IMPORTANT - The blonde-Mansion Promotion

[tikay]

 
Please read al three Posts I've made before ccommenting - thank you.

[tikay]

The blonde - Mansion Deal - Important Announcement.

On February 20th, we made a Post adsvising you that we had cut a deal with Mansion. The essence of the Post said this (which is cut & pasted from the OP).....

blonde poker is delighted to announce that it has finalised a deal with Mansion Poker on behalf of our members. It goes like this......

- blondes who are not already Mansion account holders can sign up to Mansion through this link:

http://www.mansion.com/?trackid=248366

Alternatively, the URL also has the Bonus Code BLONDE attached to it so players can enter that in the ‘referral code’ field of the Mansion Sign up page and they’ll be eligible for this promotion.

- At the end of every week (Monday to Sunday) the top fifteen rakers on Mansion via the blonde promotion (signing up via this link only) will be given FREE ENTRY into all FIVE (Monday to Friday) of the next week's $100,000 Guraranteed tournaments, with a direct buy-in value of $500.

- A minimum of $100 needs to be deposited under the link for the player to be eligible

- We are of course aware that a number of blondes will be existing Mansion account holders. We do not wish to exclude them from this promotion, so...

- Any existing Mansion account holders who wish to participate should PM Colchester Kev with their Mansion poker nickname. Five names per week from existing account holders who are blondes will be chosen at random to get free entries on same basis as the 15 new Mansion players.

- To be eligible, players must be blonde members, signed up pre-this post

- We will make no claim on the rake of existing Mansion players who are blondes, so any existing affiliate deals you may have are hardly affected.

- all existing players will be chosen for a week's participation before any existing player gets another go!


We regret to inform you that the terms of the deal have changed, & not for the better. It still remains a great deal, but it's just not quite as good as it was.

The next three Posts on this thread will give you all the details. I have split it into three chunks to aid you in replying to specific items, & when quoting my Post.

[tikay]

This deal took a goodly while to set up.

The Mansion $100k Guaranteed had been heavily featured on the Forum for some time, as a result of which, most of those likely to be interested, had already signed up with Mansion, eitther directly, or via other sites. Our concern with this was that we wanted those guys to get a slice of the pie, too, & not be penalised, in effect, for signing up early.

After much toing & froing, Mansion agreed. 15 seats, plus 5 for the existing Account holders, 5 days per week - Monday to Friday.

So thats what we announced.

But......just before the promotion was due to come into effect, Mansion wrote to us, informing us that the deal would be changed, to 10 seats per week, 4 days per week - Wednesday to Saturday. Yoiks.

We got into vigorous debate with them, & Tighty & Kev fought hard to retain the original deal - we were in a real tough spot, as the Week One "Qualifiers" would expect their seats along the originally agreed lines. They explained that the deal had been given to blonde, & 2 other sites & as they had changed the deal with the other two sites, they had to  change it for us as well. We argued that as the deal, effectively, costs them nothing - the comp has an overlay of $50,000 per day roughly. But they were not for budging. Eventually, after a lot of tough talking, they agreed to retain the original deal for the first week only, so we were able to keep our promise. But from Week Two it reduces to 10 seats, & 4 days per week. Sorry, but that's how it is.

In an attempt to ensure this could not happen again, we asked for a guarantee that the deal would remain unchanged for 4 weeks, & this they agreed to.

Bear in mind, that the way it's panned out, blonde earn virtually nothing out of the deal. We get rakeback, of course, but only from those who sign up via blonde, & as most of those interested had signed up previously with others, we were left with very little scope to earn.  Buit if it benefitted the Members, then fine, that'd do. As luck would have it, the Members did OK, with a number of cashes, including Rookie's win.

We have not fallen out with Mansion, it's a long road we travel, it's just one of those things, & we need to move on.

The deal is still a corker, it's just not as good as it was.

I would like to thank Tighty & Kev. You cannot imagine how tough, & stressful this has been for them, & they both fought like lions to get the best possible deal.

[tikay]

So, if you are unsure how this affects you personally, please Post on this thread, or PM Kev.

Effective w/c Monday 5th March, the deal is 10 seats per week, from Wednesday to Saturday.

Of the 10 seats, we will allocate 3 per week to the originally defined "existing Mansion account holders", and 7 to new sign-ups. That seems about the fairest way we can sort it.

The seats will be from Wednesday to Saturday inclusive, not Monday to Friday.

[tikay]

Finally, & slighty at a tangent, this brings us to the Post by Piccolo170, in which he severely criticised Mansion over what, if I recall correctly, was something to do with him trying to work off a Deposit Bonus, which had gone awry, & he'd lost some money as a result. We took the Post off, & it caused a bit of a hoohah.

We explained why we removed it at the time - here was a new Memberr, we had no ideas if he was correct or not, & he'd joined blonde especailly to Post this "Mansion moan".

Some fairly cutting Posts were made attacking us for removing that Post, for example....

Why don't you put up a permanent sticky saying that any negative comments about any site that Blonde is associated with will be deleted - that would make things clearer.

Another, better phrased if I may say so, was this.....


