With the explosion of the internet and the legal shelter and anonymity it provides, you cannot be too careful in protecting yourself and your personal information from scam operations. Fly-by-night operations pop up in all walks of life, but the safe haven of the unregulated world wide web creates more opportunity for deception. In this article we hope to help you understand the potential pitfalls in searching for a rakeback deal and to protect yourself from a shady outfit.
Never accept a rakeback deal from an email solicitation. To further this point, never accept rakeback deals from forum members without any credibility (easily defined by number of posts) or when you are pinged on an instant messenger program about the great deals you can get at XYZ poker room. This is the simplest way to avoid a deceitful rakeback operation.
Do not buy into over-hyped or exaggerated claims made by any website about amazing rakeback deals. There is an industry standard for affiliates, and if you do a little research you will notice that most of the top rakeback sites offer the same exact percentage of your rakeback for their poker rooms. Be suspicious of any offer that is substantially better than known publicly advertised rates.
If a poker affiliate offers rakeback at a poker room that does not allow rakeback, this should send out a clear signal that something is awry. Poker rooms that do not give their affiliates the opportunity to share their rake with their referred customers have strict rules in their T&C’s that forbid this activity. The consequence of violating these conditions is termination of the agreement, so no respectable affiliate would risk their business by skirting the rules. Remember, most of these online poker rooms are a part of only about four or five major poker networks, so to lose one poker room affiliate arrangement could be to lose five, ten, or even more rooms.
Simply do your homework here at Rakeback Monitor and Google and stick with trustworthy and reliable affiliates. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. You can’t judge a book by its cover in this business. Sometimes the best rakeback sites are hideous on the outside, but they get you paid and your information is secure. Just ask yourself when you see a great deal, how could the poker room possibly offer this much money back? They cannot.
