Bet365 threatening to close affiliate account!

david G

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Hi fellow gaming affiliates,

I was hoping to receive advice from you on a shocking situation we find ourselves in with bet365.

Currently our account is suspended and set to 0% commission as our affiliate manager Laura Clarke emailed us to say someone has found our tracking link on a pornographic website. We have never promoted anyone on pornographic sites so this email came as a complete shock.

We explained this to bet365 and they completely ignored our response and insist we are guilty of this apparent breach despite providing no evidence to us bar a screenshot of the bet365 landing page with our tracking link on it.

Now we are in conversation with Karl Pugh who seems to be determined to close the account down. He even said, even if we are found innocent, which we will be of course, they won't be paying us the commission in the period we have been set to 0%. This is outrageous!!

We see bet365 on many different websites, mostly illegal live streaming websites. Does anyone know or heard of affiliate accounts getting shutdown for this reason?

At this point we want to hear if anyone has ever had such trouble with bet365? Surely they can't act this way as its a terrible way to do business.

We have been working with them for 3 years and just last month they were offering us bonuses on top of commission in return for more new players!! Then all of a sudden they are told by a third party that we were on a pornagraphic site and now they are trying to take our commission and close us down.

Please help everyone and let us know your thoughts and stories. We are convinced they are trying to increase profit margins.
 

AussieDave

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Surely they can't act this way

It's highly unethical and down right criminal, BUT yes they can... Didn't you know we (affiliates), are at the mercy of these programs!

If your located in the UK, you might have success taking them to small-claims-tribunal. I'm in Australia and we have these type of proceedings, which are ALL run through the magistrates court, but no solicitors et al are allowed. If that's available to you in the UK, that would be your best bet.

Going on your story, sounds like a competitor wanted you out of business.
 

BetOnlineUK

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Wow, this is quite disturbing I know bookmakers have to be squeaky clean especially when it comes to SMS and emailing. But I too have noticed the amount of banners that show up on illegal streams but thought this was a deliberate ploy by spammy affiliates. To find out that someone could place your tracking link in the ad is worrying.

How on earth would you start to find evidence to clear your name.
 

david G

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The situation is totally bizzare and rather worrying.

We advertise on finance related websites, it's what we know and has been good for us across many industries, gambling being one of our newer sectors.

They are asking us to prove our innocence which has just been mentioned would be extremely difficult to do so!

As much as we would love to be able to do this we can't see how on earth we can prove we haven't instructed this. It really feels like a very narrow minded approach has been taken with us here. It seems no coincidence that our recent success is now being penalised and ultimately bet365 have a decision on this and they are choosing the most damaging outcome. All because they have had 1 report our link was found on a site they don't want traffic from. I'm sure they are not going to close player accounts therefore they will profit from this decision.

Hopefully someone else has been in this situation and can advise in more detail.
 

BetOnlineUK

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I have not been exposed to this yet to my knowledge, but have had other dodgy things happen to the site which leaves a sour taste when trying to build your business.
It is already difficult in the niche we are in to get anywhere near the top without narrow minded people bringing you down.

I will keep an eye on this thread as I also would like to know if more experienced affiliates have encountered this before and how they dealt with it.

Hope you get it sorted David
 

Rick Perry

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I've never heard anything like this, it's a horrible dirty trick.

And you're right - I saw many affiliate ads of Bet365 on illegal websites and popunders, so I don't understand this behavior :-/
 

onlinecasinoscloud1

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It is a little bad, for example if someone steals content from our website (like: banners and links) and insert into suspicious website. Our account be closed, this is ridiculous!
 

CasinoBonusMaster

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Wow this is terrible and unethical. This means competitors can spam affiliate links from other affiliates and get them banned? Bet365 has to come back on this IMO.
 

AussieDave

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Going on your story

We advertise on finance related websites

It would have been helpful if you'd have declared this in your 1'st post... is there anything else you've left out or forget to include?

Do you purchase ads directly with these sites, or do you go through a 3'rd party?

I ask because a high profile casino group (wont name names), were buying ads through a global 3'rd party ad agency.

Unbeknown to the casino group, the ad agency (1 of the ad agency's 3'rd party partners, in this case exoclick.com), had either placed their ads on porn sites, or made them available to porn site operators. Their flagship casino was plastered across literally 1000's of porn sites.

Edit:
I could see bet365 taking this action if you were a brand new affiliate. Because some affiliates do ALL manner of dodgy shite, to gain depositing players. However with a 3 year track record, this treatment seems extremely harsh, not to mention closed minded. Though, given bet365 have done some pretty unethical stuff in the past, they probably see this as a way to keep ALL your players, and kick you to the curb for breaching their T&C's. (even if you haven't directly taken part in this).

As an affiliate, If I was to purchase ads, I would deal directly with each site. I would never, ever purchase ad space via agencies or 3'rd parties. Way too much uncertainty on where your ads end up being displayed. More often than not, what's transpired for David, is how things end up in tears.
 
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TheGooner

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Yes - there CAN be all sorts of mitigating factors ... as there are many ways to for nefarious people to spoof ads or email credentials.

