ActiveWins / Betfred - Mysterious Unexplained Chargebacks

**webanalysissolutions** · 11 February 2014, 4:05 am

Ok, so I’m not one of those affiliates that quickly shouts on forums every time I have a problem ?I prefer to try work things out with advertisers before washing dirty laundry in public, but a recent issue I’ve had with ActiveWins (who promote BetFred) has to now be aired as my discussions over the issue with ActiveWins seem to be coming to an end and getting nowhere, if not over with no resolution.

ActiveWin's last response to my issue was

I have spoken with my managment. Unfortunately there is nothing that we can do at this stage. We are losing money because of these chargebacks due to players which consistently bringing in.

As a result, we cannot trust ActiveWins or BetFred because our earnings have evaporated through unexplained chargebacks. We will not advertise any ActiveWins brands until this is resolved. We will be happy to update this post with new information as it is received from ActiveWins/Betfred, but at the moment the information is not forthcoming and we have fairly described our experience to date below.So, in the interest of other affiliates, perhaps smaller than us, check your ActiveWins/Betfred stats, and keep a close eye on them. We strongly believe in sharing issues that have a wider interest to the wider affiliate community, because in the long run we will all benefit from a more open and transparent industry.

Read on if you have the time. The detail below is lengthy, but if you have a working relationship with ActiveWins and/or BetFred you may want to consider our experience as there’s no reason why it could not happen to you. If anything ?check your Income Access payment history reports, in particular the bonus column to see if you’re being deducted chargebacks

You may not have noticed chargebacks on your account. This is how it works at ActiveWins - you progress through the month looking at your earnings report in Income Access and all looks good and you're earning money. The end of the month arrives and you're still in healthy profit. Then, 15 or so days after the end of the month you look at the Payment Report and there are deductions in the bonus column. I am told this is the accounts team applying any chargebacks. So, you have no idea throughout the month what you're being charged back!

This is a summary of our experience - I have a detailed document of all events if anyone is interested:

I've been in the industry 11 years - never had a chargeback, and we've worked with practically all the big brands.
On ActiveWins / BetFred - We’ve had 3 chargebacks (amounting to a gross $9500), 3 months in a row (Oct, Nov, Dec 2013), wiping out positive earnings in two of those three months. Chargebacks appear to amount to approximately one-third of all deposits in the last 6 months! ActiveWins cannot/will not explain where the charge backs came from, which players, or provide any more granular detail.
105 of our 114 depositors in 2013 deposited a total of less than $1000 each, most depositing less than $100.
So, how did we incur $9,500 in fraud on an account with between $26K and $35K deposits? That’s one hell of a proportion!

Before people go off on tangents with this discussion - this is not about whether chargebacks are right or wrong, or whether affiliate should or should not share them (that's a diffferent debate). This is about advertisers not being willing to provide transparency when you get such chargebacks on your account. Our frustration with ActiveWins is that they won't explain how these chargebacks have come about, giving a number of excuses like "you sent us bad players", "you have to share in the loss too", "we took a loss on this", and "player data is sensitive" (so, why is it I can even see all my referred player names on the account report in Income Access?!).

I have noticed a number of complaints and issues since BetFred moved to ActiveWins. This issue has also arisen shortly after that move.

All of the above excuses just seem to be pushing the issue to one side. I have asked ActiveWins - How can any affiliate work with a company where you earn revenue share only for it to be wiped out each month by some accounting method that has no explanation?

I could go on but in the interest of making this initial post short and readable I'll add more as needed. When you see so many instances of bad stats, stats going wrong or fed incorrectly to Income Access, and even affiliates being told that chargebacks were ultimately a mistake and not attributed to their players once investigated, this sort of issue must be transparent if affiliates are to trust such advertisers.

