Buffalo Partners, the new referback-wagershare.

[Buffalo Partners Support]

Hello everyone,


We wanted to answer some of the queries to alleviate any current and possible future issues around the Buffalo Partners merge that took place on Friday:


1) Archived reports – These are all being updated and uploaded into Buffalo Partners to reflect ALL revenue generated for your accounts up to and including 31 July 2014 for your Referback accounts. We are aware that May, June and July is not showing and we are in the process of rectifying this. Please be reassured that ALL stats for your accounts will show in the archived reports.


2) Existing Links – To confirm all existing Referback and WagerShare links will work and will track correctly against your affiliate account. Existing affiliates do not need to change any links for any of the brands that Buffalo Partners is marketing. New affiliates to Buffalo Partners will receive new tracking links for brands. Should this need further clarification please don’t hesitate to contact your affiliate manager or contact is via the support form at Buffalo Partners support


3) River Belle, Mummys Gold and King Neptunes – Affiliates will continue to earn commission from existing players on these brands for the life time of the player(s) however these brands have not been transferred over to Buffalo Partners for affiliates to market.

We require that affiliates remove ALL links to these brands from their websites by the 31st of August 2014 where after Buffalo Partners will not be accepting any new players from affiliates on these brands and affiliates will not earn commission on new players after the 31st of August 2014. Should this need further clarification please don’t hesitate to contact your affiliate manager or contact is via the support form at Buffalo Partners support


4) Buffalo Partners Stats - We are aware of some of the stats not being pulled through correctly from Wagershare and Referback into your merged Buffalo Partners account and we are in the process of rectifying this. Please be reassured that we are doing everything we can to bring the stats back online and in line with what you were seeing on Referback and Wagershare.


5) Bespoke Revenue Share Deals – We are looking into the issues that affiliates have been raising around these deals. Please note that if an affiliate has two different deal types across the two affiliate platforms (Wagershare and Referback) the higher percentage of the two deals will carry across to Buffalo Partners i.e. if an affiliate had a 35% ReferBack deal and a 30% Wagershare deal then the 35% deal would be transferred to Buffalo Partners and all future commission will be earned at the higher percentage provided that the affiliate continues to deliver players according the commission structure shown here.


6) Password Reset – We are aware that some affiliates are experiencing issues with resetting their password and we are dealing with this on a case by case basis. Please contact your affiliate manager or the Buffalo Partners support


Should there be any other queries that affiliates have please do not hesitate to contact your affiliate manager. We are here to help to ensure that this merge process is as smooth as possible and that any issues are resolved in a timely manner.

Kind regards,


Buffalo Partners Support Team

 

[AussieDave]

5) Bespoke Revenue Share Deals – We are looking into the issues that affiliates have been raising around these deals. Please note that if an affiliate has two different deal types across the two affiliate platforms (Wagershare and Referback) the higher percentage of the two deals will carry across to Buffalo Partners i.e. if an affiliate had a 35% ReferBack deal and a 30% Wagershare deal then the 35% deal would be transferred to Buffalo Partners and all future commission will be earned at the higher percentage provided that the affiliate continues to deliver players according the commission structure shown here.

I was on 40% rev share with ReferBack - No Player Quota

The only way I can continue to keep this 40%, is if I deliver 101+ players (of the depositing kind) per month.

As I said in my previous post, it's clear WagerShare are now calling the shots.
FYI WagerShare is rogued here at AGD. Regardless of the name change, it will still be the same people calling the shots, the same people who ripped affiliates off!

 

[Perc]

I haven't heard back from my Referback AM either, and in the My Account section it says my AM is Robert Miller.

I know he's from Wagershare because he's emailed me countless times asking to get on my site.

By the looks of things, Wagershare bought out RB, and our Referback AMs were instructed to lie to us. <- Just how it looks to me, may or may not be true.

Well Wagershare you're finally on my site, congratulations. That won't last long if this is how you're handling bespoke deals:

5) Bespoke Revenue Share Deals – We are looking into the issues that affiliates have been raising around these deals. Please note that if an affiliate has two different deal types across the two affiliate platforms (Wagershare and Referback) the higher percentage of the two deals will carry across to Buffalo Partners i.e. if an affiliate had a 35% ReferBack deal and a 30% Wagershare deal then the 35% deal would be transferred to Buffalo Partners and all future commission will be earned at the higher percentage provided that the affiliate continues to deliver players according the commission structure shown here.