Quote from: madasahatstand on February 25, 2007, 11:21:02 am
if this is a critisism of an affiliated site, does it affect the advertising revenue? in other words, if any blondes criticise the people who are advertising on here, does it affect the income? if so its something i didnt consider before and will have implications for members here if they do have something valid to say with a negative edge.

only a thought and a difficult call for the mods. almost like a conflict of interests really

To which I replied.....

It IS a tricky call Mad, but not for the reasons you suggest. The fact that a Post or thread may or may not affect our Affiiate Income is not relevant, and as I am sure you know, the shareholders & Mods on here all have great integrity, which, largely, reflects the nature of the Members.

The fact is, we, as Mods, are ALWAYS suspicious of first-time Posters, as to their real motive for joining blonde. To be a part of our Community, or to use us? The Forum is free to view, so we have the right to take a close look at Newbies to make sure they are genuine, are not spammers, & are not simply working across all Poker Fora with an axe to grind. In this case, it appears to be the latter.

If you, or any other established blonde Member had made the Post, we would have looked at it in an entirely different light.

OK, so that is all true. Niow add this to the mix. The Piccolo Post occurred at the precise moment where we were trying to persuade Mansion to delay the introduction of the revised deal, so that we could keep our promise to the blondes for week one. It seemed to us that this was hardly the time to be sticking our elbow into Mansion's ribs. So we added that to the basket of reasons to consider when deciding what to do with the Piccolo Post. And remember, blonde stand to earn almost nothing out of the Promotion, but the Members are getting $4,000 per wek of value. So the Members were foremost in our mind when we made the decision to Delete the Piccolo Post.

So there you have it!

[bolt pp]

Thankyou!!!! finally an explination regarding the influx of APAT posts!!!!


Sorry, wrong thread

[tikay]

Thankyou!!!! finally an explination regarding the influx of APAT posts!!!!


Sorry, wrong thread

Bolt, a nut, talking about wrong threads.....

[Dewi_cool]

very clever

[Harmony26]

Thankyou!!!! finally an explination regarding the influx of APAT posts!!!!


Sorry, wrong thread

Bolt, a nut, talking about wrong threads.....

I like it! I let out a wrench-ed groan...

[KingPoker]

Cheers tony, cant say im not a bit disappointed but still an awesome deal. Am more upset at the fact my chance of getting drawn weekly is now decreased. Oh well! Get it drawn!

EDIT- And obviously a huge thankyou to Tighty and Kev for not giving in!! 

[Claw75]

Thankyou!!!! finally an explination regarding the influx of APAT posts!!!!


Sorry, wrong thread

Bolt, a nut, talking about wrong threads.....

I like it! I let out a wrench-ed groan...

mad as a bag of spanners, the lot of you

[Rod Paradise]

What with Ginger becoming a Mod, answers to the Mansion post question etc, maybe the blondeites will give everyone working hard for them (i.e. TK, Tighty, Kev, Baron etc) a bit of leeway & patience?

We're all pals aren't we?

[Moskvich]

I don't have a problem with Blonde's conduct in this - I'd still like to say well done for coming up with this deal in the first place and apparently keeping it alive despite these problems.

Mansion's behaviour, however, appear to be poor, to say the least. I did notice - and wonder about - the lack of a timeframe in the post about the original deal, which said 15 players "each week" but made no mention of how many weeks the deal would last. But while "each week" might reasonably mean only four or five weeks, it clearly doesn't by any measure mean just one.

Mansion haven't just done a deal with Blonde - they've also done a deal with each of the Blonde members who have signed up to them on the terms that they presented, through Blonde, on this forum. I signed up knowing I wouldn't get any rakeback, but that this "deal" was in place as compensation. Now I have less compensation, since the chances are I now need to spend more to get a place in the tournaments, and I also receive less, as there are only four tournament entries at stake.

It's much like - indeed, I would say precisely the same as - me signing up to get their bonus offer, only to find that after a week they cut that bonus by 20% and said I needed to rake more to get it.

As a further point, I would guess that my hypothetical example of them cutting the bonus would amount to breach of contract. And I'd like to suggest that, since we signed up using promotion code "Blonde", under terms presented on Blonde and relating to that code (which I assume were entirely accurate) that the case in point also amounts to breach of contract, with each individual customer that they have acquired through this route, if not with Blonde itself.

Those are my main issues with this, and the ones I'd like to see generate dicussion - but as an aside I'd like to ask if Blonde themselves had any contract in place outlining the terms of the deal, or whether they always knew it was unclear - beyond the significant "each week" mentioned above - how long the promotion might last?

[Graham C]

Good post Moskvich.  I didn't think I'd get much chance of making the top 15 each week but having given it a go for the first week and somehow made it, I've carried on for the 2nd week.   I would think I'd stuggle to make it now but will see and if I make it this week, I'll  have another go.

I can see why Mansion want to go back a bit on this deal as they're probably spending quite a bit on it.  I don't know how much I raked last week but I'd be gobsmacked if it were anywhere near the $500 value I got from them, but it's pretty bad just changing the deal one week into it. 

[Graham C]

Oh I would like to add that I am very grateful for the opportunity though.  A $100 buy in is well beyond my bankroll and it's great to be able to play in such a high value tournament for me and for that I have to thank Blonde Poker