When things are unexplained then inertia leads us to speculate -

Perhaps Betfred's fraud checks are not as good as other companies and they're letting through bad players and bonus abuse? We've not had a chargeback in 11 years.
Perhaps the offers like ?0 completely free bet should not be promoted by affiliates if they only bring in bonus abuse?
Perhaps the stats on Income Access are incorrect?
Perhaps ActiveWin's reluctance to explain the stats means that a) they're not empowered to look into it as a third party to the brands they promote, or b) they don't want to explain it for some reason.
How on earth can even one-third of all our deposits in the last 12 months be chargebacks?!?! Seriously? Are you telling me out of our 114 depositors that so much was fraud?
How far back do chargebacks go? I know most companies say it can take 6 months for charges to come back, but we've gone back 12 months. Are BetFred going back even further?

I would advise any affiliate to snapshot their stats from IncomeAccess every month and store them in a spreadsheet/database. This way you will be able to see if anything is altered/updated/changed in the future. We certainly do this.

**justbookies** · 11 February 2014, 5:04 am

You do need transparency on this, because it does sound fishy and a very large proportion of your deposits. Clarity is absolutely key to a good working relationship. They could provide some paperwork from the bank to demonstrate the chargeback exists.

I have experience of chargebacks from 15 years ago when I was running an online bookmaker, so things may have changed slightly. We did get chargebacks and I know other firms were getting worse chargebacks than us at the time. The way it worked then (and it can't have changed much) is one player might charge back all his deposits for the previous six months (I think it might be a year they can go back now). So when you were hit you were hit in one go and hard because the player had done this deliberately and fraudulently. I saw chargebacks into five figures then and we were a small firm. So all that is more than possible.

If you haven't had a chargeback in 11 years then have you been looking at your stats properly all that time? I sure as hell have had chargebacks consistently over the time I have been an affiliate (11 years also). But then I had experience of them and looked out for them as they can't be avoided. Fortunately I have not yet been hit with any huge figure that I have noticed.

Your chargeback figures are huge and do appear extreme for the level of your player base. Those figures would be possible if you have one player accounting for a bulk of the turnover who then charged back. I agree with you that it is crucial you actually get some transparency given the size of the deduction. While firms can't go showing paperwork for every minor chargeback, your case strikes at the credibility of the system. I don't like being palmed off with the 'client confidentially' stuff as they can always erase pertinent details. The odds are that if valid this level of chargeback was from one person. So it should be easy for them to provide you with a copy of a document from their bank (with those personal details blacked out) just for credibility's sake and to show willing. It is all about good will and trust and they could quite easily just prove the validity of this to you.

**webanalysissolutions** · 11 February 2014, 5:23 am

Originally Posted by justbookies

The odds are that if valid this level of chargeback was from one person.

Delving a bit deeper though it makes it even more unbelievable -
Income Access lets you run an Account report between two dates and it shows you all active players and their details. BetFred are (were!) one of our smallest advertisers, so in 2013 our two most active depositors on our affiliate account deposited just over $4,000 each. That’s $8,000.

Our third most active depositor deposited $1800 in 2013 and so on.

The point is – you have to sum a few players to even get close to the $10,000 in chargebacks we’ve incurred, so the chargebacks we’ve received cannot be 1 player. In any case, why would you get chargebacks 3 months in a row from 1 player? – companies disable accounts when chargebacks are received.

Will be interesting to see if other affiliates have had similar chargebacks on their accounts. Even if not, I still feel like we're being robbed given the above experience, but as I said in a previous post, out of fairness to advertisers who play ball, I'm happy to update this post with the facts - if ActiveWins ever provide them!

In the meantime it's only fair that companies that are not transparent have the facts exposed to other affiliates so that they can make their mind up as to whether they want to have this same experience in 12 months when they start earning significant money and get hit with chargebacks that won't/can't be explained by the advertiser.

**justbookies** · 11 February 2014, 5:35 am

Yes, that's a powerful argument that a mistake may have been made in this case.

**webanalysissolutions** · 11 February 2014, 5:52 am

Originally Posted by justbookies

Yes, that's a powerful argument that a mistake may have been made in this case.

Yes, I couldn't believe my eyes when I ran the account report, even for the last 12 months, and saw that out of 115 depositors in 2013 only 9 of them deposited more than $1000.

