SilverGuru
10-09-2005, 10:20 AM
This is a warning to people interested in affiliate programs or to own
a casino.. Be very careful when you make a choice. The following is
fact and can be backed up with emails that I kept.
I came across the idea to *own* a casino in March. I looked at the
various offers, carefully researched, checked for bad references and
finally made a selection. I picked the right casinos, linked to a large
casino looked to be the best option. It was the right type of
casino,good games, fast download and it would not cripple the payment,
even in weak South African Rand, converting to US Dollar.
I made the payment with baited breath after selecting the relevant name
and skin, looking forward to some financial return,
although being realistic enough not to expect to become *rich*
overnight.
Little did I realize what horror and frustration was waiting ahead...
My first email received thanked me for joining them. So far so good. I
checked that the various lists worked, and asked some friends to
download the game, in order to see if the *real time* stats worked.
These friends had never heard of this casino, Never gambled
on line, so no cookie could prevent them downloading via *my*
casino, to be assigned to someone else.
Or so I thought. After all, every email told me not to *hesitate*
asking if they could be of assistance.
The stats did not change. I sent off an email to Anna and asked
about this as assured that my number would work if people played
for real money. I was told to uninstall any version of this casino I
had, reboot, refresh, download and check again.
The stats did not change as they should.
On the 9th of August,I mailed my helpful person who prepared *my*
casino, and told him that I wanted to run a competition, to
spice up the local interest in the new site. He told me to speak to A.
She was very nice when she replied one week later and even suggested
that she would keep a list of anyone who enrolled via my site, so that
the draw could benefit real players.
I was mailing, writing, marketing the site in real life and on the
Internet, using all the books I got via the purchase and buying various
others.
The stats did not change as they should.
I mailed the casinos on the 17th of August and voiced my concern about
the sites. I received an email back, saying all is well and not to
worry.
The stats did not change.
Writing more articles, marketing the site via email and the Internet, I
decided to try and trust to some extent. I asked a very brilliant web
designer ( he wins international awards for his work), to set up a
mirror site for me in order to see what traffic we drove to this casino
on a daily basis, as I didn't
want to trouble them daily.
The stats on my page did not change, even though it showed hundreds of
people clicking the site, answering the competition question. We could
trace them to the point of clicking *download*.
The casino stats did not change.
They replied:
I would ignore the click though stats. The click through
stats is a general issue for the new affiliates of W who promote
through a long unique link not for R Casino owners. The players that
visit a R Casino web site do not need to
click through, they can download and play directly from
the web site.
Since your affiliates are using the smart download links on your web
site and bypassing the main Windows website the "number of click
through s" are irrelevant and would normally show '0'. Click throughs
also do not reflect clicks to your web site.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Things WOULD be alright.
The stats did not change.
I was told that my web master had made a mistake. All of a sudden the
cookie was not reflected in the mirror site. This should not have
mattered because most traffic came through the original site. He
mailed, I mailed. They responded. All the time : Not our fault. I did
not believe this. I asked him to check and he did.
The problem was not in his coding.
In all cases the redirect (TrackDownload.dll?) on THEIR server
does not include ANY affiliate ID.My script passes the URL redirect
through to the clients browser UNALTERED.
This is industry standard http 1.0 protocol!
This will not even affect a cookie or referer based tracking system as
the clients browser does all the talking.
I will change it back to the "official" link however I don't see
this solving the problem. Even before the script was put in place
it was not counting downloads.
The windows stats did not change.
I was feeling panic. I had worked for 20 hours , for almost a month.
Was all of this in vain?
Again and again I asked for telephone details. I felt that a conference
call could resolve the problem. I was told that Adoes not take or do
telepohne calls by the support of casino on 22 September.. R casinos
also wouldnt supply a telephone number, even though I asked for one,
and supplied my own number. I WAS PREPARED to pay for the call!On the
22 nd of September.. one month and fourteen days after I voiced concern
about this problem ( and please take into consideration that the mirror
site didn't EXIST at this time) my problem was forwarded to technical
support.The stats had changed slightly.
Again they blamed the mirror site.I agreed to have the original site
loaded again. We checked it. My web master sent me a screen shot
showing that whilst it LOOKS as if the cookie goes through, it actually
is blank. They didn't seem to understand the makings of this.
I mailed it to themM. and again I was assured that the stats would be
correct.
I asked my boyfriend to log on via the site DESIGNED by R casinos,for
me, and INSTALL the program.
And.. he signed up as a REAL player...I mailed A his details, asking
for PROOF, that this sign up was assigned to me as STILL THE STATS did
not change! She couldn't.
This is what I got.26th September:
"It's not recommended to ask anyone to play for real money until you
are 100% sure that the stats work. If a cookie was set previously on
your player's computer you may not be referred."
They finally understood what I was ON about! All my work, frustration
No one showed as signing on for a real account through my affiliate.
Not even my boyfriend.
On the 28th of September RTG came back and acknowledged that
this account was not assigned to me.
Rnow saidit was a windows problem. I realized with shock and horror
that I was not going to win this one. And.. I couldn't even phone
anyone about it.
I received no further email regarding the *cookie* problem from
Auntil the 30th. She offered me a new affiliate number and
I passed it on to R casino They changed the cookie.
Yet..The stats remained zero after the slight change on the 26th.
I got an email from A, to say she is sorry, why was their casinos no
longer the download available on the website.Read the story A, THAT is
why your casino does not feature on my affiliate list anymore.
THAT is why both sites now refer customers somewhere else.
