Confirmed Clickbank customer ordered from my affiliate link, but I did NOT get the commissions!

[Michael Lee]

Hi guys,

I was communicating with a prospect interested in buying a Clickbank product. I referred him to my cloaked affiliate link and he updated me after buying the course.

Hours later, I'm checking my transactions on my Clickbank account; and there's still no sale registered under his name or email, or for that particular product.

I've checked my cloaked affiliate link, and my Clickbank id is written in the [affiliate=CBid] at the bottom of the order page.

It is very unlikely the customer exchanged my CB id with his, or bought from the main link, because my affiliate link goes to a unique special offer page especially created for my subscribers by the Clickbank vendor.

And the customer himself confirmed he ordered from the exact link I gave him.

So why didn't I get the commission? Giving Clickbank the benefit of the doubt, is there any situation wherein the Clickbank cookie did not register in the customer's computer?

Could there be any software, anti-virus, anti-spyware or anything that could have caused me to lose the commission which I have rightfully earned?

Would appreciate any advice.

Thanks a lot,
Michael

[Marian]

The only thing that comes to my mind is that it was a cookie writing protection problem. Otherwise I have no clue...

Marian

[LB]

Unless you can verify with your own eyes that the CB order form showed your affiliate ID when they clicked "order" there is no way to be sure.

Tons of reasons from spyware to redirect problems etc.

I use noscript with Firefox and I've seen it break more than one cloaked link.

[peetred]

If it helps, my CB analytic has shown a sale (and the front bar graph of clickbank) on my account long before it showed up on the anaylitics on Clickbank. So maybe check tomorrow and see if it shows up?

[Isaac Bennett]

Yeah dude, sometimes the analytic is REAL slow

[Prestigio]

If you look on the Analytics page, it actually tells you the date and time at which their last Analytics Stats update occured.

I have seen occassions when this has been up to 15 hours previous.

[Harvey Segal]

Michael

As LB says it needs [affiliate=CBid] to be appearing on your
customer's screen (not just yours) for commission to be
correctly credited.

It might be worth asking your customer to check that out
by clicking again on your link

1. If it says [affiliate=none] there is (most likely) your answer

2. If it says [affiliate=CBid] it does not conclusively
prove anything as the circumstances may be different
(e.g different browser)


Harvey

[shmeeko69]

Originally Posted by Michael Lee

Hi guys,

I was communicating with a prospect interested in buying a Clickbank product. I referred him to my cloaked affiliate link and he updated me after buying the course.

Hours later, I'm checking my transactions on my Clickbank account; and there's still no sale registered under his name or email, or for that particular product.

I've checked my cloaked affiliate link, and my Clickbank id is written in the [affiliate=CBid] at the bottom of the order page.

It is very unlikely the customer exchanged my CB id with his, or bought from the main link, because my affiliate link goes to a unique special offer page especially created for my subscribers by the Clickbank vendor.

And the customer himself confirmed he ordered from the exact link I gave him.

So why didn't I get the commission? Giving Clickbank the benefit of the doubt, is there any situation wherein the Clickbank cookie did not register in the customer's computer?

Could there be any software, anti-virus, anti-spyware or anything that could have caused me to lose the commission which I have rightfully earned?

Would appreciate any advice.

Thanks a lot,
Michael

There's always the trust issue in being affiliated
to any business & Clickbank are no differenr from
the rest.

You only hope that you get the credit that your
due, when someone goes through your link.

Mark

[The Mighty Mariner]

Hi
I think I agree with Marian that it is likely that your customer may have visited the sales site using someone elses link before he contacted you. Then even though your hop link was used the cookie would over ride this.

[Harvey Segal]

Originally Posted by The Mighty Mariner

Hi
I think I agree with Marian that it is likely that your customer may have visited the sales site using someone elses link before he contacted you. Then even though your hop link was used the cookie would over ride this.