When ActiveWins were faced with all of these questions about how the numbers add up, they still kept coming back with answers unrelated to them like "but you sent us fraudulent players", "we took a big loss on the players you referred us", "we can't divulge sensitive information" etc etc

It seems, like many other affiliate programs (bar a few really good ones), that everything is fine when you're referring players, but as soon as you have a question they chew you up, spit you out, and move on to the next set of naïve affiliates who come to their stand at the next conference and go back to the office giving them top advertising space. That's the fickle nature of the industry I suppose, but as more and more affiliates become savvy with who they want to work with, this will gradually change over time, and is already.

We gave BetFred 80,000 (eighty thousand - no typo) clicks in the 2013 calendar year. So, we're not a tiny affiliate, and ActiveWins/Betfred don't seem to want to help us on this issue, despite the amount of traffic we can refer them. If you're an affiliate referring a few hundred clicks a month to an advertiser like this, just think - they're not going to treat you much better!

Any good advertisers out there want Betfred's 80,000 clicks from us in 2014?

**justbookies** · 11 February 2014, 6:04 am

Maybe Betfred can comment here about your high level of chargebacks on low-depositing players?

**webanalysissolutions** · 11 February 2014, 6:18 am

I'm hoping that this sort of exposure does encourage them to work better with affiliates.

When you flog the issue for almost 6 weeks and get nowhere, while you've suspended all advertising for a brand and would like to advertise them, then what can you do as an individual?

Happy to be proven wrong on any of the above assumptions, but when you're not provided with the detail to resolve an issue then what can you do?

**webanalysissolutions** · 11 February 2014, 8:04 am

Had a phone call from Warren Jacobs, who heads up ActiveWins - he's keen to resolve the issue and like I said in my original posts I'm happy to update this post with any outcomes. Just a shame it wasn't resolved in the last 6 weeks of talking to ActiveWins privately.

**-Shay-** · 11 February 2014, 8:25 am

This issue (others having similar/exact same problem) is the main thing that has kept us from working with Activewins/Betfred.

Let's hope it gets resolved for you and everyone else affected and that going forward, the errors in their ways are admitted and learned from.

**webanalysissolutions** · 11 February 2014, 8:51 am

Let's see what happens. I've explained my issues and ActiveWins are looking into them for now. I'm not completely aware of other people's issues, but perhaps post/link them here and see if it's related to our issues.

Whether it's an actual genuine chargeback and we accept it - with explanation, a mistake or system error, or whatever, it's good to get things resolved, if not only clarified. It's a small amount of money - it's not about that, it's about being clear and transparent so that you can work with a company with confidence.

To give him credit Warren is a positive person and I'm sure would work with other affiliates on resolving problems. However in an industry where trust and transparency is everything, and an affiliate's advertising options are wide and extensive, confidence can be lost in brands fairly quickly, even if people working for them are friendly and helpful.

We already have a number of other top UK facing brands occupying all of the space Betfred were taking up on our sites and while it's earning for us it's difficult to step back to where we were.

**-Shay-** · 11 February 2014, 9:01 am

Here's a thread with similar problems. And another. And of course, a few added "justified, reasonable" terms that were brought up. I'm certain there's more.

**webanalysissolutions** · 11 February 2014, 10:54 am

Ok, to their credit, ActiveWins have swiftly supplied me with the fraudulent player details. Well done.

This is the sort of information that affiliates need access to from the off in order to assess their earnings if we are all to share the burden of fraud.

If you've read our story above, here's the explanation, without giving away any sensitive information:

We had 12 fraudulent players who first deposited in the space of just 11 fraudulent weeks between Setpember 3^rd, 2013 and November 23^rd, 2013. As an affiliate this disappoints me - we try our best to geo-target brands who don't want worldwide referrals.
The 12 players made up our 3^rd, 4^th, 6^th, 7^th, 9^th, 13^th, 16^th, 22^nd, 24^th, 26^th, 35^th, and 73^rd highest depositors in the 2013 year, out of 114 total depositors
That's 7 players in our top 20% of depositors. Pretty much most of these players have had all their deposits listed as fraud. This leads me to question - why the surge in fraud when we didn't have this problem before? What payment methods were they using? Can we stop this going forward?
Most of those players above appear to have “UK?names (like “david? “Karen? “steve? “mat? or English words in their usernames) ?it would be interesting to see where they come from after it was discussed with us that we were referring traffic from places like Africa which were generating fraud. Perhaps not the case.
The figures represent 10.5% of all referrals as fraudulent ?and that’s with targeting UK traffic. 1 in 10 referrals result in a chargeback. This is not sustainable for us, and BetFred.

