How winner.com SCAM the affiliates

**Demonfrost** · 8 October 2013, 9:54 am

So it's now the time to tell my story here and prevent everybody from working with these (removed) cheaters.

I run one of the oldest and most respectable Russian betting portals, so I very carefully select the advertisers. My website is not the one with tons of banners, in fact, there is only 5 bookies which deserve to be promoted in my opinion.

So when winner.com contacted me and asked to advertise them, I looked sceptical on them and refused all their standard offers (Rev.share, CPA etc.). But they were pushing so we arranged a deal with fixed unconditional monthly fee for their banner at the very top of all pages. I didn't want them much, but they offered a really decent price for it so I agreed. I looked for the responses of the players and didn't find anything criminal about winner.com. Somehow I didn't know about GPWA yet.

It was going OK till September, when I didn't receive my August payment in time.

I didn't pay much attention to it as I have a habit to trust people (naive, I know), and delaying of payments occurs from time to time everywhere. But when it comes to the end of September, I decided to clarify this issue.

My manager, Yana Marinova, ignored my emails. So I went to winner affiliates website and wrote to support there. They replied quickly:

Thanks for contacting us, please know that we pay our affiliates until the 12th business day of every month. You should not worry about it

It was already 21th of September, but I "should not worry"! How's that? I wrote again. They replied:

My apologies for the last email, I have double-checked your correspondences.

We are currently checking your statistics and we will let you know as soon as possible, if we are going to continue with this exposure.

We will contact you once we have an answer.

Remember the bolded phrase! I will return to it soon.

So, it came out that they were checking the stats and deciding to pay me or not for advertising that had already completed!?

When you are told "you should not worry", it's a clear sign you SHOULD.

"Don't you think you should pay for the time exposed anyway?" - I asked.

Then (24th Sep) Yana Marinova woke up and replied me:

I have checked the case with our financial department and I can see that a payment for August has been made.

Maybe I'm fool and isn't able to recognize the payment from winner.com on my account? Nope, I double-checked it! I wrote her about it. She replied:

Regarding September, I am interested in different positioning of our brand on your website, as discussed, as the deal we had for September has not been approved and payment has not been sent.

Compare to the bolded phrase above!

So the deal for September wasn't approved, though why I am informed about it only in the end of the month? And just after another manager had told that it is currently "under review"? It seems they decide to approve it or not in the end of the month, and if the decision is negative, they get a free advertising this month! This is exactly my case! I was forced to place their banners in September free of charge! And Yana wrote me in the early September discussing about possible sponsorship of tipster contest and it naturally looked like our deal was up and running.

OK (it's not OK at all, but... well), you decide or not about September, but what about AUGUST? It did have approved deal!

Yana Marinova wrote:

The payment for last month was sent on the 7^th of August.

Again a cheap attempt to fool me! Because on 7th Aug it was the payment for JULY! They never pay in advance.

Then I've found out this forum, and you know the rest of the story. Thanks again to Plamen, he is the only positive part of winner.com and really helps: August payment has arrived. But even Plamen wasn't able to solve the issue with "free" September adverstisement. This is the policy and tricks of those smart a**ses. And I see here a lot of "no payment" topics, realizing that it's a very common thing from winner.com, and regret I didn't find this forum earlier. Wish I knew about it, when I'd refuse any offers from winner.com scammers and save a lot of my time.

STAY AWAY FROM WINNER AFFILIATES AT ANY COST!

**TheBoyMitchell** · 9 October 2013, 4:52 pm

You probably need to just calm down.

4 posts and slating a casino (and its a Playtech casino run by previous AMs of William Hill, isnt going to help you get your resolution. If you want, I can help, but it would be wise to wind your neck in. Other AMs at different brands read this forum too, and you are coming over as a little hysterical and amateurish. You're unlikely to win any fans with them.

PM me and I'll see if I can help.

**Demonfrost** · 9 October 2013, 5:53 pm

Well, if demanding the fulfillment of the deal's conditions after obvious scam attempts is "hysterical and amateurish" - then no thanks, I don't need your help.

Other AMs at different brands read this forum too, and you are coming over as a little hysterical and amateurish. You're unlikely to win any fans with them.

LOL. All those AMs, they need to be advertised and annoying me with their offers. I don't need them so I don't care.

**tomgalanis** · 10 October 2013, 5:09 am

To be fair, theboymitchell, this seems like a fairly legitimate and well constructed point if he had an agreement. If he has raised it with Winner directly on a couple of occasions, this is the forum, as Winner is a sponsor here, and means to go about sorting out the grievance.

Demonfrost, I'm working on the assumption that you have more than a few leading words on email to support the deal you claim to have. Did you have a contract in place for the flat fee? Were there guarantees attached to it (minimum number of impressions, clicks, registrations, FTDs)?

**Demonfrost** · 10 October 2013, 6:13 am

Originally Posted by tomgalanis

Demonfrost, I'm working on the assumption that you have more than a few leading words on email to support the deal you claim to have. Did you have a contract in place for the flat fee? Were there guarantees attached to it (minimum number of impressions, clicks, registrations, FTDs)?

