Netwinner: We Played; They Scammed Us All

I've got a couple of articles on Gather (so far nothing related to Netwinner) and made some friends there. Check it out if you're interested in a cool place to share ideas. Yes, you can collect points there for prizes but I'm not really into that part of it.

*my username there is Patty B. Click below to go to my page.

http://www.pkb143.gather.com/

And I'm also starting to play SpotWinner every day. You may view 10 select ads every day and earn points. There are daily and monthly drawings for some very cool prizes.

Not that I wasn't disappointed enough with Netwinner's action of May 12, and subsequent actions, but then I learned through the Open Forum that one of my friends there, another player who got ripped by Netwinner, is a Katrina survivor struggling to keep her home from going into foreclosure!

She's not only a brilliant writer who's contributed much wit and humor to our new forum, but she's also a very talented jewelry maker. I have ordered several hand-beaded earrings, necklaces and bracelets from her store on eBay (Tamora's Treasures) and let me tell you, her work is not only beautiful, but also inexpensive! I highly recommend doing business with her if you love beautiful, hand-beaded jewelry. (If you purchase via the links below, Squidoo charities receives a small percentage in donations as well!).

And, if you're so inclined, you can also help her save her home in a very literal sense. You can donate monetarily to her cause via ChipIn.com and PayPal. Here's the link:
http://www.chipin.com/contribute/id/89713436fb8da5cf

In the first half of 2008, consumers have filed 7,485 complaints against businesses in the Southern Piedmont area of North and South Carolina with the Better Business Bureau in Charlotte.

Guess who was #1 on the list? Netwinner! Netwinner has 58 unanswered complaints and 92 pending complaints in 2008 and a total of 229 complaints in the last 36 months.

Charlotte BBB's Dirty Half Dozen List:  http://charlotte.bbb.org/WWWRoot/SitePage.aspx?site=44&id=c982dd34-581b-42fc-bfc2-f695fa0b1fbf&art=6009

Boycott NetWinner!

Date Boycotted: 03-07-2008
URL: http://www.netwinner.com

NetWinner's marketing slogan is "You Play. We Pay!" Unfortunately, gamers who played and won prizes at Netwinner have not been paid after trying to redeem points earned for cash and gift cards.

Hundreds of people from across the United States and Canada eagerly took NetWinner up on their offer and played their games, racking up thousands of points that they expected to redeem for cash, debit cards and store gift cards ranging in value from $25 to a few hundred dollars. It is, however, clear from the complaints which follow that this site has no intention of paying the earnings accumulated by their members. On May 12, 2008, a message was sent to all users from the President of NetWinner informing them that the earnings they had accumulated would no longer be paid as expected, and that they would be only redeemable in the form of sweepstake entries.

The reason that NetWinner is on our boycott list is therefore the non-payment of members. The complaints below detail how members are being denied the opportunity to redeem previous earnings retrospectively - an unacceptable practice. Concerns about NetWinner's action are such that the BBB have issued a press release, and the story has been picked up by a number of news agencies (see here and here). This program rightly belongs on the boycott list.

For the reasons above, and the complaints listed below, NetWinner has been boycotted!
To read complaints

click here:  http://www.gptboycott.com/boycotted/NetWinner

The action many of us took is finally paying off! Hundreds of scammed Netwinner players filed a complaint with the BBB, which led to their office being flooded with paperwork, and they issued a "BBB Alert" about Netwinner.

Read all about it!
"BBB Alert: Hundreds of Online Gamers Accuse Charlotte-Based Online Gaming Site of Foul Play"

6/10/2008
http://charlotte.bbb.org/WWWRoot/SitePage.aspx?site=44&id=c982dd34-581b-42fc-bfc2-f695fa0b1fbf&art=5559

News 14 in Charlotte Does Story about Netwinner!
"CHARLOTTE -- A Charlotte-based Internet gaming site, Netwinner.com, is facing nationwide scrutiny from angry customers and the Better Business Bureau..." Read more here: http://news14.com/content/top_stories/596506/custmers-complain-about-local-gaming-site/Default.aspx

You can find this entire list on this site:
CompareRewards blogspot at http://comparerewards.blogspot.com/

**In NW's Terms of Service, "Your continued use of the Service following the posting of any changes to the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement shall bind You to acceptance of those changes." If you don't agree to the changes, don't play!