Analysis:

If all data is correct, it's difficult to promote an advertiser who gives us 1 fraudulent player in every 10 referrals, and each fraudulent player generating an average of almost ?00 in fraud.
A 10% fraudulent referral rate will easily wipe out the margins bookmakers are working on these days (5% at best).
Question: Do BetFred have stringent fraud checks in place when this doesn't happen to us with other bookmakers?
Question: If other bookmakers are better at stopping fraud should we promote them instead?

**webanalysissolutions** · 11 February 2014, 1:49 pm

Update - RESOVLED

After receiving information above from ActiveWins we've got to close this issue - yes, 12 fraudulent players on the stats amounting to almost one-third of all our deposits in 2013 as crazy as that seems.

Based on that sort of level of fraud it's not worth us sending our traffic this way, as it converts better when sent to other advertisers and we're strongly profitable with a number of other brands. But, I'm sure other affiliates can make a good go of BetFred and perhaps make some strong revenues.

**Louis - Income Access** · 11 February 2014, 2:00 pm

Fantastic! Glad to hear.

**-Shay-** · 11 February 2014, 2:18 pm

Originally Posted by webanalysissolutions

Update - RESOVLED

After receiving information above from ActiveWins we've got to close this issue - yes, 12 fraudulent players on the stats amounting to almost one-third of all our deposits in 2013 as crazy as that seems.

Based on that sort of level of fraud it's not worth us sending our traffic this way, as it converts better when sent to other advertisers and we're strongly profitable with a number of other brands. But, I'm sure other affiliates can make a good go of BetFred and perhaps make some strong revenues.

I can't wait to see "Industry leading fraud detection team" listed on their website after your ringing endorsement!

**TheGooner** · 11 February 2014, 3:23 pm

At 80,000+ clicks for 2013 you're running an impressive level - and about 10 times our level - well done.

At least you have the data now and can make a judgement. I suspect that you've been hit by a person / group registering multiple accounts to attempt some sort of bonus scam / with chargeback as a last resort.

Did you notice any strange things about the players? Such as joining at a similar time or having the same name structure, (eg. Dave12, Mike07, John23) that might actually suggest a possible common origin?

I've just looked at our data, I notice a few oddities, including players who have deposited just 15.00 getting bonuses of 105 and 143, players who join and make a first deposit TWO YEARS later, and some player name structures that seem awfully similar. Makes me a little nervous about it now ...

ONe final thing - you flagged the bonus section as being where the chargebacks appeared? So the chargeback column stays unused - even in your case?

**LukeC** · 11 February 2014, 5:55 pm

Originally Posted by webanalysissolutions

Analysis:

If all data is correct, it's difficult to promote an advertiser who gives us 1 fraudulent player in every 10 referrals, and each fraudulent player generating an average of almost ?00 in fraud.
A 10% fraudulent referral rate will easily wipe out the margins bookmakers are working on these days (5% at best).
Question: Do BetFred have stringent fraud checks in place when this doesn't happen to us with other bookmakers?
Question: If other bookmakers are better at stopping fraud should we promote them instead?

On your first question, one thing is that Betfred demand far more forms of ID to KYC a new customer who is making any significant early deposits (£xxx) and they also state that they manually KYC every non-UK customer who attempts to make a withdrawal - far more ID than any other bookmaker I've come across. If the customer is unable or refuses to do this, they void all pending bets and return all account balance to the customer. If your account is KYCd they insist on all of the following, even when parts aren't relevant (and insist on sending the docs via email, which obviously isn't secure and puts people off further):

?/span>A clear copy of the front and back of all cards registered on your account (please ensure that all cards are signed on the back)
?/span>A clear screen shot of your Paypal account showing your account details and deposit to Betfred
?/span>A clear copy of your passport - displaying your picture and passport number in full
?/span>A clear copy of a recent bank statement (please block out all financial details)
?/span>Proof of address such as a utility bill dated within the last 3 months

I'd expect that this would equate to a chargeback and could be a possible contributing factor.