I was on 35% with RB - no player quota. If this deal is not going to be honored, I'll just say goodbye right now and go back to ignoring Wagershare/Buffalo emails.

As for the stats, I have two old players depositing this month (one signed up in May 2012) that look like there were instantly "locked" on August 1st. Locked is in quotes because they are both still depositing (but net rev and my earnings are zero because they're locked?)...... They are my two highest depositing players so far this month.

Wasn't one of the common complaints about Wagershare that there were always more locked players than usual?

 

[AussieDave]

Wasn't one of the common complaints about Wagershare that there were always more locked players than usual?

Yes it was!

WS was withholding affiliate earnings against possible chargebacks, on these locked accounts. As far as I can recall, WS placed a 6 month limbo on each account. But here's the scam. It was the onus of the affiliate, to keep track of these and not Wagershare. Hence, with little to no information, Wagershare successfully found a means to screw their partners side-ways.

In 14 years in this gig, I'd never seen so many accounts locked, as I had when Wagershare chose to turn rogue.

I've had to put the launch of another project on hold this week cause of this.

But I will be a lot happier, with less stress, when I've yanked every last banner, review and link associated to Buffalo Partners.

Given it's becoming clearer that Wagershare has taken over ReferBack, and given that WS are rogued at AGD, I think on principle Buffalo Partners should also be rogued too. Or at the very least, given a not recommended rating.

Wouldn't suprise me if this merger turned into a similar Grand Prive scam. Albeit GP did a runner on affiliates but with "locked accounts" already showing up in stats at BP, I don't see much difference, considering the end result is just as bad!

 

[jopaa]

Can someone explain me this:

If I click Reporting » Account Statistics and then Revenue Report, I see a tab and on each line I have one casino brand.

The problem is that in front of the Gaming Club's line I have the "Fraud Locked" symbol. WTF does that mean? That all my Gaming Club players are locked? I have 7 players playing already ($725 Net Revenue and $181 earnings at 25%), and most of them are playing from 2010, 2011 and 2012

WagerShare can you explain me WHY!!!!

And can someone please tell me if Andrew Stone still works there, because he don't answer to my emails!

 

[AussieDave]

I've heard nothing; zilch; nadda, from my ex Referback AM. Given we've had a strong friendship for many years, it's totally out-of-character for him. Given Shane is now working for Commission365, it wouldn't suprise me, if we are soon to discover, the trusted RB team are jobless.

What really bites me over this. Affiliates had little to no warning about River Belle, Mummys Gold and King Neptunes being dropped.

Most affiliates have more than one site, these are usually WP sites, forums and alike, consisting of 100's, if not 1000's of pages. Buffalo Partners would be fully aware of this, yet shows no concern for its partners. While the tracking no longer tracks, the referred players (until all links are removed) what's happening to them, where are they ending up!

 

[Vladi]

Well my ex-RB manager has apparently gone on holiday for 3 weeks which is odd timing considering the assistance needed by affiliates during the changeover. And to make things even better the contact he referred me to while he was away does not seem to like answering emails. This whole thing is really starting to reek.

 

[Andrew - Buffalo Partners]

Hi everyone,

This is Andrew Stone writing to you – I used to be an account manager at Referback and am now an account manager at Buffalo Partners.

I’m going to address some of the general issues which have been discussed on the forum so far, and after that will reply to each post individually, visible for all to see. If you have posted multiple times on the same topic, then I will of course only reply under one of the posts.

Firstly, I must sincerely apologize for any delays that you have experienced in receiving responses. We do have a huge database of affiliates between both Referback and Wagershare, and understandably there have been many, many queries via call, Skype and email since the program launched on the 1st of August. We ask that you please be patient – all queries will be responded to, and all issues resolved. We are doing our very best to reply to you as soon as possible.

It also seems possible that in many cases affiliates are not receiving our replies. This may be because we are now using the mailing domain @buffalopartners.com

Please add this domain to your safe senders.

