N1 Partners / N1 Casino , AVOID / Refusing to pay owed affiliate commissions

**universal4** · 1 June 2018, 6:52 pm

Very well said Paul,

With anywhere near that percentage of players being duplicate or connected in some way, I completely understand why the property would want to switch over to rev-share, if it's decent traffic the affiliate will make more money.

Rick
Universal4

**Former Member 14** · 1 June 2018, 8:12 pm

Originally Posted by TheGooner

the elephant in the room - the different pay incentives between CPA and rev-share.

Because rev-share is a better way to prevent fraud and this leaves it open for the affiliate to "prove" themselves as not the cultprit?
I think we all know that CPA is prone to cheap routines and rorts - ALTHOUGH we don't know that happened here - we just know it's low value traffic.

CPA deals are only good (for both parties) when, the partner has a proven track-record, or the CPA deal is being conducted by, lets say, a marketing Network who owns multiple sites, and/or delivers ads across multiple networks etc.

Striking up CPA deals with unknown partners, tends to, more often than not, turn sour, quickly.

However... my point above, wasn't directed at CPA versus Rev-Share. Instead, I was focusing solely on the "trustworthy" factor. Reiterating, the LadyHammerCasino AM, has brought doubt (suspicion) towards the OP's legitimacy, with claims of fraudulent marketing (scamming).

Trust is a two way street, even when Rev-Share is at play.

It's an all too often story we see here at the GPWA and other affiliate forums. That is, affiliates seeing unusually high, and continued inconsistencies relating to FTD's going MIA. That duck is known around these parts as SHAVING.

And, what happens if and when an affiliate believes they are being "shaved"? They drop the program. Why? The trust is lost in that program.

Hence, the AM for LandyHammerCasino has brought doubt into the legitimacy (trust factor) of the OP.

My question was...why would anyone want to work with an affiliate, where the program holds serious "trustworthy" doubts about the affiliate!

Seems to me, the only Elephant in this thread... is the affiliate program stating the OP sent incentivized traffic. How many times have we heard that excuse before; seems to be a standardized go-to-excuse when a program doesn't want to honor their side of a CPA agreement.

If LadyHammerCasino Aff program et al was a well known brand, who had built a standing trust within this community and others, then I'd be more likely to believe their CPA payment denial claims.

However (and this needs to be pointed out), when this particular casino, and its affiliate program opened, it commenced a spam-fest both on affiliates and players alike. God only knows where, or how, they acquired that Private Data???!!!

They also spammed AGD, and other forums too, including, BlackHatWorld.com

Hence that's why I have little to no "trust" in what this program is now stating, and why I asked for "factual hard proof"...

Edit:

Not too long ago, a similar problem occurred with another member. Michael stepped in, and both parties agreed to allow the program to provide the "factual proof" to Michael, as a unbiased 3'rd party. The money owed to the affiliate, was paid into an Escrow/Trust account, on the prerequisite that if the program didn't provide "factual proof" of why the affiliate shouldn't be paid, then that money was paid to the affiliate on X date.

When X date arrived, the affiliate program hadn't proved ABC, hence, the affiliate was paid monies owed.

**Progger** · 1 June 2018, 10:41 pm

We should wait,maybe we shoot the bullets in the wrong direction...

And my question to Ladyhammer, 1/3 -33% are duplicate accounts - but how did u figure this out ?
IP? Email ? Deposit method ?

Regards

**Agentti** · 2 June 2018, 2:07 am

I see that they also have responded here and to the askgamblers complaint so I'll just paste our reply to it from the complaint:

"From the total amount of FTDs - 1/3 have duplicate accounts."

So as in April there was 59 FTD´s sent , it would mean that basically 20 FTD´s of these would be duplicate?? Can we see the material of this as this seems really off? In March , where 83 FTD´s was sent , we were told that 5 of these accounts were duplicate. So suddenly , after starting this investigation and comparing the months of March and April , the duplicate account ratio of 6% would have increased to 33,2% ? This would suddenly mean a +400% growth in duplicate accounts.

"From the total amount of FTDs - more that 80% made only one deposit and stopped any activity"

This is something we also can not check as they use their in house affprogramm / stats. Maybe there was a reason they did not want to continue playing? The material of this would be great to see too.

"In order to verify the players we have taken 10 players via random selection and requested full verification of the account.
During the week (7 days) none of the players have provided any documents."