NEXT: Read the following information-

***1.*** The NC Attorney General's Office. DO THIS ONE FIRST. Call 1-877-566-7226. I think they'll take a verbal complaint but either way, they will require you to print out and complete the form located here:
http://www.ncdoj.com/DocumentStreamerClient?directory=Forms/&file=stancom.pdf

and send it to the address on the form. If you call, they may have a fax number. You will need the following information:

Full name of the company: Netwinner, LLC
Mailing Address: 1427 South Blvd #200
Charlotte, NC 28203
Internet Address: (duh) NetWinner.com
Phone Number: (704) 347-8850
Fax Number: N/A

Section 3 will be a lot of N/As. You may want to include your cashout dates or your dates of membership.

In Section 4, you'll want to check off the options for "I responded to a website or email solicitation" and "Via computer."

Section 5: SIMPLIFY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. For instance -- use your own words -- They promised, "You play, we pay" but after cashing in the points I won from playing their online game, I waited 5 months for my prize. They repeatedly changed their terms of service as they became progressively late in payments. They continued to promise payment until yesterday, when they returned my points and said they wouldn't pay me.

Section 6 is how you've handled it up to this point.

And last, if you have screenshots of your earnings, your redemption history, or anything else to back up your claim, include a copy.

If you'd like to provide them with a link to this site or to my email address -- comparerewards@yahoo.com -- I will be more than happy to provide the details I know.

I know nobody likes to have to go to the hassle of printing out and mailing in a form -- it's not the instant gratification we're used to in the digital age -- but this is the procedure if you want to get something done about this.

The AG's office is THE BEST AVENUE FOR DEALING WITH THIS. If NetWinner committed fraud, the AG's office is full of lawyers who prosecute companies who break the law. The BBB is not.

2. The local media. Can they get you paid? No. But they can certainly bring these guys under scrutiny and possibly speed up the process of getting the AG involved. Here's the Wikipedia article on Charlotte, NC's media, with direct links to the TV stations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_in_Charlotte%2C_North_Carolina

3. BBB. Probably a useless step but at least it'll go on NW's record and will help warn others away. It's located here:
https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx

4. FTC. This would be to report false advertising, if you think that's the case. Here's their website: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/bcpmp.shtm and here's where you can file a complaint:
https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

**note from pkb: A sincere thanks to Rebecca Ford of CompareRewards.com http://www.comparerewards.com who has graciously allowed frustrated Netwinner players to vent on her site. She has offered suggestions on what players can do to formalize their complaints and/or attempt to get resolution on outstanding amounts owed them.

We can only hope the drastic drop in Netwinner's traffic reflects a large number of outraged players refusing to play at Netwinner or on any of their 75 or so partner sites (MoneyWheel/Banko games).



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Unless you want to patronize a company that's scammed thousands of loyal players, don't play on these sites! Better yet, ask these partners why they have chosen to partner with Netwinner!

Abbys Good Stuff
Anything Free4You
BannersWork
Bank Roll Bucks
BabySpot
Blasting Offers
Box Lotto
Buck Fever
Budget 101
Canadian Free Stuff
Casual Gamer Chick
Chillin Cash
Connecting Moms
Contest Hound
Deal King
Democracy Dough
Elevate Magazine
Fabulously 40
Freaky Freddies
Freebie Free
Free Money Games
FreeMoneyWheel
Free Stuff Hot Deals
Free Stuff Times
Froggy Funds
Frugal Fun
Gator Gold Offer
Get Free Apple iPhone
Go Freebies
GPT Tracker
Gridiron Greens
Hair Styles Watch
Halcyon Cash
Just Free Stuff
Kiwi Pulse
Lucky Diva
Lucky Wheel
Make That Dollar
Mom Space
MoneyWheel
Mooo Money
Moral Traffic
Mr Cheap Stuff
My Cash Carnival
My Cash Honey
My Cash Safari
Netwinner Canada
Penguin Party Cash
PerfSpot Money Wheel
Pocket Change
Prize Match
Prize Village
Quiz Points
Race 4 Offers
Ready Surf
Reelin Cash
Shop 4 Freebies
Shop 4 Prizes
SSan - has ended affiliation with Netwinner!
Sunshine Rewards
Sweepstakes CA
Tao Money
Treasure Trouper - has ended affiliation with Netwinner!
True Free Money
Ultimate Coupons
Wickedly Chic
Wii Arcade
Win-A-Loot
Win the Style

