Stars Affiliate Club - CPA Rip Off

Hello,

I would like to bring up something we have come across whiles promoting PokerStars Brand.

We opened an affiliate account with Stars Affiliate Club, to promote PokerStars Brand. Our account was approved and by default set to multiple RS options and CPA structure for Europe market. Based on this, budget was allocated for campaigns and promotions.

While following our progress, monitoring campaigns and statistics everything looked good, we delivered 9 qualified FTD and earned x amount of commissions in September.

But everything changed at the end of the month, when we ran the report for September on Stars Club Affiliate platform and realised, our commissions have now been set to 0.00$.

So, we got in touch with customer service, hoping to resolve this misunderstanding, but sadly this was reply we received from support:

1.‘’CPA Commissions were calculated due to an error in our commissions structure, where CPA amount was added to our Rev Share structure. This explains why you did not receive CPA commission in September’’.

Although this was not the case, we tried to explain our point of view, providing facts and screenshots. We were asked to be patient and wait whiles they are investigating it. After their internal investigation, we received and email:

2."We have now completed that investigation, we have found and determined that your commission for September had been incorrectly calculated as a result of an internal error "

Again, we tried to argue the case, but statement in last email received, was that we won’t get paid and that’s their final decision.

So basically, they had CPA reward structure in place on Stars Affiliate Club platform. In emails they admitted multiple times that this has been an internal error, and trying to cover it up by lying that CPA amount was added to RS campaign and calculated incorrectly. Now of course CPA campaign structure has been removed from commissions page, but luckily, we have screenshots prior to these changes.

I believe it’s a very unfair and irresponsible from PokerStars Affiliate clubs side, display information and guidelines for partners to follow and invest their money, just so they can rip them off and blame an error as a cause of this. Poor excuse, absolutely disgusting.

This is first time we had something like this happen. Has anyone encountered this type of issue? If so, advice on how to resolve this?

Hello SLOTSBINK,

Thank you for contacting us.

We are sorry to hear about your experience.

Your message has been passed on to the relevant people within the Affiliate team. They will be reviewing this in the shortest time possible, and as soon as they have more information for you, we will let you know.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Kind regards

PokerStars Support

Dear Stars Affiliate Club,

Please let us know if there's some update regarding this case.

Hi Askgamblers,

We have forwarded your request for an update to the relevant team. As soon as we have more information, we'll reply to you.

Thanks for your patience.

Kind regards

Stars Affiliates Club

Received reply from StarsAffiliateClub support and seems we will be paid. Cheers!

"However, a technical error occurred between 1st September and 30th September (the “Commission Error Period”) which incorrectly applied a CPA $120 to the default plan. We recognize that this was our error and that we may have led you to believe during that period that a CPA of $120 was included within your reward plan. For that reason, we are prepared to compensate you for players you referred during the Commission Error Period with a CPA $120, as follows:
Qualified Players: 9
Total CPA Commission: $1,080
The outstanding amount will be added and paid out with the November commission round. Any future commission you may receive will be calculated in accordance with the default plan.
We apologies for any inconvenience caused and trust that you are satisfied with this resolution"

Dear @slotsbink,

The AskGamblers Complaint Team is kindly asking you to update your complaint in a timely manner and confirm if you consider the issue resolved. Please note that, in case you fail to respond within the given timeframe we will consider your case resolved and it will be closed accordingly.

Please keep in mind that as per the AGCCS Terms and Guidelines which you accepted upon registering and using our complaint system, you are obliged to provide the necessary level of assistance and cooperation during the process and providing updates in a timely manner is a must.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation.