Leopold's ciritical term view: AffiliStars - A bitter disappointment

**Roulette Zeitung** · 14 June 2014, 10:01 am

In the early days, when the roulette table maximum was introduced, the casino owners said, that it was made to protect the gamblers. The truth: It's a rule to protect the casino!

And the casino affiliate industry?

Terms are not made to protect webmasters. This is as long o.k. as long the webmasters will not outlawed. This industry don't need programs with terms if law will be fatally undermined by them.

I am sorry, but AffiliStars is a role example for undermining civil law and a role example for quota terms, nobody needed in the golden, olden days.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Activity Quota: Yes, If there is no generation of gaming revenue and not traffic for a continuous period of 90 days, the account becomes dormant.

Source: https://www.wmcash24.com/forum/affilista...tml#post758912

This is only half the truth.

The complete term:

4. Affiliate Earnings & Payments

[...]15. Where the arrangement is based on revenue share, if no gaming revenue is generated for a continuous period of 90 days, your account will become dormant. We will issue a warning advising that the funds remaining in your account will be removed and, if no new traffic is sent within the following 30 days, funds remaining in your account will be removed and your account closed.

"if no new traffic is sent within the following 30 days, funds remaining in your account will be removed"

Instead of paying out the revenue share funds remaining in the account, a normal practice amongst serious businessmen, the money will be stolen after 4 unhappy months, where a private crises can be the reason for ... a heavy website problem (e.g. hijacking) or a dispute ... There are 1000 reasons for the webmaster to be unlucky but no decent reason to take his money.

And there is something more for the "Activity Quota"

4. Affiliate Earnings & Payments

[...]

2. On joining this Affiliate Program your account will be set to our default commission of 20% of net revenue, rising to 40% based upon your performance but subject to achieving new FTDs in any 3 month period where failure to do so will result in a base commission rate of 12.5% of net revenue.

"achieving new FTDs in any 3 month period where failure to do so will result in a base commission rate of 12.5% of net revenue"

FTD = First Time Depositor

"achieving new FTDs"
"FTDs" = Plural!

So under the words of the terms you have to bring at least 2 (!) new depositors in a 3 month period or your earnings will reduced to 12,5%.

If only 1 new depositor is needed, then the person, who have written the terms, is simply incapable, because there is a big difference between singular and plural.

---

Undermining civil law

4. Affiliate Earnings & Payments
[...]
16. If funds remain in your account for a continuous period of 90 days with no withdrawals during that time and with no traffic generated during that time, then your account shall be deemed dormant at which point funds remaining in your account will be removed.

"funds remaining in your account will be removed"

4. Affiliate Earnings & Payments
[...]
17. If funds remain in your account for a continuous period of 180 days with no withdrawals during that time then your account shall be deemed dormant at which point funds remaining in your account will be removed.

"funds remaining in your account will be removed"

Leverage civil law claims of the webmaster, his relatives and surviving dependants with a wave of the hand, beginning after just 3 months, that is really a bitter disappointment and not farsighted.

I feel feeble in reading terms like that. The cake really is big enough for all of us. No quotas are needed or other terms to take away the webmaster's money.

Maybe the problem is, that the programs knows, that 90% (or more) of all people are not reading the terms.

I do, and I will not be silent, because as long as a GPWA seal is connected with the word "ethic", programs have to live with criticism.

A program can exist with a handful of terms ... Copyright, trademark, spam, liability, forbidden content, payment date, payment sheme, cpa rules ... This is it!

Then it's no problem if 90% (or more) are not reading the terms.
Then it's a straight business!

If a program don't earn enough or afraid not earning enough in the future, then they should not invest the efforts in creating critical terms. They should invest it in creativity, in the content.

Leopold

**universal4** · 14 June 2014, 5:42 pm

Good catch on the quota,

For me, the first part with the 90 day period is enough to keep me from joining or promoting.

I agree that EVEN IF an affiliate decides to promote them and EVEN IF they end getting caught by the 90 day clause, the group should still PAY OUT commissions rightfully earned.

I will not enter into the discussion of whether it is legal or not, it doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy either way.

