Our deals are being deleted - Claims of spam are false
My apologies for making this post however it seems that I have no alternative.
I own http://www.shopneo.co.uk www.shopneo.co.uk and we were fortunate to have had one of our deals posted to this site last year. However it was deleted that same day with the claim that Neo staff was spamming this forum. First of all that's a complete lie and I asked for evidence of this claim and none was given
I quickly forgot about this as we have many other forums that post our deals from time to time with great success. However we announced a new deal on DVD-R yesterday and it was picked up by many sites including HotUKDeals. Great we thought - I was given the link and our original offer that was deleted previousley was there as well as the new offer. Many orders and questions came in from HUKD members and everyone has been given great service.
However I received an email from the poster of one of the deals saying he had received a PM from admin:
I don't really care if you claim not to be connected with them. We have been spammed repeatedly by them in the past and at this point they are not allowed on the boards due to this. Whether you are a associated with them or just a member the point is we don't allow their posts. If a merchant cannot act ethically on our boards it is not a merchant we want our members referred to period.
I feel the need to state categorically that we (or anyone else for that matter) have NEVER spammed these forums with ANYTHING! We have only ever had 2 deals posted here in our entire history and they have both been removed with false claims regarding our ethics.
Can I get an explanation and/or evidence as to why we are being singled out? Isn't it the job of this site to show offers that benefit its members and not any hidden agenda or affiliation ?
I would appreciate an honest reponse. The only people missing out here are your members - they deserve the opportunity plus we deserve to have a crack at free trade.
Thank you
Paul Owen
Neo Technologies
http://www.shopneo.co.uk www.shopneo.co.uk
All Comments (56)
Jump to unreadLocked[SIZE=2]Have YOU been in contact with Paul/Admin? [/SIZE]
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[SIZE=2]I think we should be made aware of sites that we aren't allowed to mention, it seems that email, if it was from Admin, was a bit blunt.[/SIZE]
http://www.hotukdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10388
Stop moaning like a baby. If you didn't self promo or Spam then you wouldn't be blocked.
http://www.hotukdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?p=33812#post33812
Either way, I echo what Steve asked, have you tried to speak to admin about it or are you just going on second hand info? I think sending him a PM or email would have been better than starting a public thread.
Hope it all gets sorted any way :)
November last year I myself submitted one of our deals (for the very first time) to HotUK.
Hello
I have removed your post about Neo technologies to be checked by admin.
We do not allow self-promotion on these forums, so we wish to know if you have anything to do with the organisation you posted about.
Please let us know, thanks.
My Response:
What are the guidelines - if its a voucher or coupon or a very cheap product im not sure why it makes a difference if im involved with Neo or not ?
I apologise if I've broken any rules I figured I was offering something of value - let me know how I can proceed. I own digital-forums.com and I hundreds of my members post deals to your site - it was them who pointed hotukdeals out to me - excellent site btw
thanks
emma's response:
On the submit a deal page, there is a link where merchants can submit a deal to admin. If he deems it suitable, it will be posted by one of the mods in the appropriate forum.
We don't allow merchants or affiliates to post deals themselves, or else we might be overrun with them, so we follow this policy for our community.
We do allow merchants to respond to member queries in these threads though, so if you submit a deal and it is posted, you are welcome to respond in the thread.
Hope that clears things up, PM me again any time.
Regards, Emma.
My response:
I really appreciate you getting back to me !
So let me just get the rules straight:
1. I can submit a deal MYSELF to admin ?
2. If I post one of our deals to digital-forums.com (52,000 members etc) what if one of the members from their posted to HotUK - would this still be valid ?
Is it also possible to setup an affiliation witgh HotUK? (I do this with digital forums - if a HotUK member makes an order - they put their HotUK username in the comments box and we will then upgrade them for free to a VIP account (usually costs £49.95 a year) - this gives discounts on every single order made - its very popular with our forum members - could you find out if we could do a similar deal for you guys ?
FYI my direct email is [EMAIL="paul.owen@shopneo.co.uk"]paul.owen@shopneo.co.uk[/EMAIL]
Much appreciated and thank you for your time !!
