BenThair

This is mentioned in the latest article at CompareRewards. Take a peek. You'll be amazed....

LisaPizza

I already filed my complaint with the BBB. I'll do the others later tonight or tomorrow. Definitely do go read the article on CompareRewards and see Mike's "bosses" shaking their butts in front of a camera and playing with their dogs instead of sending out our payments. Boy, am I steamed!

janelle

http://www.comparerewards.com/

NetWinner Updates: No $ to Ecount, Major Privacy Violation, Referral Policy Change
April 27, 2008 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
I know all of NetWinner's members would like some sort of update but there isn't much to tell and what I do have isn't good.

First of all, yesterday a NetWinner member named Sue called the number on her Ecount card to find out the status of her payment and was told by Jessica, an Ecount manager, that NetWinner had not sent them any funds since March 13.

Second, on Friday two NW forum posters reported receiving emails from NetWinner requesting copies of their IDs by fax in order to process their raffle prize. This isn't all that unusual and has been done occasionally in the past. HOWEVER, the company committed a huge privacy violation by sending out the email by publicly addressing (versus BCC'ing) the message to what was described as around fifty member email addresses.

Third, members need to be aware that the site's Terms of Service have been changed in regards to referral earnings. Formerly, members would receive 100 points for referring a friend, then another 400 after the friend completed 100 game plays. Now, that has been changed to be after their friend wins 100 contest entries. You do still get 10% of your friends' winnings, but if you didn't notice, now that the 10-point prize has been removed, you don't get anything if your friend gets the most likely win, a raffle entry.

What can players, some waiting nearly six months for their payments, do about the situation? Here are some suggestions, proposed by fellow players, an attorney friend of mine, and yours truly:

1. File a complaint with the Attorney General for the state of North Carolina. The instructions on how to do this are here. If you have a printer, you can print the complaint form here. It includes their mailing address and a toll-free number, 1-877-566-7226. I'm not sure if they accept complaints by phone; I confirmed that they definitely don't accept them online, so mail may be your only method.

2. File a complaint with the BBB for Charlotte, NC. Start your complaint process here and it will redirect you to the Charlotte BBB. Note that the BBB "does not act as a collection agency." They do, however, "work closely with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies," should they determine that fraud is involved.

3. File a complaint with the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Division of Marketing Practices. Their website is here, and you can file a complaint here. I think this would need to be complaints along the lines of, they advertised one thing and that's not how it worked.

4. Contact the local (Charlotte, NC) media. Wikipedia says that TV station WBTV "is the largest television news department between Washington and Atlanta," so they may be the best ones to approach. Information on how to contact them (including their assurance of confidentiality) is here, or go straight to the story tip submission form here.

5. Contact Ecount. Last year, members of the Freeride rewards program waiting for Ecount GCs called Ecount directly, and they were able to tell the members whether the delay was due to the rewards program not paying Ecount, versus some other reason like the program sending Ecount an old email address for the member, or the member's ISP blocking Ecount's email. You can contact Ecount at 1-800-522-7458.

To read other members' experiences with NetWinner, including the latest payment (or non-payment) reports, you can visit their forum at NetWinnerCentral.com.

Lastly, as an aside, do you remember the video about the NetWinner Fairy? Take note of the costume and the background (red walls, white paneling). I found these other videos interesting: "Netwinner Dog LOL," "This is how we stamp our mail! LOL," "bright eyes crazy dancing," "eyes," and www.netwinner.com Dogs!!! sooooo cute!!!." I think these show behind the scenes at NetWinner far better than the "Spin Report" PR video released a few days ago.

wendy64

etWinner Updates: No $ to Ecount, Major Privacy Violation, Referral Policy Change
April 27, 2008 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I know all of NetWinner's members would like some sort of update but there isn't much to tell and what I do have isn't good.

First of all, yesterday a NetWinner member named Sue called the number on her Ecount card to find out the status of her payment and was told by Jessica, an Ecount manager, that NetWinner had not sent them any funds since March 13.

Second, on Friday two NW forum posters reported receiving emails from NetWinner requesting copies of their IDs by fax in order to process their raffle prize. This isn't all that unusual and has been done occasionally in the past. HOWEVER, the company committed a huge privacy violation by sending out the email by publicly addressing (versus BCC'ing) the message to what was described as around fifty member email addresses.

Third, members need to be aware that the site's Terms of Service have been changed in regards to referral earnings. Formerly, members would receive 100 points for referring a friend, then another 400 after the friend completed 100 game plays. Now, that has been changed to be after their friend wins 100 contest entries. You do still get 10% of your friends' winnings, but if you didn't notice, now that the 10-point prize has been removed, you don't get anything if your friend gets the most likely win, a raffle entry.

