I signed up for Netwinner in October. The website is rather simple, you have two "games" to play online, winning points while watching advertisements on the side of the game. Under the original terms of service, points could be redeemed for gift cards or amounts loaded onto a pre-paid debit Mastercard, which the company promised to do within 60 days.
I won $250 worth of points, and redeemed them, from November until February. The company provided many excuses for not paying its members, ranging from moving office locations, training a new staff member, problems with Citi (e-Count) over setting up the debit Mastercards, to having to verify every winner to make sure they weren't somehow cheating.
In approximately March the company changed their terms of service to a 90 day redemption period and added some fulfillments may take over 90 days due to fraud checks or unforeseen business circumstances. Never mind the fact that at the time they were closer to about 180 days for fulfillment based on player reports on a forum.
Finally, May 12, the company announced via e-mail that they would not honor any pending redemptions and instead "refunded" all outstanding redemptions with points that could only be used to enter raffle drawings. Based on my original agreement with them, and the contract that would have been in force at the time of my redemptions, they have committed a gross breach of contract.
When you combine this breach with the fact that some players reported they were paid out of sequence (redemptions were supposed to be processed in order by date redeemed) and told to keep quiet about the payments, which amounts to bribery, it becomes very clear that Netwinner management seemingly had no intention of ever paying all of its members, which one can only interpret to be defrauding its customers.
Consumers be warned, if Netwinner is around much longer, I would strongly advise supporting their website, their long history of failed promises and obligations speaks highly to the lack of character of the executives and ethics of the company.
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