How random was this in reality? Was these players who won or lost their deposit? An example: If i were a player and would test out a new casino , i'd deposit once and check it out. Maybe i experience and see something that i don't like and lose my deposit. I then move on and decide that I´d not want to play at N1 anymore. After this first deposit and experience , casino would contact me after some time to fully verify my account. Why would i want or bother to fully verify my account? As a player , i would be highly suspicious if a casino would want to fully verify and maybe want my documents after some time ago of making my account and for example depositing once and only losing my deposits. It makes no sense. As the NGR was in such a negative state , surely there has been winners then who have withdrawn their money and you have verified these players accounts and documents? No winners in this random selection? Once again , it would have been great to be there and see how this is done. We have no way of seeing or confirming this.

"Higly-motivated traffic."

It was listed at our site as we agreed on. It is a casino / bonus listing website. There is no secret evil plans and player motivation. You were a new brand , with a high spot and a exclusive 200% sign-up offer.

"Due to this reason the administration of the casino is ready to provide Revenue Share part of the commission without CPA part."

This was already the case when we were asking about the April commissions and before the Askgamblers complaint. No surprise here.

End of complaint.

Just to add a few points here: We opted for CPA as we had no idea of the CRM and retention of N1 as it was such a new brand. The factor that it was also a sister casino of Ladyhammer was also a point that we took in consideration when going with the CPA. Like AussieDave pointed out , we also saw the notorious Ladyhammer forum posts quite some time ago when they were looking for new affiliate so we wanted to play safe.

As i stated before , they were a new brand , with high spot at our site and with a exclusive 200% signup offer at our site so bonus hunting i could see happening but fraudlent traffic is not what we do. We have our site in only one language and we do only traffic from one country. Site was started from driving traffic from casino videos on Youtube to the site and this was also stated to them in the beginning. The Youtube traffic has been scaled down quite a lot and we are putting more focus on the seo. Although now that i think about it , they never quite asked anything about the site or site´s traffic source....

I too think it would be strange that why would they want to continue partnership with us if they have really high suspicions of fraudlent activity towards us.

**Triple7** · 2 June 2018, 3:50 am

They should respect at least the deal (unless they have bulletproof evidence of fraud committed by affiliate) and that's what they're not doing now. That rate of 80% not making a second deposit could also be because of their poor retention. It are white label casinos. It's nothing weird that just 1 out of 5 players decides to make a 2nd deposit at a white label casino, especially if they're coming from a bonus website. People looking for a 200% bonus want to triple their small deposit. Nothing more, nothing less. And no way that I would provide my documents to a casino where I deposited once, won nothing and don't play anymore.

The problem with many brands is that they first make deals and then look if it's profitable. Especially new brands are wanting to appear everywhere on websites, no matter what people are asking. Affiliate management is not just giving everybody the deal he's asking for, but also judging if traffic is worth at forehand. The type of website, markets, etc are all things that they should have taken notion of. Every affiliate manager with working brains knows that it makes no sense to pay $ 500 CPA if the affiliate runs a Polish forum with no deposit bonus offers.

I was used to work with just rev. share. I changed into hybrid or for some programs just CPA. Why?

- not longer going to accept below average deals, because programs are making loss on other deals they make.
- programs disappear, close markets,
- insane and totally not transparent fees some programs are having
- you see strange things happening at some programs that simply can't be right
- there's always a risk they stop paying or change the t&c
- many brands simply have a very bad retention. There are just a few very good brands around.

In times it costs just a few k to start a casino, I take a little bit extra care. And if I simply don't trust it, I don't start with the brand.

**Agentti** · 12 June 2018, 1:33 pm

Hello All! Just going to copy our and N1 responses from the askgamblers complaint. They are now hiding behind GDPR to not show any real evidence:

N1:

"Good day!

In order to clarify the situation the analysis was conducted of all players for all time span.
We provided the whole spectre of the information that was provided by our anti-fraud department.
After provided results it is more than evident that the quality of traffic is not suitable and does not qualify for the payouts.
And still we are ready to provide Revenue Share part of the commission despite all facts we provided higher.
Such players activity quite similar with fraudulent behavior.
It was mentioned that players could just check the casino. To try it.
But when the number of such players is more than 50% of the whole number of player - it is quite adequate point for suspicions.
Documents were requested to confirm the authenticity of the players. And we have to repeat it - none of those have provided any documents.
We are not speaking about passing verification, but about not providing any data that would confirm that those players are real.
Speaking about confirming the data - we are responsible for the safety of the personal data of our clients and we will diligently follow this responsibility.
Especially in this case, when in provided screen shot the name of the affiliate was removed while the name of the manager was left open.
If this is an attitude towards the private information - it seems not appropriate to demand this kind of information.
Over and over again we see the phrase about analysis being conducted after the complaint was placed. We have to remind that we already mentioned that we wanted to save time and efforts and deal with this problem peacefully.
In answer we faced unreasonable accusations."