Emma's final response:
1. You can submit a deal to admin, if he decides it's ok, he'll publish it.
2. Anyone can post deals about any company - except the merchants themselves or affiliates. When a new member starts posting deals of little known companies, we would be suspicious of affiliation issues.
I'm sure we can set up an affiliation link - I'll pass your details on to Fordy - he's the mod who deals with this kind of thing, with admin's permission of course. We have a similar link with SVP, which is very successful.
Thanks :)
As you can see there was no spamming and no mallice or ill intent. I contacted Admin to say I would be happy to setup an affiliation where members of HotUK would receive VIP upgrade to our site therefore getting discounts on every order made. I was simply told that they do not allow spammers and that was it ?
I would really appreciate this clearing up as the accusations are damaging to our company and the loss of opportunity is damaging to the members here.
Thank you.
http://www.hotukdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10388
Stop moaning like a baby. If you didn't self promo or Spam then you wouldn't be blocked.
Not a very adult response. But I appreciate you at least taking the time to respond in the first place.
I explained in my previous post that I was unaware of those rules and of course this was corrected. Surely this doesn't mean that we are marked as "spammers" and that we should be permanently banned ?
I explained in my previous post that I was unaware of those rules and of course this was corrected. Surely this doesn't mean that we are marked as "spammers" and that we should be permanently banned ?
Who said i was an adult! Go away your boring me!
It was an open discussion with a member of staff here. There is nothing in those PM's that I hadn't already discussed with Admin.
Who said i was an adult! Go away your boring me!
I'm sorry I thought this was an open forum to benefit consumers with good deals. I didn't know that there was a hierarchy of some kind. My apologies.
I'm sorry if you don't agree with our decision. We have a long memory here and when the rules are broken we do not forget that. Shopneo self-promoted in the past and for that reason we do not allow threads for them. I've explained this to you and what seems to be your alter-ego several times.
There's too many ways for people to hide their footprints on the net so when we catch a merchant self-promoting and when they don't heed our warning we exercise an extreme amount of caution on any "deals" posted for them in the future.
What seems to be the issue here is you seem to think we have a relationship with SVP. On the contrary, SVP have never self-promoted, have never had members of their organisation post on deals on here and have never pushed their luck. As a result of this and because they offer great deals we contacted them asking if we could have a special discount.
I strongly suggest contacting Admin direct, posting on the Forum like this does you no good, in fact IMO it makes you look like a whinger.
This is a private matter between you and Admin. We are just Members and our opinion means naff all.
[SIZE=2]Have YOU been in contact with Paul/Admin? [/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]I think we should be made aware of sites that we aren't allowed to mention, it seems that email, if it was from Admin, was a bit blunt.[/SIZE]
No we are not an ebay seller - we have been in business since 1996 and were once "famous" in the game console business and have now launched into blank media.
I have spoken to Paul and not been give any reason for the exclusion. I had already discussed rules etc with staff and my apologies had been accepted regarding that ONE post I made myself and of course I was completely honest in the fact that it was my business, I never tried to disguise that fact.
I just feel its unfair to be excluded for this when Im posting deals every day to many other sites and we get an enormous amount of support and we save a lot of people a lot of money.
Agreed :thumbsup:
I strongly suggest contacting Admin direct, posting on the Forum like this does you no good, in fact IMO it makes you look like a whinger.
This is a private matter between you and Admin. We are just Members and our opinion means naff all.
Yes Emmas was fantastic - it was a good experience talking to her. I'm not being a whinger im asking for an honest response from admin which ive been trying to get since November with no replies at all.
I can't possibly see how making this post asking for a response from staff is me doing anything wrong.
it was a member of staff explaining the rules to me.
I know all about private messages, i own digital-forums.com which has a larger base than this site does - I wouldnt have quoted anything that was anything "personal"
Liar... you said...
How is that lying
jeees I was looking for some constructive replies here - I didn't expect all this nonsense.
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This IS a private matter between you and Admin.