Eg. This week I got a small batch of bounced emails saying my message was spam ... the email in question was a basic email address on website that we never use to send anything.
Clearly someone has harvested the email address and is including it as a reputable address in spam email in an attempt to beat filters.
It's pretty easy to actually find and see the REAL email address that sent it, but I novice AMs could jump to the wrong conclusion.

Regarding your ads being displayed, if this wasn't you directly, or an ad buy that has gone wrong then it seems it could be a negative attack.
If you have a good reputation, and some longevity, then I would expect a good affiliate program would listen and be able to determine the truth.

However, if the majority of the ads HAVE been displayed at "bad" sites for an extended period and you had not detected this yourself ... then your inaction causes issues.

In your defence - bet365 affiliate software does NOT show banner impressions - or show site name as a source - so it's actually pretty tough to detect this sort of thing using their systems.

All you can do is to explain yourself clearly, show it was not intentional, and work with the programs to clear this up (I assume more than 1 program will be involved).
 

Karl Pugh

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Hi,

The affiliate in question was buying traffic from a network serving pop unders.

Our marketing agency in Greece sent us over screenshots of promotion on the unsuitable adult sites in Greece. We suspended his account immediately and placed him on 0% whilst we investigated. It transpired the exact profile code identified on the Greek adult sites by our agency had sent 99% Greek traffic for the lifetime of the account...

The affiliate has been warned re their future conduct and their account has now been unsuspended with commissions re-instated, subject to review. We won’t look to re-instate any commission for the suspension period, given the seriousness of the offence.

Karl

Karl Pugh
Marketing Operations Manager – Media Services
Hillside (Media Services) Limited
bet365.com
 

AussieDave

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is there anything else you've left out or forget to include?

The affiliate in question was buying traffic from a network serving pop unders.

No wonder the OP went quiet... Thanks for the heads up on this Karl ;)

This is exactly why I have reservations about helping new members @ AGD and elsewhere. They're an unknown person. It's a shame, because those who are genuine, who come here to seek bona fide help/assistance, who are telling the whole TRUTH, end not getting help, because of people like the OP...

If your reading this david G, I'm not impressed - thanks for wasting my time, and that of other AGD members!!!

Side Question...
We won’t look to re-instate any commission for the suspension period, given the seriousness of the offence.

What's to become of the commission david G would have been paid?
 
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david G

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We have several sources of traffic and finance networks are one of them.

It's important to note that the screenshot bet365 sent to us was their homepage with our tracking URL at the top, no evidence that it came from a porn site at all.

They then checked the referrer urls for all our traffic and found no evidence of traffic coming from porn sites. That's because we don't promote on these sites full stop.

Once they couldn't find anything, they turned to the player country, in this case Greece. They said they didn't accept affiliates sending Greek players. However in the terms and conditions, restricted country list and all communication emails from bet365, it was never said an affiliate cannot promote in this country so that was also dropped but they have now said we can't send players from Greece again.

So with no evidence of the apparent findings of one link on a porn site we have lost around £13k in commission. But we do have our account open again but activity is significantly lower so it's highly likely some de tagging has happened.

Needless to say we won't be working with bet365 going forward in any proactive way and stress to all of you that do to be careful.

We are tempted to pursue a legal route also so will keep you updated.

Thanks for your support Aussie Dave, clearly you don't welcome new members and support others in your own line of work.
 

DaftDog

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Thanks for your support Aussie Dave, clearly you don't welcome new members and support others in your own line of work.

That's not true david G. Aussie Dave has assisted many new and existing members on this forum. If you expect people to just believe your claims as a new member then you must really think we're a gullible bunch of twats.
 

Guard Dog

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Let's keep this a bit more professional now ;) Much appreciated you assholes. Just kidding, lol.
 

Tolga Seven

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Hello ALL,

Bet365 close my affiliate account with 7165.53 EUR

step by step now:

on 2th sent Invoice to bet365 finance team, and after 3 days receive email from Bet365 manager Sarah McArdie

Dear Affiliate,


We have received your request for payment but we are unable to process this for two reasons.


Firstly in order for us to make the payment we need to see that you are actively promoting bet365 on your website, and at this time the I’m unable to locate exactly where we are being promoted.


Secondly you have requested for the payment to be processed into a player account that does not match the name on your affiliate account.


Your payment method will need to have the same name registered as your affiliate account.


Please can you contact us to discuss this at your earliest convenience.


Kind regards

Sarah


Sarah McArdle

Marketing Administrator - Media Services

Hillside (Media Services) Limited



Im sent asap - and after 15 min receive next email from Sarah McArdie





Hello Tolga,


Following on from this your account has been under investigation by management and the decision has been made to permanently suspend your account due to a breach of the below terms and conditions.


2.8 Good Faith

You will not knowingly benefit from known or suspected traffic not generated in good faith whether or not it actually causes us damage. We reserve the right to retain all amounts otherwise due to you under this Agreement if we have reasonable cause to believe of such traffic.

We reserve the right to withhold affiliate payments and/or suspend or close accounts where affiliated customers are found to be abusing any bet365 offers or promotions whether with or without your knowledge. Such situations to include but not be limited to different customers betting both sides of an event or market so as to limit risk and claim bonuses.


Kind regards,

Sarah


Sarah McArdle

Marketing Administrator - Media Services
 
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