GoWild affiliate issue: zero payments

[hayskane]

Hello!

My journey as GoWild affiliate started on February, 2016. I was streaming slots on live streaming platform called Twitch. I got an message from GoWild affiliate account manager on twitch while streaming.
He asked me if I ever had thought about working as an affiliate for any casino. After long chit-chat I was super excited about being an affiliate for GoWild.
At first I thought this could be some sort of scam or something but after the account manager sent me materials and URLs on email from where I can apply for affiliate account I was pretty confident that this is real thing.
The manager told me everything about what CPA and RS are and how they work etc. His recommendation for me was the CPA deal because of new affiliates wants to see result and income faster than the RS deal. I was open for everything so I accepted to go for the CPA deal.

chat-logs from the manager:

I would suggest we go for the CPA deal, simply because it allows you to see some money fast

the 40 eur CPA that is actual money that gets paid once a month in your bank account

you would need to reach a minimum of 200 euro before we can release payment but this is not dependent on time

One last thing we will give you this deal (40 EUR CPA for first 10 FTD's) for the follwoing countries: Finland, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Germany


So I set-up my Twitch page with all the affiliate register links etc and streamed with them for like 2 or 3 months more or less. Ads for GoWild were up on my page and livestream even when I was playing other games than
casino slots. Twitch livestream system works like that you can choose the broadcast language which I ofcourse choose to be Finnish to get viewers from Finland. They asked me ALOT about "if the casino is legit to register and play". I told them that it is completely legit and I got alot new signups for promoting their casino even when not playing on their site.

I made 120€ on the first month (3 new FTD customers) and 240€ (6 new FTD customers) on the second month, making total of 360€. So after the second month when I reached the minimum payment amount which was set
to 200€ I had made 160€ over the minimum amount, total of 360€.


Then was the first day for me that I should have got paid my affiliate moneys that I had made by promoting and advertising the casino, I received an email saying:

Our internal finance and fraud vetting system has detected irregular activity patterns with customers originating from your traffic sources and as such, our Finance team is currently investigating.
As a result of this, payments will be postponed until this check is complete.

Should this be the only type of traffic you can send I would advise you to stop sending any future sign ups.


When I received this email I went to the manager and asked him what does this basically mean and he replied:

Hey there, the reason you got that email was because our Finance team will look into the players that came from your trackers to establish that they are legitimate players.
This is something that we do for 90% of our CPA deals. until that check is complete any earnings due to you will be placed on hold


Since I was new to the affiliate things I was just fine with it and told him that I wait for the next month, when their finance team is complete with the check.

I waited for ____3 months___ for their finance team to complete the check and no one ever contacted me about the result or anything so I reached the manager one more time to ask about
how long does it usually take for the finance team to check the things that they do.
I got an answer that made me feel like that the person I am talking to, is trying to hint me that their company is accusing me of cheating against their affiliate system????

Hi there, so I had an extensive chat with our finance team and I have also looked at the activity reports for your players. WHat they found is that all of those who deposited baiscally made one single deposit and then never gambled anything This is non gaming traffic at best (although they said it looks suspicious) and we do not pay for such type of traffic. I mean if I had 10 friends and gave them 20 euro each to deposit so I can make 50 euro on each of them- that would be considered as unqualified traffic. I will keep you posted if I hear anything new

After that I have been messaging him couple of times but he never talks back.

I dont get it how can they just say "your customers are not active enough". How many people deposits on casino after they lose their first deposit and if they got no good bonuses on their accounts? I doubt many will..

All in short: Im new to this and I want to know if this is legal or something but I feel really scammed. Its been 6months when I got my first customers from twitch and Ive had 0 payments from them just saying "your customers are not active players".

Thank you all!

w/ best regards,

Hayskane

 

[dunover]

I have never taken any affiliate accounts on CPA, always RS. You were misadvised as unless you have a huge exposure CPA is seldom worth it as it's a one-off fee and you don't get lifetime revenue for those players. Funnily enough this week I worked out that for the last 6 months IF all my deals had been CPA I would have taken home less than 20% of what I have (at 40 euros per sign-up).

So, the guy is suspicious that your sign-ups were 'non players' was he? Based on 9 players? Let me tell you about 80% of my sign-ups have either not deposited at all or just put a minimum £10 in to get a £60 bonus etc. and not deposited again. It's a small minority of players who regularly deposit after signing-up and earn regular money for you.