On that note, my email address at Buffalo Partners should you wish to contact me directly is andrew.stone@buffalopartners.com

You are also welcome to contact me on Skype at: andrew.stone34 (I will be available again on Skype from tomorrow the 6th of August)

The general support email address is support@buffalopartners.com

There has been some speculation about the new program being run by Wagershare i.e. Wagershare taking over Referback. This is not the case. The new program naturally has elements from both programs. The Buffalo Partners portal for example looks more like more like Wagershare’s old portal than Referback’s, because we found the Wagershare portal to be more modern with more functionality meaning a better overall experience for you. In terms of policy, Referback has had a big influence. Essentially what we have done is try to take the best elements from both programs, and combine them into one new super affiliate program.

Some of you have been experiencing issues with reporting, your revenue share percentage and some other issues. Our developers and indeed the whole team are working vigorously around the clock on resolving these issues, and already many have been resolved. Any outstanding technical issues should be resolved during the course of this week.

With regards to existing links: all of your existing links will still track and offers will stay the same. You do not need to change these. This applies to both Referback and Wagershare links.

Every single one of your existing players from both programs have been carried across into your Buffalo Partners account. With Referback, we never provided reporting at a player level, but now you have the opportunity to see individual player stats in your Buffalo Partners account. If you have any queries about your players based on the reports, we’ll be happy to discuss this with you. There have been some queries about locked player accounts – this too we will look at on a case by case basis. In the unfortunate situation that there is a locked account, your full owed earnings will be paid out to you and not withheld for any time period. Please contact our support or your assigned account manager should you have queries of this nature.

Lastly, there has been some mention of Shane being away during the merge period. This is purely unfortunate timing – Shane had been planning an international trip long before we knew the launch date of the new program, and it was not possible to cancel.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this email, please bear with us in terms of response times. I’m personally expecting a lot of emails as a result of this post, and will not leave the office until all emails are replied to. So I will reply to you before I leave, even if that means it will be at 4AM - you will get a reply

I wish all our affiliates a very successful future with Buffalo Partners.

Best regards,

Andrew

 

[Andrew - Buffalo Partners]

I do not think it will be that beneficial to us ; no mention of changing links, the one account policy that RB has (had?) what happens to belle rock entertainment, T&C, quotas, rev. share. etc etc

Another example of poor communication and besides that my guts feeling tells me to be very suspicious as the new program name does not sound like an industry leading professional who is taking care of us affiliates for years to come. I hope I am wrong.

There's been quite a few comments on the name! Some people love the new name and others don't, it's subjective at the end of the day One thing that I think we can agree on is that it stands out from other names that exist in the industry right now. Your questions have been answered further down in this thread, if you still have any questions or concerns please get in touch with us - you can mail me directly at Andrew.stone@buffalopartners.com or our general support is support@buffalopartners.com

We will do our utmost to ensure that you are taken care of for many years still to come.

 

[Andrew - Buffalo Partners]

What about all the commission payments that WagerShare have been holding onto for so many years because of their retroactively added inactivity rule? Are they going to be paying those commissions to the affiliates??? I'm owed thousands of dollars by WagerShare and am not likely to just forget about them anytime soon.

We will consider each account on a case by case basis. Please contact us should you have had funds previously withheld.

We will likely end up pulling their casinos from our sites. It's difficult to see why Referback would want to merge with a program that has a really bad reputation.

We had an agreement with Wagershare a few years back, everything was running
smoothly until it came time for them to pay, then we couldn't get any response
from our affiliate manager. After about a week, we finally made contact with
someone else that informed us that our affiliate manager had been fired for
making deals that weren't authorized, and we should just forget about it.

It would be nice if Referback could clarify what exactly is taking place here. Changing
their name from Referback (for over 12 years now) to Buffalo Partners makes me
wonder why they changed that name, and if our earnings will turn into buffalo chips.

At a high level due to a company merge, it didn't make sense operationally for the one company to have two affiliate programs. We chose therefore to form one new program, taking the best elements from both, and forming one super program. There has been good to take out of both programs, and anything negative we have left behind.

This month earnings at referback are not too bad. Not very good (in particular after two months 0 earnings), but it's summer so maybe that's the cause. They're not stealing my money yet or maybe they already did in the 2 months before. We are never sure as a affiliate

Had Andrew of referback on the phone and he promised to ask management to give a minimum payout guarantee to affiliates who keep on sending the same traffic. This as a insurance policy to the new ethos with Wagershare influence. Appreciate the effort of Andrew and I'll let you know when Andrew comes back to me about it.