To our loyal Players:
As President & COO, I want to take this opportunity to communicate candidly about the current status of our site and our plans for moving forward in 2008 and beyond.
Since the launch of NetWinner in June of 2006, we have had the pleasure of giving away over $1.5 million in cash and prizes to over 20,000 lucky winners. Over that time, we have worked hard to provide new features, new ways to win, and improve our Players' experience.
Unfortunately, we have also spent much of our last two years attempting to improve how we police fraudulent users who not only defraud us, but also defraud all of our honest Players. Our most recent statistics show that over 40% of Players redeeming for prizes have violated our Terms of Service sometime before redemption. We are truly saddened that such a significant number of fraudulent users have impacted our legitimate Player's winnings and our business at these levels.
During the last six months, we have also experienced ongoing technical and business issues with our outsourced fulfillment provider of debit cards.
These two major issues have become virtually insurmountable in ensuring the prompt fulfillment of prizes. As a result, we have been forced to temporarily suspend our debit card redemption option as we pursue new options for points and prize redemptions.
But more importantly, like many other businesses and households, we have also been experiencing the challenges of the recent economic downturn. Together with the tightening of credit markets, this has significantly affected our revenue and our ability to take on additional debt required to continue to grow our business.
These realities forced our management team and investors to make difficult choices. We had two options: shut the company down, or make adjustments to our business model that would allow us to move forward in new ways - with new games, new prizes, and new ways to win. The second option would allow Players to continue to have opportunities to win cash and prizes, and for us to remain a destination site for casual gamers on the Web.
We have chosen to make necessary changes and move forward in new ways. But this choice is not without consequences - both to our Players and to our company. We are acutely aware that these changes may be unpopular with our Players and may even cause some Players to stop playing our games. For that I apologize personally.
But for thousands and thousands of others, we will remain one of the most lucrative casual game sites on the Internet, continuing to give away over $50,000 in prizes every month.
Our new model will no longer be a "rewards" based model, as many have come to perceive it. That is, time spent on our site is not directly correlated with an amount of money "earned". As a casual game site, our model will be more in line with other popular casual game sites. Players can earn instant cash wins as always and points may be redeemed for cash and prize drawings on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. This levels the playing field for all our Players and substantially limits the ability of fraudulent users to convert points into cash.
To best address the current fraud and operational challenges I've outlined, all existing redemption points for debit cards that have not been fulfilled will be doubled and refunded into each Player's account. For example, if an individual redeemed 25,000 points toward a debit card, 50,000 points will be deposited back into their account. These can now be redeemed for entries into any of our growing list of cash and prize drawings.
By mitigating the amount of fraud we experience, we have revisited our policies that were designed and deployed to reduce that fraud. We are now able to dramatically increase and vary the number of daily plays allowed on our games and provide more frequent multipliers and other new promotions with even more new ways to win.
We have also modified our fulfillment policy moving forward. All cash daily drawings will be fulfilled in 30 days or less, and all other prizes, including prize drawings and instant cash wins, will be fulfilled within 60 days. We recognize that the delays that occurred in the past were a major source of frustration for our Players.
As we have been making strategic decisions and directions changes at our headquarters, we have not broadly disseminated them with all of our staff and volunteer moderators for confidential business reasons. Please understand that our support staff performed as best they could with the information provided them. Realizing that we have not performed as best we could in supporting our Players' requests, we have put new customer support processes and staff in place to improve our relationships with our Players. Our staff can be reached during normal business hours in the Eastern Time Zone at support@netwinner.com.
We have made these decisions for the benefit of all our Players as well as the employees and partners of our company. Companies must constantly adapt and evolve as operating conditions change. It was necessary for us to do the same.
It is our hope that these changes will create a more fair and exciting casual game environment for our existing and future Players who come to our site. I speak for our entire staff when I send my thanks to all our loyal Players for their commitment and support.

Best regards,
S. Allen Dean
President & COO

May 21, 2008

Mr. S. Allen Dean
President and COO
Netwinner, LLC
1427 South Blvd, Ste 200
Charlotte, NC 28203-4261

Dear Mr. Dean:

I wish to express my extreme anger, hurt and disappointment in your company's decision to cancel all pending debit card redemptions and convert them into points.