For this fool to tell you your sign-ups were 'suspicious' based on 9 players is ludicrous. More like he worked out that the net revenue from them wasn't enough to cover your 360 euros and he reneged on the deal.

 

[Jasminebed]

You should contact the forum rep https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/members/

If she is unable to help you, or if you are not satisfied with her response, you can take advantage of the Player Arbitration. Please read all the rules and the FAQ. There have been recent changes, but this service used to be available to affiliates as well.

 

[KasinoKing]

I never take CPA deals - far too short-term and there is always the risk of being accused of "cheating".
It's rev-share only for me.

Go Wild are a good company, and I hope this works out OK for the OP.

KK

 

[vinylweatherman]

This sounds odd, it's as though he is saying they didn't even play the first deposit they made, not that they played the welcome bonus and didn't return, which is very common.

Affiliates have no real control over the traffic they send no more than shops can control who ONLY buys milk at £1 for 4 pints off the back of a loss leader ad campaign designed to get people into the local shop as opposed to the supermarket.

The initial approach sounds pretty dodgy too, especially as it was followed by bad advice designed to manipulate the OP into taking the CPA deal by highlighting the "money up front" benefits and glossing over the very poor long term return, which would have been a better option for someone who had a following on Twitch based on live streaming slots play.

I am wondering if this was a middle man, another affiliate on RS who tried subcontracting lead generation via offering a naive Twitch streamer €40 for each player sent, and who then reneged on the deal because the first 9 players didn't convert to repeat depositors.

Given the bad behaviour of some affiliates in general, mostly spamming with highly misleading content, not to mention hacking of wordpress websites to make them advertise casinos when accessed via Google, I wouldn't put this type of trickery past the dodgy affiliate.

Maybe a warning to others who are approached by "affiliate managers" via unorthodox channels, who then take their business advice from the person selling them the deal, hardly independent advice!

 

[Gia - GoWild]

Hi all,

Thank you for your post Hayskane and thank you all for taking the time to give your feedback.

We have been in touch with the AM and I can relate the following:

The situation has been amply detailed several times to the respective affiliate. The Account Manager has always been in close contact with the Affiliate, and, aside from weekends, questions and queries were replied to or followed up on, in no more than 24 hours.

There has been no further communication until this moment, since a) there has been no new request for information by the affiliate, and b) there has been no new information to relate back to him.

As we advised the affiliate, his players will be monitored and, if there is any further activity which would lead us to determine that the players referred are legitimate, we will be more than happy to process the payment.

It is in our best interest to pay our affiliates and ensure healthy revenue streams irrespective of the type of deal we have in place with them. At the same time however, we hope everybody understands that Affiliate Managers, being bound by their respective T&C's are obligated to postpone payments irrespective of the number of sign ups, reward plan etc. when irregular activity is detected.

 

[hayskane]

Thank you for your respond Gia.

What will happen now if something does happen?

Am I the one who gets punished for the AM misleading "recommendations" about that I should get new customers via twitch, that registers and makes a FTD instead of trying to get new people that plays actively on the casino over and over again, thinking about long-term income from the affiliate deal?

If we had a RS deal ofcourse I would've obviously given 110% more from myself to get the new customers play alot and actively, no doubt about that. But since the deal was chosen to be CPA deal (which the AM recommended for me for FASTER income) I had mentality that Im fine by just getting new signups and hopefully some FTD's too. As soon I hit the 200€ mark casino just pulls everything back telling me that all customers you got was not legit. Like.... is this for real??

I was so excited about getting chances towards the casino affiliate life but this first affiliate deal makes me feel like its so complicated and casinos can easily "scam" newcomers on the affiliate scene..



w/ best regards,

Hayskane

 

[Simmo!]

CPA vs Revshare - there's the lesson here. I'd suggest you never, ever do CPA on casino as you'll rarely find a balance where both the affiliate and the program are happy. Even if the program offer you a silly CPA amount, don't do it because it will never be straightforward and only serves to damage relationships.

Revsare is fairer and it's easy to deal with, more transparent and over time (if your traffic is half-decent) more profitable.

 

[hayskane]

CPA vs Revshare - there's the lesson here. I'd suggest you never, ever do CPA on casino as you'll rarely find a balance where both the affiliate and the program are happy. Even if the program offer you a silly CPA amount, don't do it because it will never be straightforward and only serves to damage relationships.

