Lock Poker Charging 11x CPA for Chargeback

[stillshadow]

Since I seem to operate on a different wavelength than some of you in regard to program policies I wanted to throw this out there to see if it seems as weird to others as it does to me. The Lock payments recently came in and I noticed it was substantially lower than it should have been. When neither Gerry nor Shane answered why I looked at my payment section in the backend and saw what looked like a player name and a 4-figure deduction for a chargeback.

I am only on CPA with Lock. Does it seem strange that the equivalent of 11 CPAs should be taken for what looks like one scumbag player did? I really don't have to deal with this at many programs but when I have had to occasionally they just take away the CPA payment. That seems sensible enough. I've never even really understood why affiliates driving organic traffic should even be tied to player chargeback activity. It just sort of seems nonsensical and unavoidable to me. However, I've never seen a CPA program take more than whatever they were going to pay me.

I was considering boosting Lock but stuff like this just convinces me not to personally. Just a bunch of weird activity to me and the lack of support is just getting tiring. It's good that they brought Gerry on but even with him they can't seem to handle much. I know some of you are used to these kinds of predatory policies so is it just me who thinks this is weird?

UPDATE: It has been confirmed with Shane Bridges, affiliate manager at Lock Poker, that this was not a mistake and is in fact their policy to deduct complete chargeback figures to affiliates on CPA plans.

UPDATE #2: On June 23, Jennifer Larson, CEO of Lock Poker, sent the following e-mail to me:

I am the owner and CEO of Lock and Revolution Gaming. It has been brought to my attention that you have been slamming us on the forums and just being overall disrespectful. We consider all our partners as just that true partners. We would never go out into a public forum and disrespect you but we would work to resolve any issues.


Based on your actions we have decided to no longer work with you. Gerry and Shane have come to me on multiple occasions with the constants issues and just overall stress they feel when it comes to you and its just not the making of a healthy partnership. We invest over 500K into affiliate marketing a month and regardless of any problems that may happen both parties are always looking for resolution. That does not appear to be what you are looking for at all.


Shane will make sure that all CPAs are paid in full on July 1st. Please remove us from your sites as we no longer wish to work with you.


Best,

Jennifer
_
Jennifer Larson
CEO | Founder

Further Resources: Several PAL members have contributed content hosted on their sites, Diggs, Tweets, and topics on other gambling/affiliate forums to help make others aware of activies at Lock Poker. The following is a sample of their efforts to give full disclosure to players and affiliates:

MJ: Lock Poker Stealing From Affiliates
parttimepoker: Lock Poker Fires Affiliate Who Complained About Undisclosed Chargeback Policy | Online Poker Report and https://twitter.com/OPReport/status/216599364133588994
pokeraddict: Lock Poker Affiliate Program Warning | Las Vegas and US Online Poker News and Lock Poker Affiliate Commission Deduction of 11x CPA Due to Chargeback - Rakeback and Affiliates - Poker Affiliating and Rakeback Forum
DealerDan: (BLACKLISTED!) Lock Poker Affiliate Program Review | Dealer Dan’s Affiliate Bible
corpfan1: (BLACKLISTED!) Lock Poker Affiliate Program Review | Dealer Dan
AceHigh Pino: Lock Poker's Problems Continue to Linger Over the Industry

[Mike]

If you are on CPA, then you are not on a "profit share" program and therefore should not be affected by things that affect profit. If a fraudulent player signs up under you, you should not get credit for that player - period. No more, no less.

Rev share is an entirely different story, IMO.

I can't think of another industry that does this with CPA, can anyone?

EDIT: Just checked their T&Cs and I don't see anything about this applying to CPA, only RevShare

Revenue-Share
Company will pay the Affiliate a percentage of the total monthly Net Revenue for Poker play generated as a result of all Customers directly referred by the Affiliate.
"Net Revenue" is calculated on Poker activities: total wagers made by customers less; payouts, charge-backs, bonuses, fraud, and other incentives offered to the Customer;

[Prop]

Agree with Mike. I'm guess this will have turned out to have been a mistake.

[jdwanchalk]

Agree with Mike. I'm guess this will have turned out to have been a mistake because they were caught.

fyp

[Prop]

perhaps but doubtful. How often would such a deduction go unnoticed?

[Pokeraddict]

I've never even really understood why affiliates driving organic traffic should even be tied to player chargeback activity.

The reason is that rogue affiliates could (and have) driven fraudulent traffic to a poker room in an attempt to scam them. The affiliate program has to protect themselves from this fraud. As for a CPA, there should only ever be a chargeback for the CPA on the player. If they are going to share negative revenue with you, they owe you all of the positive revenue too. It does not work both ways.

[MJ]

Sounds like they just blanket nailed you for every deposit the player made, I'm with prop probably a mistake.

[stillshadow]

True, it would have to be a mistake logically, but I wouldn't be too surprised if Lock tried to justify it somehow. Mike, I appreciate you finding that it would basically be a breach of their own terms. Prop, most affiliates like us wouldn't miss something like this but I could see it happening with people who don't pay attention to their stats or who just cash out every month without much thought put into it. It's sort of disturbing that the system or someone individually would have done this.

The problem with Lock is that, even when they acknowledge (and they do have to) that this shouldn't have happened when will that be and when will the replacement funds arrive? I couldn't even get them to tell me how much I was paid. Welcome to the new Lock, same as the old Lock. Some of you guys seem to be able to magically reach them. If you do and remember this thread, feel free to send them this way. Thanks.

[Spry]

Untitled-1.jpg

Any progress on this?

[stillshadow]

I wish I could say there was. I've got Shane logging into Skype but ignoring me catching him live and Gerry on day 4 of saying he would get back with me later that day. I really don't understand this place. What does the affiliate team do all day if it isn't help affiliates? Is anyone in contact with someone there? If they hadn't Just bought a network I would say we were looking at a poker room that could be toast.