**webanalysissolutions** · 12 February 2014, 2:46 am

Originally Posted by TheGooner

At 80,000+ clicks for 2013 you're running an impressive level - and about 10 times our level - well done.

At least you have the data now and can make a judgement. I suspect that you've been hit by a person / group registering multiple accounts to attempt some sort of bonus scam / with chargeback as a last resort.

Did you notice any strange things about the players? Such as joining at a similar time or having the same name structure, (eg. Dave12, Mike07, John23) that might actually suggest a possible common origin?

I've just looked at our data, I notice a few oddities, including players who have deposited just 15.00 getting bonuses of 105 and 143, players who join and make a first deposit TWO YEARS later, and some player name structures that seem awfully similar. Makes me a little nervous about it now ...

ONe final thing - you flagged the bonus section as being where the chargebacks appeared? So the chargeback column stays unused - even in your case?

Hi Gooner,

Here's a little more info on it - with regards to the player sign up dates and first deposit dates - they all varied enough for me to suspect that this isn't an organised group, and usernames were not "fraudy" (if that's a word!), and the amount they deposited (fraudulently) varied from ?0 up to more than ?000 per player. So, unless pretty organised, I don't think it was a syndicate. This worried me even more when I found out, because if you can let 12 different players slip through the fraud net in under 3 months then I'm thinking - is it a particular deposit method? Is there some sort of back-door scam out there?

With regards to reports - on the Earnings Report you'll see a bonus column - I think this is used for betting bonuses/sign up bonuses etc, and updates daily as stats are fed to IA. On the Payments Report you'll see a bonuses column - this was used to list my chargebacks, but only 2 weeks or so after the month was over (e.g. so Jan 15th for the month of December) - it's the accounts team adding on chargebacks. There is not a "chargebacks" column on the Payments Report. The chargebacks column on the Earnings Report is still zero for the entire fraudulent period. This is my point to other affiliates - you may overlook chargebacks once the month is over because you've checked your previous month's stats and all looks ok - they only roll in on the payment report at a later date.

Looking at our player list I don't see any bonuses that are disproportionate to a player's deposits - all seem fairly reasonable.

Just looking at PaddyPowerLuke's post below - I don't think I'll get all that info out of Betfred - all I have are the players and the chargebacks associated with them. Like I said in a previous post, it's unusual to say the least to get more than 1 in 10 depositors show up as fraud, and on top of that have 7 of them coming from your top 20% of depositors.

I knew it wasn't from 1 player as we didn't have a player big enough to account for that amount of chargeback.

Anyway, I just wanted to get to the bottom of that puzzle - I now know it's a significant proportion of players that are causing me chargebacks, and it does not make any sense to promote anyone who will wipe out our rev share each month. If the fraudsters dry up for whatever reason (better fraud checks at Betfred) then it might be worth revisiting advertising.

**webanalysissolutions** · 12 February 2014, 2:51 am

Originally Posted by PaddyPowerLuke

they also state that they manually KYC every non-UK customer who attempts to make a withdrawal

I would suggest that if Betfred can't swim in the international market they should not accept international players from the off - instead of checking players once it comes to the withdrawal stage and then incurring a fraud hit on their business.

I'm sure they've looked at the business case for this, and it makes sense for them to continue as they are, but if I were a scammer then knowing this information would mean open season on fraud.

On a different note Luke, we'd love to start advertising Paddy again - you can have BetFred's 80,000 clicks

If you can sort out a longer cookie than session cookie tracking and some cross product earnings then PM me.

**TheGooner** · 12 February 2014, 3:53 am

Appreciate the insight webanalysissolutions - thanks!

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