Revsare is fairer and it's easy to deal with, more transparent and over time (if your traffic is half-decent) more profitable.

So basically the AM could've been thinking about fooling and "hiring" me only for free advertisement from the beginning? He knew exactly which deal to suggest for me and he knew Im completely new to the Affiliate scene and when comes the day they should pay they just dump me for whatever reasons? Cool!

 

[Simmo!]

So basically the AM could've been thinking about fooling and "hiring" me only for free advertisement from the beginning? He knew exactly which deal to suggest for me and he knew Im completely new to the Affiliate scene and when comes the day they should pay they just dump me for whatever reasons? Cool!

To be honest, if you have a Twitch channel that lands you 5-10 players a month, I wouldn't worry about this too much: put it down to experience, find a decent rev-share deal and send new players to that. You'll find just one half-decent player (IE: not a bonus hunter!) on a rev-share model will earn you what you are disputing here on average anyway.

Do your research first obviously: there are several affiliate forums that will give you some help on this.

 

[dunover]

So basically the AM could've been thinking about fooling and "hiring" me only for free advertisement from the beginning? He knew exactly which deal to suggest for me and he knew Im completely new to the Affiliate scene and when comes the day they should pay they just dump me for whatever reasons? Cool!

Simply apply for a few affiliate accounts - Trada are very good and pay quicker than all others, maybe a multiplatform like the Rizk/Guts/Betspin program. When you apply you'll need to give the url of your twitch channels and you'll get a simple 25% of net rev each month paid if over 50 and 100 respectively. These will be rev share by default. GoWild totally misadvised you and I would have lost trust in them personally. As Simmo! said, you'll get at least 60-70% 'bonus hunters' and 'free spins sign-ups' but will eventually (or earlier if lucky!) get a few decent retained players.

Most programs know this and won't summarily decide not to pay you on the dubious basis GoWild have.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Hi all,

Thank you for your post Hayskane and thank you all for taking the time to give your feedback.

We have been in touch with the AM and I can relate the following:

The situation has been amply detailed several times to the respective affiliate. The Account Manager has always been in close contact with the Affiliate, and, aside from weekends, questions and queries were replied to or followed up on, in no more than 24 hours.

There has been no further communication until this moment, since a) there has been no new request for information by the affiliate, and b) there has been no new information to relate back to him.

As we advised the affiliate, his players will be monitored and, if there is any further activity which would lead us to determine that the players referred are legitimate, we will be more than happy to process the payment.

It is in our best interest to pay our affiliates and ensure healthy revenue streams irrespective of the type of deal we have in place with them. At the same time however, we hope everybody understands that Affiliate Managers, being bound by their respective T&C's are obligated to postpone payments irrespective of the number of sign ups, reward plan etc. when irregular activity is detected.

Just because a player signs up and only plays the once for the welcome bonus, it's still a "legitimate signup". It is the CASINO that has failed to convince the player to return, not the affiliate. From a players' point of view, one obvious cause is the high value welcome bonus followed with being treated like a second class customer with low value reload bonuses, something that isn't made clear at the point of signing up, and which might make some players believe they have been "dumped" by the casino because they didn't get sent their next mouthwatering 100% offer.

Unless the terms of the deal specify that a player must deposit a certain amount, be a repeat depositor, etc, there is no legal justification to refuse to pay CPA for a player who has fulfilled the definition of "acquired player" as specified in the deal. Under CPA, affiliates agree to take a small up front payment for each player rather than a longer term revenue share deal. The affiliate takes a smaller low risk up front payment rather than holding out for a higher risk but higher potential payment for snaring regular players, or even the proverbial "whale".

It seems that in this case the casino wants to have it's cake and eat it (so to speak), accepting all the benefit apart from the €40 from the regular players brought in, but not accepting the risk inherent in the CPA idea that the up front payment for a player will actually turn out to be a better deal for the affiliate than the longer term revenue share.

The approach itself also seems rather "spammy", not what one would expect from a reputable company.

 

[Gia - GoWild]

Hello again,

@hayskane

Please note that, as previously mentioned, our affiliate program’s intention is to promptly pay any affiliate for the customers they refer as long as they can verify that the Terms and Conditions the affiliate has agreed to upon signing up his account have been fully honored.