AskGamblers:

"Dear N1 Partners,

Please provide evidence that affiliate breached affiliate's terms. Aforementioned evidence please send directly to the AskGamblers Complaint Team at suppor*t@a*skg*amb*ler*s.com.

Thank you in advance."

Us:

""In order to clarify the situation the analysis was conducted of all players for all time span."

So this would again mean that the duplicate account ratio of 5 players , meaning 6% of March would have increased to 33,2% for the month of April as it was stated before paying the March commission that there was 5 duplicate player accounts / FTD´s in March. So you need to show evidence of a increase of +400% on the duplicate FTD´s / accounts on April.

"It was mentioned that players could just check the casino. To try it.
But when the number of such players is more than 50% of the whole number of player - it is quite adequate point for suspicions."

Well it is possible and can totally can happen at a whitelabel casino. Maybe the players did not like something at the casino. Maybe CRM and retention is not working for the brand. Maybe the players just liked the bonus but nothing else? This is basically like a guessing game.

"Documents were requested to confirm the authenticity of the players. And we have to repeat it - none of those have provided any documents.
We are not speaking about passing verification, but about not providing any data that would confirm that those players are real."

Again , why would some one send you any documents for example after making a first deposit some time ago and loosing the deposit? It would be highly suspicious and zero people would send you any documents. What do you mean by "any data that would confirm those players are real?" What data would this be? How do we settle what data is enough and reasonable to get and receive? Is it legal to ask documents and more data from players if they are not for example doing a withdraw at a casino? Once again , surely there was winning players that sent you documents and you got to verify them?

"Speaking about confirming the data - we are responsible for the safety of the personal data of our clients and we will diligently follow this responsibility.
Especially in this case, when in provided screen shot the name of the affiliate was removed while the name of the manager was left open."

Sorry that the name is shown , it can be removed by Askgamblers if they want. It was to point out that there was a promise of paying the owed CPA commissions fully. Although , he is a public affiliate manager at N1 that is free to be contacted by any one so not so sure about the privacy concern here.

"If this is an attitude towards the private information - it seems not appropriate to demand this kind of information."

Do not provide it here publicly , you can send it to Askgamblers as they requested it.

"Over and over again we see the phrase about analysis being conducted after the complaint was placed. We have to remind that we already mentioned that we wanted to save time and efforts and deal with this problem peacefully."

Yes , by declining to pay the owed CPA commissions and hoping we would just accept that and walk away after you had promised to pay them. You do understand that you had no reason to not pay the CPA commissions so when we made the complaint , you used the investigation-card to hope it would be the "get free out of jail"-card

Just to add here as a good point , why did you want to continue partnership when you wanted to change the deal from the CPA to revshare in under a month and after we asked where the April commissions are? If you had such a huge suspicions towards us as a fraudulent partner , why did you want to continue working with us? If you really felt that we were a fraud it would make no sense that you had really big interest to continue working with us?All the trust would have gone at that point. Just to add , this also happened before the askgamblers complaint."

N1:

"Good day!

We have already provided the reasoning behind our decision. The results of the analysis were provided here.
In accordance with GDPR we can't provide information about our players. As it was mentioned earlier it is our responsibility to protect personal data of our players.
And once again answering the question "why did you want to continue partnership" - we didn't want to waste time and efforts on complaints. We offered peaceful solution of the problem.
It is enough to say that abnormal amount of players who made only first deposit and stopped any activity and absolute absence of players who would provide documents is enough to raise suspicions.
We can understand if some part of the players will just stop playing in our casino, but when the majority of the players stops to do it...
Our casino offers complex bonus package. If players like bonuses - they would do at least three deposits to receive all welcome package bonuses.
Speaking about the verification of the accounts - we are speaking about absence of any documents. There are no cases when some documents of the required were provided and others were not.
Concerning the name of the manager - if say that it is okay to provide the name of the public affiliate manager why have you removed your name? The contact person is also official representative of the resource, but for some reason his name was removed.
The reasoning of declining of payment of CPA commission was provided multiple times and repeated in this update.
"Just to add , this also happened before the askgamblers complaint". - We have to remind that we already mentioned that we wanted to save time and efforts and deal with this problem peacefully."

Us:

"AskGamblers , it seems that N1 partners are not willing to provide any proof for their accusations"

**Triple7** · 12 June 2018, 2:15 pm

They can provide the details as long as they do not give any personal details that would make it easy to get the identitity of those people. Which is obviously not the case if it's about account numbers or game history.