It's the last cookie which gets the credit

Harvey

[yves]

Hi Michael,

A wee while back I was noticing unusual stats in my cb sales and I purchased a product through my own link aff=my link was on the screen when I purchased and the sale was NOT picked up by clickbank.

I'm not saying that is what happened to you here but it happened to me and is obviously a "problem" at the moment.

I have since spilt ties with clickbank as I don't trust the tracking system one bit.

Sorry to be negative but you, and anyone else reading this thread, has a right to know about these things.

Yves

[Tim_Hawksworth]

I have had this happen to me many times.
I always put it down to the customer having been to someone elses site
and got cookied before they came to mine.

It is usual for someone to vist up to 5 sites before making the buy desicion, so sometimes I get the credit, sometimes another affiliate, we just have to take swings wit the roundabouts I guess :-)

PS
Someone else suggested that there are a lot of viruses around that are still undetected and these can write cookies or change CBids. I dont know how true that is.

All the best
Tim

[Jermaine Tabor]

CB system is vulnerable IMHO.

I can create a hop link with my id in
any niche and it wont show up on the
order page.

Yet I go to 1 vendor site in the IM
niche who has several products in CB
& 1 guru aff id show on the order page.

On 1 of the vendor other sites it show
another id.

So I clear my cookies & repeat the
process & voila... same 2 id's show
up for those 2 products & on the
other none IM sites through my aff
links my aff ID wont show up.

Go figure.

[Chris Kent]

I would also use the encrypted links that CB provides as it will give a little better protection against spyware and the like and give you a higher chance of getting credit.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by yves

A wee while back I was noticing unusual stats in my cb sales and I purchased a product through my own link aff=my link was on the screen when I purchased and the sale was NOT picked up by clickbank.

This is, in fact, relatively common.

Yet Clickbank, according to some of their apologists, cannot even reasonably be expected to acknowledge the existence of, let alone to rectify, such problems in the absence of "video evidence".

Sorry about your problem, Michael.

In my opinion, such things happen more widely than many people appreciate.

The bottom line here is that (obviously!) without "video evidence" to offer Clickbank, realistically, you're just not going to get anywhere. This simply happens to a percentage of one's affiliate sales. That's why vendors paying 75% commission say (as a few have done in this forum over the last year) that overall it costs them only about 55% of the affiliate-sales-takings to do so (the disparity of course representing the ones which are not rightfully credited to the affiliates concerned).

Effectively, one either does business with Clickbank on their terms (and accepts their unreliability and disgracefully bad "customer service" as part and parcel of the deal) or one take's one labours elsewhere.

[Michael Lee]

I talked to the customer and found out that an unethical lowlife has stolen my commissions.

Another CB ID (not mine; not "none") is written in the [affiliate=CBID] when my customer went to the order page.

How was this possible? Anyway, karma has its way of getting back.

Thanks,
Michael

[robinpike]

Michael:

That is the right attitude to have. Unfortunately the internet has it's flaws and it doesn't sound like you have much (if not any) recourse at this point.

I think this type of thing happens more often then one would think or even notice. If I were you, I would document it with CB just so you have a paper trail of your conflict. You never know where it may lead... it certainly wouldn't hurt to document it with them.

Keep on, Keeping on... by moving forward!!!

Robin :-)

Originally Posted by Michael Lee

I talked to the customer and found out that an unethical lowlife has stolen my commissions.

Another CB ID (not mine; not "none") is written in the [affiliate=CBID] when my customer went to the order page.

How was this possible? Anyway, karma has its way of getting back.

Thanks,
Michael

[geoffcruz]

Michael

I have had the same experience, mine was worse, in my analytics it show i have like three order submit forms so that means that the buyer submitted the order to clickbank, but i was not credited for the sale.

I contacted clickbank and asked them if there are any problems with the client or my link, and all they have to say is everything is working ok. That really pissed me off but what can i do.

[Tony Dean]

Originally Posted by Michael Lee

I talked to the customer and found out that an unethical lowlife has stolen my commissions.

