Well, I've remained quiet on this issue for a month and a half now, have attempted to resolve this situation directly with Webstormmedia (SIA's marketing company), and it appears the only resoltion will come through the Canadian court system.
As a few of you know I own a sports forum, I've never mentioned it here or in any other sports forum out of respect for those forums. It certainly doesn't receive the traffic of sites such as the Rx nor EOG, but we've been in business for 4+ years and have carved out a little "niche". When we first opened our forum our objectives were to have a sports forum were we could help people learn how to handicap games themselves and steer clear of suspect books as well as suspect services. We decided we would only accept advertising from "Top Tier" rated books, such as Pinnacle, Olympic, BetCris, WSEX, etc. Unfortunately at the beginning it was very difficult to get these top-tier books to advertise with a new, unproven sports forum.
A year after we had been online we had amassed a very nice group of very sharp handicappers and we decided to open a private forum, as well as keeping open a public (free) forum. The private forum did extremely well the first year and continues to generate enough revenue to pay the bills and generate profit.
In early August of this year I was contacted by a representative of Webstorm media, they are the marketing company that is responsible for placing Sports Interactions Ad's, and they were interested in advertising on my site. I was apprehensive at first in that SIA certainly is problematic at times and although good for wagering on underdogs, they're well known for closing acccounts if you bust them for 20K or more, you'll get paid, but you'll also be shown the door, I also let my forum members know this before they signed up. I spoke with both The Shrink and Bill Dozer before I accepted this advertising deal and Ken stated he had never had a problem, as far as an advertiser, with Webstorm, and Bill told me that SIA appeared as if they would be being upgraded to a C or C+ in the near future.
I decided to accept SIA's/Webstorms proposal which consisted of a 4 month agreement in which the last 3 months were dependant on the first 30 days activity/signups. Webstorm also had me agree to run a SIA promotion to my private forum in which I gave away private forum memberships in exchange for signups and minimum deposits to SIA of $100. I agreed and my forum acheived the minimum number of signups within the first 3 weeks. I agreed to this condition, which naturally cost me quite a bit of money in lost membership revenue the first month, which historically is our best month for sales, all because I would make money with the last 90 days of advertising.
I was told on September 20th by my Webstorm rep. that my money was being sent on the 22nd for the additional 90 days, it was not. I was then told it would be the following Friday, it was not. Since September 26th there has been no answer at Webstormmedia. They formerly had a receptionist, and all my voicemails to my rep. have went unanswered. My voicemails to the owner of Webstorm, Ilan, have went unanswered. My most recent e-mails to the marketing director for SIA in Ireland, Ruth Purcell, have went unanswered, although Ruth did tell me that SIA/Webstorm have decided to not forego any new contracts at the moment, but what does that have to do with my current, existing contract??
So, advertiser beware, SIA/Webstormmedia are giving advertisers the shaft. Guess I have no one else to blame but myself, the first somewhat questionable sportsbook that I decided to do advertising for and I get stiffed.
As a few of you know I own a sports forum, I've never mentioned it here or in any other sports forum out of respect for those forums. It certainly doesn't receive the traffic of sites such as the Rx nor EOG, but we've been in business for 4+ years and have carved out a little "niche". When we first opened our forum our objectives were to have a sports forum were we could help people learn how to handicap games themselves and steer clear of suspect books as well as suspect services. We decided we would only accept advertising from "Top Tier" rated books, such as Pinnacle, Olympic, BetCris, WSEX, etc. Unfortunately at the beginning it was very difficult to get these top-tier books to advertise with a new, unproven sports forum.
A year after we had been online we had amassed a very nice group of very sharp handicappers and we decided to open a private forum, as well as keeping open a public (free) forum. The private forum did extremely well the first year and continues to generate enough revenue to pay the bills and generate profit.
In early August of this year I was contacted by a representative of Webstorm media, they are the marketing company that is responsible for placing Sports Interactions Ad's, and they were interested in advertising on my site. I was apprehensive at first in that SIA certainly is problematic at times and although good for wagering on underdogs, they're well known for closing acccounts if you bust them for 20K or more, you'll get paid, but you'll also be shown the door, I also let my forum members know this before they signed up. I spoke with both The Shrink and Bill Dozer before I accepted this advertising deal and Ken stated he had never had a problem, as far as an advertiser, with Webstorm, and Bill told me that SIA appeared as if they would be being upgraded to a C or C+ in the near future.
I decided to accept SIA's/Webstorms proposal which consisted of a 4 month agreement in which the last 3 months were dependant on the first 30 days activity/signups. Webstorm also had me agree to run a SIA promotion to my private forum in which I gave away private forum memberships in exchange for signups and minimum deposits to SIA of $100. I agreed and my forum acheived the minimum number of signups within the first 3 weeks. I agreed to this condition, which naturally cost me quite a bit of money in lost membership revenue the first month, which historically is our best month for sales, all because I would make money with the last 90 days of advertising.
I was told on September 20th by my Webstorm rep. that my money was being sent on the 22nd for the additional 90 days, it was not. I was then told it would be the following Friday, it was not. Since September 26th there has been no answer at Webstormmedia. They formerly had a receptionist, and all my voicemails to my rep. have went unanswered. My voicemails to the owner of Webstorm, Ilan, have went unanswered. My most recent e-mails to the marketing director for SIA in Ireland, Ruth Purcell, have went unanswered, although Ruth did tell me that SIA/Webstorm have decided to not forego any new contracts at the moment, but what does that have to do with my current, existing contract??
So, advertiser beware, SIA/Webstormmedia are giving advertisers the shaft. Guess I have no one else to blame but myself, the first somewhat questionable sportsbook that I decided to do advertising for and I get stiffed.
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