Rick
Universal4

**DanHorvat** · 14 June 2014, 5:58 pm

"if no gaming revenue is generated for a continuous period of 90 days"

If your players produce 3 negative months, your account becomes dormant?

**Affilistars_MarCom** · 20 June 2014, 7:55 am

Dear Roulette Zeitung,

As a response to your post, I would like to clarify our terms and conditions and explain our thinking behind it.

First of all, our guiding principle is our belief in open and ongoing communication with our affiliates, which of course should work both ways.

So - if an affiliate decides for any reason, to no longer promote our brands, it is the affiliate's responsibility to notify Affilistars. If for a continuous period of 90 days there is no activity from an affiliate, we always try to get in touch with the affiliate and together understand the reason and decide on improvements, either by changing the commission plan or any other optimization tools offered by Affilistars.

We put in a great deal of effort assisting our affiliates to reach best results possible, with various action items, such as Affiliate managers, marketing experts, numerous and variable marketing tools including exclusive co-branded affiliate LPs, Affilistars analytics system, exclusive promotions and much more.

All of our efforts are daily put into motivating our affiliates and optimizing their traffic. Our terms and conditions are part of this motivation and optimization process.

If there is no traffic or revenue generated by an affiliate for a continuous period of time and/or the affiliate has not reached out to his/her account manager and/or not responded to our efforts getting in touch with the affiliate, either due to insufficient contact details provided by the affiliate or any other reason beyond Affilistars control, it is assumed by Affilistars that the affiliate has chosen to inactivate his/her account.

In this case, Affilistars will no longer be able to invest any of its resources, human or financial, in this type of account and the account will become dormant. As an account becomes dormant and is not attended for a prolonged period of time, its earnings could be removed as Affilistars is unable to hold on to unattended funds for an indefinite period of time. To avoid any inconvenience, we disclose this in our terms and conditions and of course in our notifications sent to the affiliate as the account becomes dormant. In addition, the affiliate is given a notice period of another full month in order to respond and get in touch with his/her account manager, reactivate his/her account and ensure that there is no loss of his/her earnings.

This approach is also based on our experience and the assumption that, if after a continuous period of 90 days no revenue or traffic is generated by the affiliate, an active affiliate would probably get in touch with us and of course his account manager with him much sooner than the 90 days period, as this has direct effect on the affiliate performance and earnings. As a result there would be no reason for our terms and conditions to be enforced on an active affiliate account.

With this being said, even after all our efforts to reactivate an account and boost its traffic and earnings, an account does become dormant, it is very easy to reactivate it any time, by sending a request to [email protected] and/or his/her account manager and together we will find the most effective commission plan according to the affiliate's needs and commission plans offered by Affilistars at the time of the reactivation request.

We hope this clarifies matters, and goes some way to appeasing your and any other person's concerns.

Nevertheless, If there is any specific issue you would like to address, please get in touch with us or provide us with your contact details so that we can resolve any open issues to mutual satisfaction.

Sincerely,

Affilistars Team

**-Shay-** · 20 June 2014, 8:41 am

* in before the explanation is shredded.

I do not work with your program and I've not considered whether to or not to - but the terms and your explanation would certainly put me off from doing so.

We put in a great deal of effort assisting our affiliates to reach best results possible, with various action items, such as Affiliate managers, marketing experts, numerous and variable marketing tools including exclusive co-branded affiliate LPs, Affilistars analytics system, exclusive promotions and much more.

All of our efforts are daily put into motivating our affiliates and optimizing their traffic. Our terms and conditions are part of this motivation and optimization process.

This is what a standard "out of the box" affiliate program is supposed to do. There is no need to try to romanticize it.

In this case, Affilistars will no longer be able to invest any of its resources, human or financial,...

Between the removal of any earnings from a dormant account and the written ability to kill off already earned/promised funds - you are not investing resources. These resources belong to the affiliate. Again, you are trying to romanticize theft in your explanation. Not cool.

**universal4** · 20 June 2014, 4:52 pm

That is a quota and quotas are bad for ALL affiliates.

As a small affiliate that works strictly on revshare, or possibly a hybrid including revshare and a bounty, I look for programs that will pay me commissions based solely on my performance, WITH NO QUOTA.