Even when you did not reply to this email..and the stats never changed.
a casino.. Be very careful when you make a choice. The following is
fact and can be backed up with emails that I kept.
I came across the idea to *own* a casino in March. I looked at the
various offers, carefully researched, checked for bad references and
finally made a selection. I picked the right casinos, linked to a large
casino looked to be the best option. It was the right type of
casino,good games, fast download and it would not cripple the payment,
even in weak South African Rand, converting to US Dollar.
I made the payment with baited breath after selecting the relevant name
and skin, looking forward to some financial return,
although being realistic enough not to expect to become *rich*
overnight.
Little did I realize what horror and frustration was waiting ahead...
My first email received thanked me for joining them. So far so good. I
checked that the various lists worked, and asked some friends to
download the game, in order to see if the *real time* stats worked.
These friends had never heard of this casino, Never gambled
on line, so no cookie could prevent them downloading via *my*
casino, to be assigned to someone else.
Or so I thought. After all, every email told me not to *hesitate*
asking if they could be of assistance.
The stats did not change. I sent off an email to Anna and asked
about this as assured that my number would work if people played
for real money. I was told to uninstall any version of this casino I
had, reboot, refresh, download and check again.
The stats did not change as they should.
On the 9th of August,I mailed my helpful person who prepared *my*
casino, and told him that I wanted to run a competition, to
spice up the local interest in the new site. He told me to speak to A.
She was very nice when she replied one week later and even suggested
that she would keep a list of anyone who enrolled via my site, so that
the draw could benefit real players.
I was mailing, writing, marketing the site in real life and on the
Internet, using all the books I got via the purchase and buying various
others.
The stats did not change as they should.
I mailed the casinos on the 17th of August and voiced my concern about
the sites. I received an email back, saying all is well and not to
worry.
The stats did not change.
Writing more articles, marketing the site via email and the Internet, I
decided to try and trust to some extent. I asked a very brilliant web
designer ( he wins international awards for his work), to set up a
mirror site for me in order to see what traffic we drove to this casino
on a daily basis, as I didn't
want to trouble them daily.
The stats on my page did not change, even though it showed hundreds of
people clicking the site, answering the competition question. We could
trace them to the point of clicking *download*.
The casino stats did not change.
They replied:
I would ignore the click though stats. The click through
stats is a general issue for the new affiliates of W who promote
through a long unique link not for R Casino owners. The players that
visit a R Casino web site do not need to
click through, they can download and play directly from
the web site.
Since your affiliates are using the smart download links on your web
site and bypassing the main Windows website the "number of click
through s" are irrelevant and would normally show '0'. Click throughs
also do not reflect clicks to your web site.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Things WOULD be alright.
The stats did not change.
I was told that my web master had made a mistake. All of a sudden the
cookie was not reflected in the mirror site. This should not have
mattered because most traffic came through the original site. He
mailed, I mailed. They responded. All the time : Not our fault. I did
not believe this. I asked him to check and he did.
The problem was not in his coding.
In all cases the redirect (TrackDownload.dll?) on THEIR server
does not include ANY affiliate ID.My script passes the URL redirect
through to the clients browser UNALTERED.
This is industry standard http 1.0 protocol!
This will not even affect a cookie or referer based tracking system as
the clients browser does all the talking.
I will change it back to the "official" link however I don't see
this solving the problem. Even before the script was put in place
it was not counting downloads.
The windows stats did not change.
I was feeling panic. I had worked for 20 hours , for almost a month.
Was all of this in vain?
Again and again I asked for telephone details. I felt that a conference
call could resolve the problem. I was told that Adoes not take or do
telepohne calls by the support of casino on 22 September.. R casinos
also wouldnt supply a telephone number, even though I asked for one,
and supplied my own number. I WAS PREPARED to pay for the call!On the
22 nd of September.. one month and fourteen days after I voiced concern
about this problem ( and please take into consideration that the mirror
site didn't EXIST at this time) my problem was forwarded to technical
support.The stats had changed slightly.
Again they blamed the mirror site.I agreed to have the original site
loaded again. We checked it. My web master sent me a screen shot
showing that whilst it LOOKS as if the cookie goes through, it actually
is blank. They didn't seem to understand the makings of this.
I mailed it to themM. and again I was assured that the stats would be
correct.
I asked my boyfriend to log on via the site DESIGNED by R casinos,for
me, and INSTALL the program.
And.. he signed up as a REAL player...I mailed A his details, asking
for PROOF, that this sign up was assigned to me as STILL THE STATS did
not change! She couldn't.
This is what I got.26th September:
"It's not recommended to ask anyone to play for real money until you
are 100% sure that the stats work. If a cookie was set previously on
your player's computer you may not be referred."
They finally understood what I was ON about! All my work, frustration
No one showed as signing on for a real account through my affiliate.
Not even my boyfriend.
On the 28th of September RTG came back and acknowledged that
this account was not assigned to me.
Rnow saidit was a windows problem. I realized with shock and horror
that I was not going to win this one. And.. I couldn't even phone
anyone about it.
I received no further email regarding the *cookie* problem from
Auntil the 30th. She offered me a new affiliate number and
I passed it on to R casino They changed the cookie.
Yet..The stats remained zero after the slight change on the 26th.
I got an email from A, to say she is sorry, why was their casinos no
longer the download available on the website.Read the story A, THAT is
why your casino does not feature on my affiliate list anymore.
THAT is why both sites now refer customers somewhere else.
Even when you did not reply to this email..and the stats never changed.