What can players, some waiting nearly six months for their payments, do about the situation? Here are some suggestions, proposed by fellow players, an attorney friend of mine, and yours truly:

1. File a complaint with the Attorney General for the state of North Carolina. The instructions on how to do this are here. If you have a printer, you can print the complaint form here. It includes their mailing address and a toll-free number, 1-877-566-7226. I'm not sure if they accept complaints by phone; I confirmed that they definitely don't accept them online, so mail may be your only method.

2. File a complaint with the BBB for Charlotte, NC. Start your complaint process here and it will redirect you to the Charlotte BBB. Note that the BBB "does not act as a collection agency." They do, however, "work closely with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies," should they determine that fraud is involved.

3. File a complaint with the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Division of Marketing Practices. Their website is here, and you can file a complaint here. I think this would need to be complaints along the lines of, they advertised one thing and that's not how it worked.

4. Contact the local (Charlotte, NC) media. Wikipedia says that TV station WBTV "is the largest television news department between Washington and Atlanta," so they may be the best ones to approach. Information on how to contact them (including their assurance of confidentiality) is here, or go straight to the story tip submission form here.

5. Contact Ecount. Last year, members of the Freeride rewards program waiting for Ecount GCs called Ecount directly, and they were able to tell the members whether the delay was due to the rewards program not paying Ecount, versus some other reason like the program sending Ecount an old email address for the member, or the member's ISP blocking Ecount's email. You can contact Ecount at 1-800-522-7458.

Apollo08

They removed that thread for their forums. Wonder why they did that? I did see it yesterday afternoon, but it's gone. Several were worried about whether or not they got the email and if it went into their bulk mail and got deleted. It seem like they're trying to screw even more members out of their rewards by deleting that thread. I did check my email and didn't have any emails from whatever address they gave there. It looks like this site is near it's end!

If you still have the email, could you post it here? I'm sure that a lot would appreciate it.
Thanks!

reford

I know one of the people who got the verification email. If you want to send me a PM with your email addy, I'll have her mail you and she can tell you whether yours was one of the email addresses in the "To:" field of the mail she received.

gordon24

The email that they said that they got was different then the one i got. Mine came from compliance@netwinner.com. Also i noticed that the number for me to fax in the information that they wanted was a toll free number and the one that was posted was not a toll free number so that was different. They also had 14 days to send in their information and i only had 7 days. I was curious about this so i did a search about this and it seems like some people got the same one that i did. I don't know why their were two different numbers to fax in your information. My wife got the same one than i did too. So i don't know what is going on. What made me upset is that after waiting this long for a gc then they had to do something like this.

Also the email that i got did not have several emails on it. I read on the forums yesterday that people who got the email also had a bunch of other emails on it.

Apollo08

It seems like the email posted on their forum came from alexisbautista@netwinner.com or alexisbatista@netwinner.com and I have no idea what the phone number that was posted on the forum to fax it to. If somebody has the correct email address and fax number, it might help some others to have it posted here. I don't know what is going on with NW and why they deleted that thread. I hadn't read any of the posts there since late Saturday afternoon, then it was gone this afternoon. Thanks for all who posted about what they have read.

BenThair

Maybe they deleted the thread because they realized it was a serious privacy breach. Good thing some of us are "preserving" for future reference.

reford

From what I understand, the email for verification that had all the emails of the other recipients publicly displayed was sent out to people who had won NW raffles. The implication is that NW is going to pay them out of order -- skipping over all the people waiting up to (almost) 6 months for their redemptions.

Very fair in the eyes of the winners, no doubt... but how many are there, vs. how many thousands that have been waiting on their redemptions all this time?

I feel for all the members. NW started huge, dwindled, and now it's just a shell of the program everyone used to love. So many people played with the expectation that NW's management was as loyal, responsible, and conscientious as they are and would pay them within the promised 30 days...then 60...then 90...now 90 subject to business conditions and fraud inspections.

And when those loyal, responsible, and conscientious players complain, management tells them: [crickets chirping]... NOTHING. And on NW's forum, they're chastized. Posts are being moved, edited, deleted altogether. I know of at least two members who have been banned in the last few days. The message: complain but a) nobody's listening, and b) if you complain too much or too loudly, you will be silenced one way or another.

As if the members are the bad guys! (exasperated sigh)

I've been told that complaints to the NC attorney general's office may get a better response than those to the BBB. If you're owed money by NW, I'd suggest you take that route.

Best of luck to you all.

wendy64

Ecount has now confirmed that they are no longer affiliated with Netwinner - call the toll free # and ask...they have received no money for almost 2 moths now, and are giving a pretty standard response that they no longer have any affiliation with Netwinner - I think thaat they must be getting lots of calls. I posted on Sunday, and asked them to prove the article wrong, they erased my post and they have since banned me (my name there was tinkertoo) and have disabled my IP adress!