If I send a depositing player, I want and deserve a commission based upon that player's activity, whether I send 1 player a day, one player a month, or one player every year or so.

The lie about non-performing affiliates costing so much is just plain BS. They are entries in a database, the newsletter that gets emailed to the non-performing affiliate is usually the same newsletter that gets emailed to the affiliates that sign a player a month, so unless the email costs more for that guy this "spin" around affiliates costing so much is just spin.

I do not dispute that there are costs associated with affiliates, but the costs are fairly consistent, whether you have 10 small affiliates out of 1000 or 100 small affiliates out of 1000.

Non performing affiliates often still advertise your properties, which gives YOU plenty of branding and exposure. Granted it would be more advantageous to have 100% of your affiliates active, but to put in place unrealistic quotas which harm small affiliates is just plain wrong.

Non performing and smaller affiliates CAN cost affiliate programs in terms of LACK OF EXPOSURE, lack of branding, and just generally being open with their peers (other affiliates) of why they choose NOT to work with programs with quotas.

If I join a program today that offers me 25% on players, I want that 25% if I get a player tomorrow, or can't seem to get the player until next year.

Rick
Universal4

**Roulette Zeitung** · 21 June 2014, 4:36 am

"As a response to your post, I would like to clarify our terms and conditions and explain our thinking behind it."

After reading this 21 words I stopped reading your post, because I knew, which way the wind is blowing and scrolled it down. I don't waste all my time with cheap excuses or programs with "Club Gold mentality".

If you didn't changed the terms -what I expected-, then this is a bad call. Your first 21 words don't look like a change or insight. It will result into further investigations and that I will have en eye on you.

And a response after nearly one week is really an impertinence.

Leopold

**Roulette Zeitung** · 8 July 2014, 6:22 am

+++ Terms Update (Part 1) +++

The terms haven been updated, but for small webmasters it's like to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

Old term:

4. Affiliate Earnings & Payments
[...]
15. Where the arrangement is based on revenue share, if no gaming revenue is generated for a continuous period of 90 days, your account will become dormant. We will issue a warning advising that the funds remaining in your account will be removed and, if no new traffic is sent within the following 30 days, funds remaining in your account will be removed and your account closed.

Current term(s):

4. Affiliate Earnings & Payments
[...]
14.2 In the case of Revenue Share deals, an inactive account that is deemed as dormant is an account that does not generate any gaming revenue for a continuous period of 90 days.

15. After the 90 day period a notification will be issued alerting you to the fact that the account is now deemed dormant due to inactivity. Affilistars will then give you a further 30 days in which to respond and confirm that you wish to stop promoting Affilistar’s brands and close your account, or to work with Affilistars to reactivate your account and start promoting and earning money again.

16. If no response is received to Affilistars attempts to contact you during that 30 day period, your account will be closed and earnings remaining in your balance may be removed.

The only thing, that have been changed: They will not steal the money directly when the 30 day reprieve dawns (after the 90 day trip hazard) and no traffic will be generated. Only if you don't communicate.

That's a reason to make -if you really want to work with AffiliStars- screenshots from everything, from every correspondence to proof communication. It's really a shame, that this is the basis for a relationship.

Attention!: The 90 day guillotine-term can still enjoy life quite well (Term 14.2).

---

Activity quota ...

4. Affiliate Earnings & Payments

[...]

2. On joining this Affiliate Program your account will be set to our default commission of 20% of net revenue, rising to 40% based upon your performance but subject to achieving new FTDs in any 3 month period where failure to do so will result in a base commission rate of 12.5% of net revenue.

...still exist. Nothing is changed.

---

June 25

Originally Posted by Roulette Zeitung

Up to this moment nothing is changed.

If all things being equal then for the coming AGD area thread update I say only one word: Hendecagon

Source: https://www.wmcash24.com/forum/affilista...tml#post759956

A hendecagon is an 11-sided polygon.
The Tarot card related to the Number 11 is the Justice card!

And now AffiliStars we will talk about number 11, your...

[To be continued]

Leopold

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Leopold's ciritical term view: AffiliStars - A bitter disappointment

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