I really hope that Buffalo will have the strategic and therefore the moral sense (or vice versa, I don't care) to not f#%$ck affiliates over.

We've chatted about the earnings and I hope that I made everything as transparent as possible to you. While in an ideal world we would love for each month to end with a big positive balance, in reality there can be months where this doesn't happen. It makes sense from a business perspective to be as honest a program as possible.

With regards to a minimum earnings guarantee, this is not a possibility at this time. Our huge player conversion and retention team, which literally consists of 1,000+ staff, will do their best to work with your players and convert and retain them as best as possible.

We are making decent money every month with Referback. Well, so far any merge or change of aff program was always a loss for us. Will see how this turns out.

We hope to reverse your past experience with mergers and increase your current revenue.

I've always liked and trusted RB. My AM Shane, has always kept his promises and treated me very well. But Wagershare... If RB were the angels, WS are the devils. I'd be holding an indentical negativity if RB was mergering with the likes of Grand Prive. IMHO WS and GP are not that disimilar because they have both, f#%$ck affiliates over

Though maybe this merger will be good. Maybe the powers-that-be have realised, they need to clean Wagershare's act and make all the unethical things they've done to affiliates, right! I guess time will tell...

From our perspective only good things will come out of this merge for our affiliates. The strong Referback influence will show! It won't take long to see this.

Never dealt with WS, only RB. Nothing but positive experiences with RB thus far, hopefully that will continue with the merge

The BP website is most definitely an improvement over the old RB site, things are so much more easier to find and actually working correctly

I'm really glad that you are finding the new website to be an improvement. This is definitely one of the many positives that has come out of the merge.

This is the simple truth, and it absolutely boggles my mind the amount of casino operators can't see the MASSIVE impact this has on their business

The market has NEVER been as competitive as it is now, and casinos who don't offer their players Decent Bonuses, Great CS and FAST cash-outs are simply going to get left behind.
It's not bleedin' rocket science!

KK

We really hear what you're saying KK! Our brands offer some of the best customer service out there, in multiple languages. We even look for customer service representatives from all over the world in the respective countries that we provide support for to work with us in our operations centre. This is to ensure that players are provided with the best support in their culture and language. Our VIP team provides world class VIP support to our VIPs. The best bonuses are given to players in relation to their play and the cashin pending period of 72 hours can be adjusted for players depending on their level of play. Many players 'recycle' their winnings, meaning they deposit the same as what they cash out, and from a payment processing cost point of view this does not make business sense for the casino. Ultimately we are all in this business to make money, for both the operator and affiliates alike, while offering our players top-class entertainment and the chance to win big. It's important to strike a balance to get this right.

Just saw that my "Archived Reports" are not correct and some data are missing. Unfortunately, I didn't know about this changes until this morning (because my AM didn't send me any email) so I cannot prove anything.

I will wait to see if my earnings will stay the same after the move and then decide what to do.

Here we go!

First player locked for fraud! I think I've had one single player locked for fraud with Referback in 4 years and now, the first day of this "merge" thing, we see the same shit going on like into our WS account in the past.

The funny thing is that this player has only deposited $5. This market is getting really ridiculous.

Jopaa, we'll take an indepth look at your account and provide explanations to you. With Referback you never had player level reporting before, so it's possible that you wouldn't have known that players were locked due to being fraudulent. Unfortunately fraudulent players have been, are and will be a part of this industry for a long time to come. We take as many protective measures as possible to reduce the number of fraudulent players coming through. please get in touch with me - I have also Private Messaged you.

Checking the Revenue Reports for July 2014, I still see only Wagershare earnings.
Does anyone also see referback earnings for July yet?

If this is still the case for you, please get in contact for us to see what the problem might be.

Can someone explain me this:

If I click Reporting » Account Statistics and then Revenue Report, I see a tab and on each line I have one casino brand.

The problem is that in front of the Gaming Club's line I have the "Fraud Locked" symbol. WTF does that mean? That all my Gaming Club players are locked? I have 7 players playing already ($725 Net Revenue and $181 earnings at 25%), and most of them are playing from 2010, 2011 and 2012

WagerShare can you explain me WHY!!!!

