PARTY POKER AFFILIATE PROGRAM - MAJOR ISSUE - Page 6

Poker Advantage · #51 08-29-2003, 01:49 PM

How can they hold you liable for something you really had nothing to do with. I can understand them restricting you from recieving profits from this player. But to require you to be responsible for their chargeback is assinine. I just made a new site and will not use party as an affiliate because of this. I can not afford to be liable if a situation like this arrose. FYI Homer. No other affiliate program that I am aware of does this.

Good luck my friend

sam h · #52 08-29-2003, 02:21 PM

Homer,

I feel like the important things to remember here are that:

1) You probably have no legal recourse.

2) Thus, your best chance for solving this problem is to raise as much as hell as possible with Party. I would not stop contacting them and I would continuously mention both that you are a very regular player and that you carry some weight with the Internet poker community. I would even quote your absurd number of posts on this site. Unless you make it apparent that it is not worth their while in the long run to screw you (just as it is not worth their while in the long run to get into extensive negotiations with a CC company over fraud), then I think they probably will.

If you signed any sort of agreement to join this program, I would also look over the fine print and figure out whether chargeback issues were mentioned.

I'm sorry this happened and I hope you can solve the problem.

Sam

pokerfunnMyAss · #53 08-29-2003, 03:34 PM

"I think you could win this one in a U.S. court"

I don't think this is an option. There is not only a jurisdictional issue, but Homer would be opening himself up to problems that have not been tested. The cardholder could claim, amongst other things, that he was coerced into an illegal activity by the affiliate.

The best solution is to try and mitigate the damages with PartyPoker if you plan on continuing as an affiliate. As far as recovering funds from the person doing the chargeback, 'raising hell' and threats of litigation will probably be your only recourse. I would advise a friend in the same situation to go no further than this. You don't want to be a test case, and there is probably nowhere that would even recognize your claim.

When you have further information as to the reason this person told the CC company he was not liable for the charges, please seek outside advice. In the meatime, i would _strongly_ advise a friend in the same situation to end his discussion here. The reasons I would advise this range from self incrimination, all the way to being careful not to tip-off the person behind this with too much information should he read this forum. Posing questions and seeking hypothetical advice is a-ok, but I would not provide any more specifics that you receive from PartyPoker beyond a general sense.

Good Luck

Mr Radar · #54 08-29-2003, 03:39 PM

[ QUOTE ]
amongst

[/ QUOTE ]

i like it.

Kurn, son of Mogh · #55 08-29-2003, 03:40 PM

Or that it was a charge from a stolen credit card that may or may not have been dumped to another active account on the site.

MaxPower · #56 08-29-2003, 03:46 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Me - How can a player charge back an amount of $16,000 (actually over the phone he said $17,000)? Isn't the daily CC deposit limit $500 and weekly limit $1000?

Answer - Because you're a good affiliate and there have never been any problems with your sign-ups before there was a less stringent security process used with this player's deposits. Therefore, s/he could make deposits every day and since the billing cycle for CC's is 45 days it added up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I love the way you are their business partner and are responsible for 20% of their losses, but they feel free to disregard their own policies. This person gets to deposit as much as they want and you have no say in the matter, but you are responsible for 20%. Yes, it is very clear in the affiliate agreement that you are responsible for chargebacks, but Party needs to hold up to their end of the bargain an either enforce their policies or ask your permission if they are going to make an exception.

[ QUOTE ]
Answer - I understand what you are saying. I will have to speak with one of my superiors to see if I can get that information for you. If we are able to give you this information, you may not get in contact with this player as a representative of Party Poker. You may ask this player why he/she did this, but as a separate entity from Party Poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you are a business partner with Party but they are allowed to withold this information from you. Maybe they will give you 20% of his name.

It sounds like they are being cooperative, so my advice is to stay on top of it and handle it in a professional manner.

Clearly they have a right to hold you responsible for the 20%. But if they investigate it and find that you are not at fault, I think it would be smart of them to let you slide on this one. If it happens again, they can throw you out of the affialte program.

Schadenfreude · #57 08-29-2003, 04:33 PM

This seems quite absurd. If this happened to me personally, and I did not receive affiliate revenue from the OTHER users I referred, because of this negation, I would contact every medium PartyPoker uses to advertise on. Also, I would contact any relevant news outlets. With all the attention being given to online gambling lately, a story such as this is very topical, and casts a bad light upon PartyPoker.

Kurn, son of Mogh · #58 08-29-2003, 04:45 PM

I think you could win this one in a U.S. court.

US Courts have zero authority outside the US. He would have to bring action against them in a local court.

On a positive note, Homer is doing the best thing he can in this circumstance: airing this problem in a public forum. It's important that Party get their house in order on this. Situations like this one are fodder for the politicians who want to deprive us of the freedom to play online. This can't be good PR for Party.

Cosimo · #59 08-29-2003, 05:01 PM

I think what happened is that a subtlety in the affiliate program contract was overlooked by Homer, and now he got bitten by it. Note: I can't really blame you! I might have done the same thing! But I am surprised by the people saying "wtf! sue Party and mail-bomb them!" Then again, I'm not really surprised because I know a lot of people that have very little knowledge of business, contracts, and fraud. When you enter into a contract, you have to be willing to accept the consequences--even if you are unaware of them.

Apparently, as an affiliate, you are testifying to the upstanding good nature of the people that you refer. In exchange for providing quality referrals, Party is kicking back a portion of the profit from that player. To limit and prevent losses due to fraud, they are specifically giving you a 20% share in the revenue from each referral. If the referral turns out to be a bad egg, you are similarly held liable for 20% of the losses.

In other words, this isn't a simple no-lose easy-money banner-hosting gig; you are a business partner. You are a business affiliate of Party Poker; NOT an agent or representative. Unlike an employee or contractor, you aren't collecting commisions. On the plus side, as a business partner, you should be able to get all sorts of information on the supposed defrauder. Holding you liable without providing proof of the fraud would be actionable. Don't post the information here, of course, and beware of chasing them yourself: someone trying to defraud Party out of $10,000 probably has a history in criminal behavior. I doubt this is some random nice 2+2 poster who had a bad day.

Personally, I think Party should have been more explicit in describing the situation in the affiliate contract. However, there is no legal recourse for entering a contract without understanding the full nature of the deal. It was Homer's responsibility to read and understand the contract, and (most likely, I haven't actually done the process) attested to that understanding before he could become an affiliate. I think Party should have had a nice big banner that said "if one of your referrals makes a large deposit and then protests, asking his CC company to chargeback the funds, you will be held liable for 20% of our loss" and "btw, we are free to ignore all posted deposit limits and might very well hold you liable for 20% of a giant-ass deposit".

It appears that Party is being fairly understanding here, and not asking Homer to cough up the green, but instead just offsetting his account. I guess, knowing the extent of the agreement now, that affiliates will proceed with caution. A phone call, meeting the candidate in person (maybe through an agent), getting their real name and home address, etc.

I am not licensed to practice law, this post should not be considered legal advice, etc.

-Cosimo

HUSKER'66 · #60 08-29-2003, 05:03 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Situations like this one are fodder for the politicians who want to deprive us the freedom to play online

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. They claim that they let an individual run up $16k in cc charges.....I thought that credit cards were "banned" from making deposits at most sites. I for one firmly believe that you should not be allowed to make a deposit using cc's or any form of "credit". They should run under a "pay first,play later" policy. Let's face it, some people do need to be protected from themselves. If the various sites had restrictions in place and enforced them, this sad state of affairs with Homer and the affiliate program never would have happened.