As it has been communicated multiple times, as soon as the relevant departments in our company are able to verify the legitimacy of your players, the payment of your earnings will be released.

The postponement of your earnings has nothing to do with the reward plan you have chosen (CPA) since the same procedure applies to all other reward plans as well (including Revenue Share) whenever the legitimacy of the players you have referred cannot yet be verified.

Our affiliate program’s AMs inform affiliates regarding reward plans as well as the benefits associated with various reward plans in good faith however, the affiliate is the one who chooses which reward plan suits him best and therefore, assumes the responsibility for his choice.

We feel that we have been very clear in our communication both directly and publicly however, if anything is still unclear, one of our AMs will be more than happy to have a call with you and address any concern.

 

[hayskane]

as soon as the relevant departments in our company are able to verify the legitimacy of your players, the payment of your earnings will be released.

The postponement of your earnings has nothing to do with the reward plan you have chosen (CPA) since the same procedure applies to all other reward plans as well (including Revenue Share) whenever the legitimacy of the players you have referred cannot yet be verified.

How long can verification of 9 players take? need their dna or wut? Its been half a year now and I bet my balls that they are not even trying to "verify" them anymore because easy and short way is just to dump the affiliate and forget about it just because you can do it.

If I had RS deal and got 4 customers losing 10k€ each and profiting your casino, I would've gotten my 20k with no problem without a f*cking verifications of the players that lost their money. Its a fact unless you would have just dumped me then with whatever reasons to keep company profit as good as possible.



w/ best regards,
hayskane


E: Sorry for my "aggressive" text but this is really getting under my skin that big companies can just do whatever they can, fooling newbies and so..

 

[vinylweatherman]

The big problem with this is that a genuine player who has taken the SUB and lost, and then decided not to return, is hardly likely to respond to a request for documentation unless they intend to carry on playing. This is their choice, and does not indicate whether or not they are legitimate. The affiliate is also powerless (or should be) to contact these players in order to press them into complying with the verification.

This is very much like witch dunking in the middle ages, if the affiliate DOES manage to contact these players and get them to pass verification, the affiliate is proven guilty BECAUSE they know who the players are and were able to contact them and get them to comply. If the affiliate is innocent, they really cannot do anything themselves to address the issue, but then they get punished as if they were guilty because they don't get paid because they are considered to have attempted affiliate fraud against the program.

 

[hayskane]

Seems like the casino has agreed to take "scammer" badge on their suit Heh.


Im sorry but this is how I feel. Use free advertising and then just back off at payment time :d


great experience from my first affiliate deal !


E: any possibility to open a warning or something for upcoming affiliates on this site so they can beware of their actions about stopping payments because of players are not legitimate?

 

[vinylweatherman]

Seems like the casino has agreed to take "scammer" badge on their suit Heh.


Im sorry but this is how I feel. Use free advertising and then just back off at payment time :d


great experience from my first affiliate deal !


E: any possibility to open a warning or something for upcoming affiliates on this site so they can beware of their actions about stopping payments because of players are not legitimate?

Your own experience has served this purpose, however an "official" warning would only be issued if there was good evidence of systematic wrongdoing within the programme. If there are other complaints about this from other affiliates, it will indicate this is a systematic issue, not merely a one-off where one affiliate has been screwed over simply because the casino claims they sent "poor quality traffic", for which they are not prepared to pay.

Affiliates are classed as a "business", so unfortunately consumer protection laws are not going to be of any use as this will be regarded as a "business to business" matter. You may well have to take them to court, but for such a small amount, and without the protection of consumer laws, it's probably better to ditch this programme and use it as a lesson for the next one you sign up to.

Many here say CPA is a bad idea, despite what they tell you, as it's much more likely to have the casino claim they have been scammed, and thus refuse to pay. Revenue share is better because if you send poor traffic, you won't make money, so it would be in your interests, as well as the casino's interests, to go for quality, not quantity, when promoting the brand.

 

[polli123]

Anyone got payment for April 17 so far?

 

[KasinoKing]

Anyone got payment for April 17 so far?

They won't pay for April until May...
I guess you mean for March - in which case, no I am still waiting.

But as you should know, they are very busy changing a LOT of things right now, so this has probably caused the delay.
It is unusual, as they normally pay VERY early in the month.
What did they say when you chased them?

KK

 

[polli123]

Oops, jea March. Sent the man email.