Blackmagix=Degen
In the effort of full disclosure, yes, I had previously worked for Degen. I originally received rakeback from him starting in Dec of 2005. Around June of 06 I came on board to assist him with customer support for a number of his sites.
Trying to work with someone who exhibits serious signs of bipolar is extremely difficult (I don't mean this to be some ridiculous statement on my part, I have checked out the wiki page for this disorder and he exhibits some clear signs of it).
His mood swings could be really ridiculous at times. He had periods where he could be pretty nice, but then he'd flip out over minor infractions.
I'm an extremely detail-oriented individual, Degen is more of a big picture guy. Degen would be very quick in requesting something, but often extremely vague. While I'm quite more lengthy in my writing.
When given a task I would often have questions about the details. And he would pretty much just tell me to "do it". So I would go and "do it" as I thought best, and many times he would flip out saying I hadn't done it how he wanted it done (when he never gave me any details to go on, as I am not a mind reader)
We had our ups and downs, but usually worked through them. I disagreed quite frequently with how he conducted his business. But because it was HIS business, there was little I could do except voice my concern.
I believe around the time that Party was leaving the U.S. market, Degen requested that I change my persona to represent a female named Heidi. He felt that it would provide a better "face" to customer support. So I did that.
Despite our differing ethical viewpoints, Degen and I made a relatively good team. He was skilled at starting and developing businesses, but his customer service could be atrocious at times, resorting to even swearing at customers.
So my skills in customer service, my patience in dealing with yet another player who earned 30 cents in rakeback and hadn't been paid and was going to report us for running a scam, came in handy.
Still, I became weary of his mood swings, and how condescending he could treat myself and others. Plus all the mistrust he had for his partner Ryan, as well as for RakeTracker.
In December I began looking for new employment, and I left his employ early this year after finding it.
He had originally promised me a bonus for the partial sale of one of his businesses, since I had helped him in growing it. When it sold, he stated he couldn't have done it without me.
Well, that day I happened to let it be known to one of his business partners (that I was contacting for a support issue, this is prior to my leaving his employment) that Heidi wasn't a female at all. As far as Degen had led me to believe, Heidi was just a face for the customers to see. I had zero reason to believe that it would be an issue for people he was doing business with.
So when I needed to contact Craig at RakeTracker about a customer support issue, he asked me if I was Degen, as that would make it much easier for us to communicate with one another. I explained I was not, but that he was correct, I was a guy.
There was a lot of suspicion around Heidi because Degen had been posting as Heidi in various forums (he had wanted me to do it, but I was swamped with customer support issues and opted out). So many noticed that there were differences between the email/AIM communications with Heidi and the forum posts.
Anyway, I didn't think much of it and mentioned it to Degen later that day. He flipped out, because I guess he had swore up and down to some of his business partners that Heidi was in fact a woman. So now I had made him out to be a liar. He yanked my bonus and told me I didn't deserve it anymore and he wasn't going to pay it.
I tried to explain to him that the bonus was promised based on past performance already completed, but he would just ignore any of those emails and respond only to whatever he wanted to answer.
Degen wanted his RakeAid site to remain in the top three spots on the main page of RakeReport.net, as well as to have a share of the profits. I can't run an "unbiased" rakeback directory using his methods.
I already had an uphill battle given his past transgressions of inflating traffic and bid amounts, and putting his site first so frequently.
I didn't want to tarnish his reputation any further, as he has shown me some kindness in the past and his rep is hurt enough already. But since he seems intent on dragging this out, I felt the need to explain further.
In addition, you will find a current copy of RakeReport's stats here:
March 07 Stats
Unlike Degen, I have no intention of falsifying anything regarding the site stats or bid amounts from affiliates. He has a history of telling lies. He would claim that RakeAid was on it's way to being one of the biggest rakeback providers out there, saying he had 1500 player accounts. Well, that was partially true. There were almost 1500 accounts on the rakeaid site at that time, but in actuality, less than 300 of them were producing MGR. Many of them were dead accounts (players who wanted rakeback that we weren't able to provide due to various reasons, or possibly other affiliates just checking out his site by creating an account)
I blacklisted RakeAid because being associated with Degen is bad for business, plain and simple.
And again, for the record, Degen has paid players under his affiliate accounts. I do not believe that anyone receiving rakeback from him needs to worry. He may be disorganized and sometimes run a bit late for payments, but to the best of my knowledge he's always paid up.
Unfortunately, Degen decided to escalate things further. He sent me threats, saying he had friends in Boston who were involved with "shady things" and would do things for sums of money that meant very little to him.
He sent my wife and myself messages stating that he had gotten a quote of $500 for me and then $2,000 to have her raped (this is when he was threatening to have his web coder cancel the domain name transfer, so I had taken control of some of his gmail accounts to ensure I had insurance against his attempt)
I didn't delete any of his emails in the accounts, nor did I use them to send anything out pretending to be him. I returned them to him actually.
He keeps flip-flopping, telling me he just wants this over and he isn't going to try and take the site. Then he tells me the game is back on and I have to pay him $25,000, or give him 40% of the profits, etc.
He crossed the line with the threats of violence against my family. He has my home address and phone #, and I have his and his partner Ryan's. I just want to be left alone to grow RakeReport.net without him trying to cause me problems. But I have saved all communications from him and have emails to prove he threatened us. He's a sick individual and should really get help. Unfortunately, he's been financially successful by being a liar, and that doesn't really motivate him to change his ways.
EDIT: I tried to post under a different account on these boards about the threats. I didn't want to out Degen, I just wanted advice.
Because I failed to provide enough details, NT wound up deleting the thread and banning that account. Then I guess the details found their way to the Mod forums, and Degen still has people in there because he contacted me asking why stuff he said to me was being written about in there.
Some of it was misreported, kinda like the telephone game, the message got messed up in the transfer over there. But it was not my original intention for him to be implicated or for this to escalate.
They must have tied the IP address from my post to my other accounts here and known it was myself and Degen.