose with the truth....

 

[spintee]

nativeads365.com/casumo/casumo-outbrainuk/man-played-new-game-three-minutes-later-he-had-ps30000

This link also looks a little loose with the truth....

Bollox

Take a look at this link and does the picture remind you of any think

nextlinkhousing.co.uk/irisplus/

 

[spintee]

Surprise Surprise

Now I had alot of mail from this casinochicas? for a number of sites, so this is a blatant affiliate idiot. I have took the time to search casinochicas and they do have a website, I say website but only a poxy fill out form to sign up to a mews letter. no way in my life would I ever sign up to such stupid things and no way do I want to unsub so they than sell my details to casinodikers

 

[colinsunderland]

If you ask Alex for the proof of opt in he will contact the spammers for a copy of it for you.
No doubt when they can't provide it, they will get told off as it will the first time in years they will have ever had a complaint against them.

 

[colinsunderland]

xhttps://www.nativeads365.com/casumo/casumo-outbrainuk/man-played-new-game-three-minutes-later-he-had-ps30000

This link also looks a little loose with the truth....

Well that link is still live and the adverts Alex said he was going to get changed are still live (mobilecasinoclub.co.uk/casumo/new/casumo-starburst-latest-big-win/) still stating casumooffers wrote it and showing starburst etc, so that shows how much casumo care about affiliates lying to get new customers.

 

[Playford7]

It's the same all the time. There is zero decent regulation with online casinos.
This will continue until there is, and we all know it won't happen as long as the money comes in and the people sign up.
Here people have a chance of sorting things, that's great.
What about all the other people who play who don't know casinomeister?..
Its all about money and imcome, this place included.
Needs a proper regulatory body, as it is now not a single online casino I'd have 100% faith in.

 

[CasumoAffiliates]

Surprise Surprise

Now I had alot of mail from this casinochicas? for a number of sites, so this is a blatant affiliate idiot. I have took the time to search casinochicas and they do have a website, I say website but only a poxy fill out form to sign up to a mews letter. no way in my life would I ever sign up to such stupid things and no way do I want to unsub so they than sell my details to casinodikers



View attachment 80294

View attachment 80295

Hi Spintee,

Could you please direct mail me the tracking link on this email so I can look in to it.

Regards
Stephen

 

[CasumoAffiliates]

xhttps://www.nativeads365.com/casumo/casumo-outbrainuk/man-played-new-game-three-minutes-later-he-had-ps30000

This link also looks a little loose with the truth....

Please point out the parts where you think we are loose with the truth? This is an external company we work with not an affiliate. These articles are 100% correct and true.

Bollox

Take a look at this link and does the picture remind you of any think

nextlinkhousing.co.uk/irisplus/

View attachment 79859

View attachment 79860

Just above the full terms and conditions it does state...

Note: The man picture bears no direct relevance to the article.

I'm not sure how this is relevant, if you clicked on livechat on a site and saw a picture of a lady/man, then it turned out the lady/man did not work there, would you complain?

The stories posted are true, they list T&C, and are compliant.

With regards to the other complaint you posted, thank you I will chase this one up with the affiliate.

 

[Casinomeister]

Personally, I think the use of those type of photos (Note: The man pictured bears no direct relation to the article.) like this is just crap advertising, but it doesn't bear any relevance to the veracity of the casino. It just shows that a lot of lazy affiliates have a lack of imagination or photography skills.

 

[spintee]

That poor man most likely got paid £50 for he's photo, not thinking he would be plastered all over the internet with the most imaginary stories heard about.

Should of read the small print

 

[dunover]

Dunover scares me - so i'll refrain from taking his role from now on... if nothing else, i'm sure he could invent a new swear word to use on me, and i'd probably cower in fear!
It must be a balance for the casinos between needing new player traffic, and how you get it... But there must be ways of doing it without flat out lying/misleading...
I'd be interested to know if anyone has any examples of Trada / Rizk etc.. suffering from similar amounts of affiliate issues...

This whole matter needs referring to the ICO in my opinion. Clearly Casumo and Casino Rewards use the same marketing morons that are making pathetic attempts at viral advertising. I mean a £45 bet? If you play all 10 lines at Casumo's maximum bet you pay £50, you can't even play the pissing game for £45 unless you drop a line and play 9 lines at £5 which you wouldn't do if you could afford £45 a spin, and then reduce your free games winnings by 10%.

My bullshit meter has gone red again....

 

[spintee]

This whole matter needs referring to the ICO in my opinion. Clearly Casumo and Casino Rewards use the same marketing morons that are making pathetic attempts at viral advertising. I mean a £45 bet? If you play all 10 lines at Casumo's maximum bet you pay £50, you can't even play the pissing game for £45 unless you drop a line and play 9 lines at £5 which you wouldn't do if you could afford £45 a spin, and then reduce your free games winnings by 10%.

My bullshit meter has gone red again....

I would normally feel bad against a casino by now due to all the negative but in my eyes casumo has not done much to stop it, in fact the opposite and the truth of the matter is that they have been defending the culprits and defend the actions

Casino's do not like it when there servers get overloaded but perfectly ok in there eyes to overload our inbox, Yes casumo is not the only one's but one of the worst especially for a decent outfit, I rarely use social media and things so do not see all the top selling stories but what I have seen people post than they have to be up there with some of the worst

Out of interest has anybody meet the guys from casumo?

 

[colinsunderland]

Please point out the parts where you think we are loose with the truth? This is an external company we work with not an affiliate. These articles are 100% correct and true.

xxhttps://www.nativeads365.com/casumo/casumo-outbrainuk/man-comes-home-work-wins-ps28-million-ps215-spin

from the article above, how was he playing £2.15 a spin on a game with 25 lines, that can't be changed?

Notice you didn't comment on my post a few posts back.

https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/casumo-affiliate-spam-problem.78519/

 

[Playford7]

xxhttps://www.nativeads365.com/casumo/casumo-outbrainuk/man-comes-home-work-wins-ps28-million-ps215-spin

from the article above, how was he playing £2.15 a spin on a game with 25 lines, that can't be changed?

Notice you didn't comment on my post a few posts back.

https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/casumo-affiliate-spam-problem.78519/

Casumo are also plastered all over the site 'listverse' with dubious adverts and stories.

 

[trancemonkey]

xxhttps://www.nativeads365.com/casumo/casumo-outbrainuk/man-comes-home-work-wins-ps28-million-ps215-spin

from the article above, how was he playing £2.15 a spin on a game with 25 lines, that can't be changed?

Notice you didn't comment on my post a few posts back.

https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/casumo-affiliate-spam-problem.78519/

I was just about to say the same thing - these stories are all made up... and without ANY thought for whether they are even real or not, they lie about the bet size!
You CANNOT bet 2.15 on MFD - it's impossible.

I challenge you to give an ounce of proof as to the truthfulness of any of the stories you post - there may be some truth in them, but the "facts" don't add up.

So, to answer CasumoAffiliates question earlier - i admit that in the ad i posted, there was little that i could find to prove it's not true. But in the others on that site, there is plenty. If it went to court, i'm guessing you'd struggle to prove either the Book of Ra or Mega Fortune Dreams information...