And can someone please tell me if Andrew Stone still works there, because he don't answer to my emails!

I'm still here, and have been replying to your emails, trying to phone you and have also private messaged you on AGD. I hope we make contact soon! If you're on Skype please add me: andrew.stone34
A Fraud Locked symbol in front of a brand doesn't mean that all accounts are locked, it is an indicator that there is one or more locked player accounts in that brand for the month you are looking at.

 

[inspiration]

This merger came as a thief in the night, you cancelled all previous revenue share deals and set it to a basic 20-25% with quatos, in total 3 well known casinos to market have been removed, changed terms and conditions retroactively and now all earnings are combined and bundled.

You like the new website : whatever the old one were great, a new one does not pay the bills.

I can not see 1 positive aspect regarding our future commissions with BP as these will be less than before and that has been the goal all along, not a super affiliate program that is utter BS.

 

[Engineer]

Andrew, thanks for the detailed responses.

I sent you an email earlier today -- please let me know if you did not receive it.

Thanks...

 

[Andrew - Buffalo Partners]

This merger came as a thief in the night, you cancelled all previous revenue share deals and set it to a basic 20-25% with quatos, in total 3 well known casinos to market have been removed, changed terms and conditions retroactively and now all earnings are combined and bundled.

You like the new website : whatever the old one were great, a new one does not pay the bills.

I can not see 1 positive aspect regarding our future commissions with BP as these will be less than before and that has been the goal all along, not a super affiliate program that is utter BS.

Hi inspiration. We will ensure that your Referback deal is the same deal that you have going into Buffalo Partners. I'll be in contact with more info about this.

Please be aware that brand bundling does not take place - each brand is separate and positive netwin applies. Thanks, Andrew

 

[inspiration]

FYI I have removed some comments.

mods feel free to edit any comments I have posted about BP.

I am not interested anymore in debating on forums, need the time to change links and banners.

 

[slotplayer]

I might give them shot since I never promoted RB (only WS), not much to lose at this point.

 

[jopaa]

Jopaa, we'll take an indepth look at your account and provide explanations to you. With Referback you never had player level reporting before, so it's possible that you wouldn't have known that players were locked due to being fraudulent. Unfortunately fraudulent players have been, are and will be a part of this industry for a long time to come. We take as many protective measures as possible to reduce the number of fraudulent players coming through. please get in touch with me - I have also Private Messaged you.

I've sent you an email so please let me know if you didn't receive it.

About player level reporting you're right, I never had it on RB but I was able to see the amount of "fraud" revenue that was taken from my earnings. I know for sure because last month was the second time I saw it (it was $68) in all years that I promoted RB.

 

[slotplayer]

I see the offer for the free face book games pop up for USA visitors.
is that just data collection for when/if the usa market opens up?

 

[mgbonus]

We will ensure that your Referback deal is the same deal that you have going into Buffalo Partners.

This isn't accurate for our account or at least Karla gave us different information.
I hope others will still have their deal.
She told us that Buffalo doesn't offer a hybrid deal and our Referback hybrid deal has been changed to 25% revshare and the percentage could be raised if we started promoting the brands again.
With the 6x deposit max cashout on signup bonuses, that's probably not going to happen.
But I'm still hoping that what you said there stands for our affy acct as well and our hybrid deal will stay the same or will be replaced with a similar deal.

 

[slots777]

This month earnings at referback are not too bad. Not very good (in particular after two months 0 earnings), but it's summer so maybe that's the cause. They're not stealing my money yet or maybe they already did in the 2 months before. We are never sure as a affiliate

Had Andrew of referback on the phone and he promised to ask management to give a minimum payout guarantee to affiliates who keep on sending the same traffic. This as a insurance policy to the new ethos with Wagershare influence. Appreciate the effort of Andrew and I'll let you know when Andrew comes back to me about it.

I really hope that Buffalo will have the strategic and therefore the moral sense (or vice versa, I don't care) to not f#%$ck affiliates over.

Thought it would be a good month, but ended up with a "big winner" and made absolutely nothing over July. It made me think of:

For this mont I have a very big plus, but I'm afraid that it will be gone again the last day of the month. Will keep you posted

 

[mgbonus]

Got a reply that our hybrid won't be honored as they don't offer hybrids anymore and we're switched to 25% regular revenue share.