They've made a deal and after that they felt sorry about it, because they were losing money with the deal. Reason is more likely a below-average retention and player value than fraud. They didn't do their homework, but that's not the fault of the affiliate.

It doesn't seem to be a serious program. Could be white label number 3539 that starts with big talks and insane deals, but folds within a short time.

**iGamingWriter** · 14 June 2018, 6:38 am

The operator has approached us and asked us whether we would be willing to mediate this issue. The short answer to this would be yes, but the longer answer is that we can only do so if both parties are happy for us to do so. As such if the affiliate wants to get in contact with us and submit a complaint we'll be happy to review this situation.

I do want to clarify a few general misunderstandings that have surfaced during this thread however.

Firstly, N1/Lady Hammer run on the SoftSwiss platform. This is a group that I personally and ThePOGG as a business has worked extensively with in the management of player complaints. We have always managed, ultimately, to reach fair outcomes to date though I will say that I have had some heated discussions with high level SoftSwiss team members on some of the more complex issues. While SoftSwiss ARE a white label provider, my understanding is that N1/Lady Hammer are not white labels and are owned by the platform. Presuming that is true, this operation is likely to be far better funded than the flash in the pan white labels that comparison has been drawn to.

Secondly, the GDPR *Very loud sigh*, I am absolutely the first in line to shoot down any refusal by an operator to discuss a complaint simply on the basis of the GDPR. It is not factually accurate to say that they cannot do so because of this legislation and I don't accommodate or sympathise with any operator giving this excuse not to discuss complaints with us. This is often used to hide behind when what's really meant is 'we don't want to talk to YOU'.

However, the GDPR changed the game significantly. The potential penalties for any error are now effectively business ending. As the stakes have increased, so has everyone's anxiety surrounding the sharing of any information what-so-ever. Over the years that we've been managing complaints we've seen a slow but steady drift in opinion from operators who are unhappy with the way in which information they've shared with affiliates has been managed leading many operators towards requiring Non-Disclosure Agreements. We've been engaging these on a common basis for years now. With the GDPR coming into play, we're see a far quicker shift with lots of operators now not only requiring NDAs but Data Protection Agreements as well, that tie us to abiding by their Data Protection policies and impose stiff fines for any breaches. Personally I don't just support operators taking these steps, I actively encourage it. It slows everything down, results in untold frustration for complainants and is no end of headaches for me, but the simple truth is that if consumers want their data protected in all areas of their lives then the groups processing this data - and that includes gambling operators - need to start taking their responsibilities on this front a lot more seriously. That means lawyers getting involved a lot more often and once lawyers are involved nothing moves quickly.

Even when we have these arrangements in place, and it is a LOT of work to get NDAs and DPA in place often taking months of negotiation, there is still the fundamental question of trust. The simple truth is that while the DPAs often stipulate heavy fines if we fail to handle the data in a manner that is compliant with the operators policies, the fines pale into insignificant when compared to the potential fines if the operator is found to have failed to adhere fully to the GDPR. When sharing data the operator has to know that the group they are sharing it with fully understands the consequences of a failure and has adequate systems in place to prevent this.

And then there's the second aspect of trust with relation to dispute mediation - whether the operator actually believes that a) the mediator is competent to provide an opinion on the issue and b) they'll get a fair judgement from the mediator.

This is where I'll tie back to the case in question. Without knowing the details of the interactions I can say that if the operator does not have these types of agreements in place with the AskGamblers team, or if they do not trust the AskGamblers team for whatever reason, they're not about to take the type of gamble that sharing data to manage a complaint now requires. It's a vastly preferable risk to take the beating on a forum than chance their arm on the GDPR. This is not intended as a slight or criticism of AskGamblers at all. I could name a dozen groups without pausing to think that actively make very clear that they will not work with ThePOGG and don't feel that they've been treated fairly by us. Some of those work with other services. Just as easily I could name groups that will work with our service but will not work with some other services. There simply isn't a single service that is viewed as acceptable by all operators.

My point here is that simply because an operator has refused to share evidence in a case does not mean that the evidence does not exist. We have one very big operator in the industry right now who has been consistently non-cooperative when it comes to complaints for years. They reached out recently, we got agreements in place, and we're now working back through the historic issued that we never managed to review properly first time round. In every case I've looked at so far they've managed to provide sufficient evidence to justify the position they took, they were simply unwilling to share that at the time. At the time they felt it was better to publicly receive the negative reports than to take a legal risk based on their assessment of our professionalism.

For this reason, when an operator is unwilling to discuss a complaint we mark the complaint as 'Found for the Player' but the reasons that we state for doing this are that the operator has chosen not to cooperate with us, not because we assume that the player is right. A subtle but important distinction.

TP

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