No, we didn't have contracts or something, just agreed the conditions by email. That works well for me with other brands, I'm not able to cheat them because there's no payments in advance, and they shouldn't because of reputation.... as I thought.

No additional conditions like minimum number of impressions, clicks, players etc. were implied. Our deal was as simple as that: placing the banner for a monthly fee. That's it.

**tomgalanis** · 10 October 2013, 6:19 am

It is what it is then. I think going forward, you are better off resorting to contracts, even if it is in the form of an insertion order. Bottom line is, unless you've got something signed you can complain about it until the cows come home... you don't have a leg to stand on unfortunately.

Might be the wrong moment for so many metaphors, but hopefully you'll catch my drift.

**Demonfrost** · 10 October 2013, 6:41 am

I've never had any troubles with truly respectable brands, without any contracts and papers. Yes, I was too naive to consider that such a questionable "noname" like winner.com deserves my trust. I've learnt the lesson and will never again work with such, even with contracts, in sake of saving my time. Even with contract, I wouldn't feel myself protected, because the expenses for suing with them (in Israeli court?) could be more than their debt (not mentioning the waste of time).

Anyway, I have no hopes for successful resolving of my remaining issue with winner.com, so this story is just a warning for fellow webmasters.

**plamen.affmarkets** · 11 October 2013, 5:33 am

Dear Demonfrost,

With all my respect to you and your work I would like to clarify few things that the members of the forum are may be not aware of.
The first thing is that nobody is able for force anyone to keep their banners on the website and you should know that all advertisement is done for commercial purposes. When there are no results for two months, it is natural to try to find the best way to work together, therefore I have offered you to start on different commission plan, so this could be mutually beneficial for both sites, however you have refused this option.

After the 2 months period, with no results we have paid you for advertisement, we tried to find the best solution for you and your traffic, however you did not want to cooperate and find a solution for our work together.

The conclusion of your case in my opinion is that we tried to find better way to continue your campaign, unfortunately we could not reach an agreement, so I would like to wish you all the best in your future work and many successes in your career.

Sincerely
Plamen
Winner Affiliates

**Demonfrost** · 11 October 2013, 6:45 am

Dear Plamen!

You are completely right about commercial things. But the rest of your words is full of slyness.

Nobody told me about results until I rang the bells because of no payment. Chronologically, first what I received on this matter, was the response on my "where's my August payment???" cries, on 21th Sep. And it was: "We are currently checking your statistics and we will let you know as soon as possible, if we are going to continue with this exposure", as I've already cited above. My AF Yana Marinova was also silent about this matter till 24th Sep. And only after then she wrote me that "September deal wasn't approved". When this decision was made as it looks from the story? Between 21th and 24th of September, for me!

So winner.com decided to abandon September deal at the end of September! How do you like it? Results? Where were no any demands in our deal, so, if you don't like the results, you should write me "stop our exposures as we're going to discuss a new deal", but you should pay for previous days anyway! Especially for previous month! Don't you agree?

And what happened before you offer me to discuss a new deal?

Silently freezing the payment for month already done, waiting for when I react and start demanding the payment (for August, I repeat, when the deal was out of doubt), making a fool of me in email responses, and unless I find this forum and your help, I doubt I will get my money. So, what do you expect I could answer to your offer of new deal after all these perturbations? Of course - no more deals with such!

At last, coming on Russian market with bonuses available only for UK and Ireland - what results of the campaign would they expect?

Now, it is clarified 100%.

**plamen.affmarkets** · 14 October 2013, 3:24 am

Hi Demonfrost,

I would like to offer you a new deal based on RVS or CPA from the next month, depending on your interests.

Please get back to be if you are interested.

Sincerely
Plamen

**thebookiesoffers** · 14 October 2013, 3:59 am

Originally Posted by Plamen.Petrov.Winner

Hi Demonfrost,

I would like to offer you a new deal based on RVS or CPA from the next month, depending on your interests.

Please get back to be if you are interested.

Sincerely
Plamen

If winner did only pull out of the September deal on the 24th and are not paying for the coverage before that date you are bang out of order if nothing was mentioned before this.

In fact, if this is the case you are getting booted off my site as well

**Demonfrost** · 14 October 2013, 6:33 am

Originally Posted by Plamen.Petrov.Winner

Hi Demonfrost,

I would like to offer you a new deal based on RVS or CPA from the next month, depending on your interests.

Please get back to be if you are interested.

Sincerely
Plamen

Are you serious? New deal? Again with payments delayed for months and last month "free of charge"? Is it a masochists forum?

**Glueck** · 14 October 2013, 8:34 am

I think this conversation should be taken to PM og Email by now.

Best regards.

**Demonfrost** · 14 October 2013, 9:50 am

There's nothing to continue with, I've clearly said and will always say "NO" to any winner.com offers.

**justbookies** · 14 October 2013, 2:03 pm

I had to laugh when I read on this thread that Winner was respectable because they were ex-William Hill AMs! William Hill is now a whole lot better for their departure. They were ex-William Hill because they had a massive, well-publicised falling out with William Hill. Some of these guys are also ex-Cpays AMs. Is that also a recommendation?!

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