Drake Rock.com & WMS Woes

[dzinerbear]

I received this e-mail yesterday (twice actually) and apparently according to a post on GMS that included a reply from DrakeRock.com saying that every time he makes a change in his program this e-mail is sent out to affiliates. The program apparently is not closing.


Dear Affiliate:

We regret to inform you that the sponsor program you are member of DrakeRock.com E-cash (928649-0000) is no longer active. If the sponsor re-activates the program, you will receive notification via email of the change.


If you have any questions regarding the Web Marketing Service, please e-mail clientsupport@ccbill.com.



Regards,
CCBill Client Support
1-888-596-9279 (U.S.)
1-888-906-0666 (International)
Open 24 hours a day; 7 days a week; 365 days a year

[iowaman]

FYI: Drake Rock's latest update that I just received
____________________________________________
Hi,

I spent a lot of time with CCBill getting this all worked out. Here is where we sit as of this moment.

Wonderful news. My affiliate program in the legacy System5 is working exactly the same as it was prior to my migration to WMS.

The System5 and WMS affiliate programs will run in parallel (concurrently). Although they are running concurrently, they are two completely different systems so any changes I make in WMS will NOT affect System5 and vise versa.

You are on System5.

I will NOT be making changes to System5.

The changes that I made in WMS yesterday did NOT affect the affiliate program in System5 (i.e., when I suspended/deactivated the affiliate program in WMS, and CCBill sent you the auto-generated email, it did NOT suspend the program in System5 - the program that you are using).

All of your links will continue to work the same with the System5 affiliate program. For any new links you create for DrakeRock.com you should continue to use the same code that you have always used. All of my future email updates will continue to provide you will the code for System5.

Once again, nothing changes.

Also, you do NOT need to sign up for my WMS affiliate program (unless you chose to). The "Please join Drake Rock E-Cash on WMS" emails are still sitting in the CCBill queue waiting to be sent. I've requested that CCBill kill those invites, but they can't guarantee that the invites will be deleted prior to them being sent.

If you receive an email asking you to join my "Drake Rock E-Cash" affiliate program, ignore it and continue to go about business as if none of this has happened.

There is only one reason you will NEED to join my WMS affiliate program, and that is if you open a new website/blog and want to use a unique affiliate ID instead of the current affiliate ID that you have been assigned in System5. In other words, System5 will no longer accept new affiliates for my account; that can only be done through WMS.

Now, I will be making some changes in WMS - I have to get WMS set up to accept brand new affiliates. The downside is that I cannot turn off the auto-generated emails that go out when I make changes in WMS. Therefore, you may receive notifications via CCBill that I have made changes to my affiliate program.

Once again, I will ONLY be making changes in WMS. I will NOT be making changes in System5 - the affiliate program that you are using. If you receive those emails, please ignore them.

I think I've covered everything.

Let me know if you have any questions/comments/concerns.

Sincerely, Drake

[Gaystoryman]

If not wrong, didn't Alex from Manifest have the same issue of emails going out, and other issues with the new ccBill WMS system?

This Thread (http://www.gaydemon.biz/showthread.php?t=12106) I believe.

[GayGeek]

The migration system over to the new WMS system is terrible. I'm hearing all sorts of horror stories from webmasters about the matter. There is even a straight site webmaster listed in the gay area that can't figure out how to get out of it (and didn't even want to convert to WMS he tells me).

I hope Drake can get his problems solved soon. At present the new CCBill WMS links for Drake Rock are going to Drake Rock Cash, not to Drake Rock.com. Bad for business, obviously. He's trying to get this solved with CCBill so hopefully it'll be settled soon.

[rawTOP]

The migration system over to the new WMS system is terrible. I'm hearing all sorts of horror stories from webmasters about the matter.

Apparently he didn't even want to convert to WMS - they forced him to... But it sounds like he's gotten things sorta sorted out and back to normal and the old CCBill system is working for him again, but there's still weirdness on the WMS side.

[RDude]

If these problems continue with WMS without being resolved and sponsors are forced to use WMS, I can see less people using CCBill as a processor. It would be a real shame of course, but no one wants to deal with problems like this. It's hard enough getting a site off the ground to begin with.

If I opened a new site right now, I would be leery of using CCBill because of these issues. I mean, redirecting surfers to your affiliate program instead of your tour is a major problem. LOL.

WMS was rolled out way, way too soon from my what I'm seeing. I hope people get their issues resolved. Best of luck to all of you who are having problems.

In the meantime, I will be keeping an eye on all my CCBill links. LOL. Just to be sure they're going to where they're supposed to be.

[GayGeek]

Just got a mass-mail message from Drake. He's urging folks go back to the old "traditional" CCBill urls for the time being. He says that everyone's old account is working fine again and they'll be credited as normal for sales from that url.

Hopefully he'll get the WNS links fixed soon. I am slowly switching over my affiliates to the WNS system even though it's clearly still in beta. Doesn't work though if the traffic is being sent to his affiliate program though. : )

[archer]

wow. i feel sorry for him. talk about having your processor seemingly crucify your affiliates. :bang:

the last email i had from ccbill said that his site was no long even active.

[drakerock]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for your patience!