Another CB ID (not mine; not "none") is written in the [affiliate=CBID] when my customer went to the order page.

How was this possible? Anyway, karma has its way of getting back.

Thanks,
Michael

Your customer has malware on his computer which changes any aff id to another one.

[Anthony J Namata]

Well, try this one for size. ClickBank sent me a check for over $700...and the BANK lost the check (which is crazy, I know). I informed ClickBank about this and they said they'll stop the check and issue a fresh one for a minimal fee -- which I agreed to let them deduct from the check. Simple, isn't it?

But guess what? This happened in April, we are now close to December and I still don't have the new check and ALL of my mail is being ignored. You lost out on a commission credit due you? It ain't nothing compared to what they did to me. They practically STOLE my money. Period. And they don't give a damn!

[rosetrees]

Michael - do you feel you can publish the CB ID of the person who was credited? I stopped using CB for my own products well over a year ago. I had no affiliates - at least I had no affiliate sales credited, ever. It was my own product, which only I sold.

However if I clicked my sales link, on my own computer, the affiliate id showed either CBBoss or fishcatch - ids which, in my opinion, spoke volumes about what was happening - but which CB refused to look at.

[SimonHarrison]

Originally Posted by Michael Lee

Hi guys,

I was communicating with a prospect interested in buying a Clickbank product. I referred him to my cloaked affiliate link and he updated me after buying the course.

Hours later, I'm checking my transactions on my Clickbank account; and there's still no sale registered under his name or email, or for that particular product.

I've checked my cloaked affiliate link, and my Clickbank id is written in the [affiliate=CBid] at the bottom of the order page.

It is very unlikely the customer exchanged my CB id with his, or bought from the main link, because my affiliate link goes to a unique special offer page especially created for my subscribers by the Clickbank vendor.

And the customer himself confirmed he ordered from the exact link I gave him.

So why didn't I get the commission? Giving Clickbank the benefit of the doubt, is there any situation wherein the Clickbank cookie did not register in the customer's computer?

Could there be any software, anti-virus, anti-spyware or anything that could have caused me to lose the commission which I have rightfully earned?

Would appreciate any advice.

Thanks a lot,
Michael

Hi Michael

Based on the fact your customer says a different ID shows up, I would get your customer to run some extensive malware tests on his PC.

While it could be cookie stuffing the reality is that even if his browsers full of stuffed cookies, your hoplink should overwrite the hoplink stuffed in his browser, CB credits the last hoplink ,not any previous ones.

This means either:

a) Your cloaked link is screwed and you somehow put the wrong hoplink in (unlikely.)
b) He got cookie stuffed after he clicked on your link (also unlikely)
c) He has some nasty crap on his PC which is removing hoplinks and replacing them .
d) CB's system is up the spout and somehow not replacing the latest hoplink (unlikely)

I would advise speaking to your customer, ask him what the hoplink is that shows on the order page then drop CB an email explaining the situation.

They can look into it and see if anything nerfarious is happening with that Hoplink in general.

I'm still not 100% with CB, I don't buy into the level of conspriacy theories that do the rounds but equally we have mirrored sites, one going to 1shoppingcart.com the other to CB and 1shoppingcart.com has double the conversions from the same sales copy

This proves little unfortunately as you can't determine if it's the order page on CB people dislike over 1shop, or the payment options or the card processing problems, or the occasional page not found errror some of our customers get with CB , but it does feel strange that CB never peforms as well as our other payment processor.

Meh..

[Simon Harding]

I agree with Simon.

People often install cookie stuffing scripts on their pages and when that cookie gets downloaded, they get cookied for everything. Not sure how it works, but it seems to.

I've had whole websites stolen, reports, ad copy, commissions, everything. I kind of expect it now.

One guy stole a whole website and report of me and then emailed me and told me to take my site down as I had plagarised him.

It's a shark infested sea with few rules and policing.