Although I am probably not a "typical" player (demographically), I think my feelings about this whole situation probably are typical. In September 2006, I joined Netwinner, and it took me only a few months to become a Netwinner "addict." Although there was only one game to play at that time, I discovered the forum and eventually became active there. I played regularly, usually every day, and also made friends, entered contests, became a "VIP", clicked on ads, posted all over the internet about my newly-found favorite internet site, set up a Netwinner blog, made a Netwinner addict video for YouTube and yes, even got a few referrals. Although I was not your employee, I felt almost like a shareholder and truly became "invested" in your company.

Perhaps I'm just another name or number to you, so I'll share a little more. First, I did not "need" the giftcards, cash or debit card I cashed out for. I'm a college graduate who held an administrative position with a large state university for 32 years. Then I retired early a few years ago and had lots of free time (hence, my Netwinner addiction plus a few other things thrown in). True, my income is somewhat limited right now but only because I choose not to use my retirement funds until later, so those Netwinner prizes were eagerly anticipated and plans were made, but please understand, unlike many of your loyal players, I did not need them to pay utilities, get dental work, put food on the table, or buy necessities or gifts for my children or grandchildren (don't have any, anyway). The $200 I lost would have been nice for travel this year to visit a cousin I haven't seen for a while, but it certainly was not a necessity. It really doesn't matter one way or the other how the prizes were going to be used, they were promised to us. A promise is a promise, isn't it?

So the reason I'm so angry and hurt has little to do with the money and much to do with feeling betrayed and used. Would you have made this decision if your mother or grandmother were a player? Would you have made this decision if you knew your close friends, other family or colleagues that you personally brought to the site would be left feeling conned? And even if your answer is still "yes", would you have informed them abruptly and without any warning in an email, especially one that blames first, a large number of cheaters, and then later, on the economy? An email that leaves them no recourse for responding, other than in anger and frustration, on the forum or through legal channels? Yet even this communication was more than we usually got when your company had "big changes" to announce.

There are so many more reasons to feel betrayed and conned, e.g., we were "led on" for almost six months about the late and/or missing prizes, with first one excuse, then another, ranging from limited staff, to E-count problems, to office moves and of course, fraud. "Netwinner pays all winners" - I can't even count how many times I heard this during all of it, along with "Trust us."

Speaking of the "fraud" issue, your assertion that 40% of us cheated is really hard to digest. If this is true, it would seem that 40% of the players know more about programming than your techs do. And even now, you add insult to injury by asserting that players who file BBB complaints (as should be expected, as what other recourse do we have?) are cheaters. Please rest assured I wouldn't have ever considered cheating and I'm having a hard time imagining any of my forum friends cheating either, For one thing, we were too busy posting in the forum and playing contests and putting up positive comments all over the 'net on your behalf. And oh yes, I even helped your "team" track down one cheater. (You're welcome). Truly, we helped Netwinner grow into a very popular site, and this is how you choose to reward us?

I realize you run a business and you'll do what you think you have to do, but you chose to take any prizes already redeemed; you chose to phase out giftcards; you chose to go with E-count; you chose to keep your staff in the dark (apparently); you chose to up the cashout level; you chose not to hire more fulfillment staff; you chose to expand to 75+ sites; you made all these choices that led us here. Yet, we bore the brunt of your choices and it really stings to hear that you are "now solvent."

Perhaps I was foolish and naive to expect a little more from Netwinner. I won't insult you or your partners, but rest assured that many of us who were so "invested" will now pursue every avenue to make sure this doesn't happen again. We will be as zealous about this as we were about Netwinner. I will no longer play your games anywhere on the internet and I will make sure I don't support your partner sites as well. I will not participate in the forum any longer although that means leaving many friends behind, a thought I don't relish.

I don't want to do this, but now feel I have to. I foolishly dove into Netwinner head first only to get a good soaking in the end. I learned that you and your company can't be trusted. I learned to do my homework first before I "fall in love" with a website that promises great things. Perhaps you have awakened a sleeping giant.

Sincerely,

pkb143

*The note posted at the bottom of your email was a little curious? I did not enjoy receiving your email at all.

Consider this your formal invitation:

You will receive an automatic invitation, and I only have 98 left, so HURRY! LOL

http://www.moola.com/moopubs/b2b/exc/join.jsp?sid=4d544d744f4463354f44553d-2