The Short Answer:
Epoch is now my primary processor with CCBill as my secondary processor. Cascading has been implemented.

All of your CCBill links will continue to work, and all new conversions and associated rebills will be processed and paid via Epoch. Rebills associated with CCBill memberships that converted prior to 12:01am 3/9/2010 will continue to be processed by CCBill.

Within the next few hours an email will be sent from the Epoch system to all Drake Rock affiliates. It will provide affiliates with their Drake Rock/Epoch affiliate ID, username and password.

Once again, all of your CCBill links/code will continue to work.

If you have questions please contact me directly via my affiliate email address.

The Long Answer:
The long answer can be found at the following link: http://www.drakerock.com/switch_to_epoch.cfm. That way if questions arise I can include the answers so everyone has access to them.

Sincerely, Drake

[Daniel]

Interesting thread here:

http://www.gaymainstreet.com/TheStreets/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16434

Seems WMS is being sidelined for now.

[gaydemon]

Interesting thread here:

http://www.gaymainstreet.com/TheStreets/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16434

Seems WMS is being sidelined for now.

It was posted on here as well:

http://www.gaydemon.biz/showthread.php?t=12574

[Daniel]

Strange.. I entirely missed that. It did seem odd it wasn't posted here as well :)

[terrytowel]

Just got this email from the Drake Rock folks;

Epoch is now my primary processor with CCBill as my secondary processor. Cascading has been implemented.

All of your CCBill links will continue to work, and all new conversions and associated rebills will be processed and paid via Epoch. Rebills associated with CCBill memberships that converted prior to 12:01am 3/9/2010 will continue to be processed by CCBill.

Within the next few hours an email will be sent from the Epoch system that will provide your Drake Rock/Epoch affiliate ID, username and password.

Once again, all of your CCBill links/code will continue to work.

Bye bye Drake Rock!

[Closer]

I dropped all links after that mail ... just like I've dropped LucasEntertainment when they switched from CCBill to another.

I simply won't promote anything else then CCBill or big NATS/MPA3 sponsors these days.

[denzel1980]

Just got this email from the Drake Rock folks;

Epoch is now my primary processor with CCBill as my secondary processor. Cascading has been implemented.

All of your CCBill links will continue to work, and all new conversions and associated rebills will be processed and paid via Epoch. Rebills associated with CCBill memberships that converted prior to 12:01am 3/9/2010 will continue to be processed by CCBill.

Within the next few hours an email will be sent from the Epoch system that will provide your Drake Rock/Epoch affiliate ID, username and password.

Once again, all of your CCBill links/code will continue to work.

Bye bye Drake Rock!

I think Drake Rock is confused with his Affiliate program.

I have separate email addresses that I use for ccbill and epoch. I received the same message on both my ccbill and epoch email accounts.

Also, I just got the latest promotional links still using Ccbill.

[dzinerbear]

What you guys fail to understand is that a sponsor can employ CCBill's cascading program and they can put Epoch first in the cascade. When a surfer clicks the join link in this case, Epoch will show up as the processor; CCBill is still tracking and paying the affiliate.

CCBill will deduct the affiliate payout from any CCBill monies owed to the sponsor. So while you all think Drake Rock is ripping you off, if he's using CCBill's cascading system, he's not.

[Adam Mason]

That's not how I read it Michael. Epoch is sending out affiliate login details for Drake Rock and his full announcement made it clear that he was leaving CCBill.

That said, Epoch can move a sponsor over with all of their affiliates and enable all CCBill linking codes to work in their system.

[dzinerbear]

hmmm ... I read it differently, but re-reading it now, it wasn't the most clearly written e-mail.

[dzinerbear]

Adam, I just re-read it and you're correct. However, affiliates also need to realize that what they see isn't always what is happening. Butch Dixon also uses cascading billing with CCBill, so from time to time an affiliate may click a join link on our site and see Epoch pop up instead of CCBill. Affiliate sales are still tracked and passed to CCBill so affiliates can be paid.

[AlexManifestMan]

I don't know this guy from Adam. He may be a prince or he may be the biggest asshole that every lived. But in either case it certainly looks like what he is doing is trying to be sure that his affiliates are being taken care of.

CCBill comes to him (as they did many of us) with this product (WMS) which on the surface is terrific. Then one problem and another problem occur until he has no faith that the affiliates are getting what they need in terms of information. Then the question of affiliate payments no longer is crystal clear. So he thinks if he moves things over and cascades from Epoch to CCBill then maybe things will be better.

In the eyes of some, he is screwed no matter what he does. The only consolation is that the ones that scream the loudest are actually the ones that sell little to nothing.

[Gaystoryman]

I don't know, after reading this page http://www.drakerock.com/switch_to_epoch.cfm

I'd be more inclined to start wondering about ccBill than about anything.

Seems it is much more than just a WMS issue, and frankly, if it had been me experiencing all that, I'd have switched a lot sooner.

If you read the part about 'why he switched' I don't think I'd be so quick to drop his links. I mean really, it appears like he is doing the best for his affiliates, instead of just ignoring what really appears to be a serious issue, that raises some flags for me.

More than likely this is a one off problem, not system wide, but it does show you, one needs to be keeping a wary eye on even the best of the best.

my 2 cents