Clickbank ripping of affiliates - Someone filing charges against clickbank

[GeorgR.]

Rip-off Report: Clickbank.com - Click Bank - CB - Affiliate Marketing WARNING: Clickbank.com Is Stealing Money From Affiliates - Click Bank Shaves Commission Boise Idaho


I really, really want to see the recorded videos.

If this is not just a rant...but if we can see actually screen recordings for PROPERLY conducted sales with working affiliateIDs...then this could be a HUGE problem for clickbank.

Above poster claims he recorded several sales and conducted such proper checkouts, but never got credited.

Very interesting read!

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Someone in our coaching program is claiming the same thing...

He bought a product that he was promoting with his own affiliate ID and has not been credited with a sale and it has been 2 days.

[GeorgR.]

I think its a little odd that he says
"
is an on going investigation. That is also the reason why I was told not to release the videos clips that proves CB is stealing commission.
"

That's right everyone Clickbank.com may be robing you and your family from all of your hard earned cash!

About: ' Founded in 1998, ClickBank is the online retail outlet for over 10,000 digital product publishers and their 100,000 active affiliates. '

This company has been shaving commission on a level that most people would have a hard time comprehending. For me and a couple close friends of mine it happened once we started pulling in large amounts of cash. After making over 1k a day, I slowly started noticing that the more targeted traffic I sent them the less money I made. So I decided to contact Click Bank and ask them what the problem was.

Now if you ever contacted Clickbank.com about an issue related to their tracking system or your pay, they reply with some generalized email with no real explanation other then it's your fault. 'Check your traffic, the economy is bad' and so on. They had me believing that it was the state of the economy, until I wised up after speaking out to other top ranking affiliates.

I was getting emails left and right from people sharing similar stories. So one day I said to my self I'll start documenting and recording transactions I my self will make through my own affiliate Id. I did this using numerous credit cards and pay pal accounts from family members.

What I noticed when doing this was at certain times of the day I was not getting any credit for sales purchased with in the United States that I myself personally made. Some will say it could have been spyware or a virus that switched out my affiliate Id on the order page. No that was not it, I made sure each and every transaction went through under my hop link Id. It will show the affiliate that last sent the referral at the bottom of Click Bank's order page. I also cleared all cookies before entering the site at which I purchased the product from.

I have been making money online for years, so I know how scandalous it can get when it comes to making a buck. So by this time I knew they were stealing my sales, so what I did next was sign up for another Click Bank Id. Then switched all my links to the new Id, within a few minutes my sales poured in under the new CB Id. Now mind you I hadn't promoted these products at all for 2 weeks. But mysteriously under my new affiliate hop link I started doubling and even tripling my sales.

To let everyone know I am the type of person that documents everything, so I knew it would be a good idea to have Camtasia running and recording all of this as it happened. Sales were good that day until I hit 30 sales or more. Then a sudden stop again, ok this could have been the time of a day or something, right? Wrong, there has never been a sudden stop in sales for an entire day. My account showed $0 the whole next day. That's like saying burger king was open and not a single customer ordered a meal.

That day I had over 6500 unique hits to the product page and not one single sale. A week went by with my sales dropping more and more. I then decided to change my click bank Id again, by this time it wasn't that I was trying to earn money, it became more that I wanted to share this information with the authorities and with affiliates that promote CB products.

Results again showed an incredible spike in my sales almost instantaneously. By now I am heavily over heated and pissed off. So the next day I decided to contact a private investigator and have him look at some of the videos and csv reports I had that shows how Click Bank is literally embezzling money, he then gave me a a phone number of a friend of his in the FBI. So what the hell I contacted him, and I can't mention anyone by name since this still is an on going investigation. That is also the reason why I was told not to release the videos clips that proves CB is stealing commission.

I am now running my promotions with the same exact traffic as before on another network, and am now pulling in $2500.00 a day.

I will update this report as I am currently filing a law suit and criminal charges against Click Bank. Once I have the information I will pass it on along with the videos for everyone to see.

@ Click Bank, anyone looking for your site will see this page and pages like it. Since I have many domains which rank at Pr5 and Pr6, I will continue to send back links and feed them til people are made aware of your crimes!

Click bank steals affiliates money
Don't Worry, Arizona
U.S.A.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Part of what he said in there makes me believe him...

I had an account that was making me GREAT money each and every day...then one day -- NOTHING! For 2 days not a single sale...

I created a new account and switched out hoplinks on my sites and the sales started pouring in again. I posted about it when it happened about 2 months ago I think.

[LegitIncomes]

Wow, that guy has some pretty serious claims...supposed video proof and everything.

This should get interesting.
I'll get the popcorn.

[GeorgR.]

Well Jeremy,

this is nothing new. I myself had someone promote a product of mine on his list. He never got ONE sale credited despites a big number of sales using his link.

I also always said there are many factors which can actually prevent a proper use of the clickbankID, like anti spyware programs and similar - so the ID wouldnt show up on the checkout page in the first place.

However, poster claims that all the purchases were proper with ID shown.

I am also well aware that we hear such stories very often, myself affected also occasionally.....and one problem here is not only "not making money"...but actually losing it. (People PAY for their ads on adwords!!)

[LegitIncomes]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

Part of what he said in there makes me believe him...

I had an account that was making me GREAT money each and every day...then one day -- NOTHING! For 2 days not a single sale...

I created a new account and switched out hoplinks on my sites and the sales started pouring in again. I posted about it when it happened about 2 months ago I think.

I've heard what you are describing. It's happened to too many people for there not to be something behind it. Whether it's intentional or not, there has definitely been some wacky things going on with the commissions.

[Emailrevealer]

I had a little situation with them also. It was a differnt kind of problem but it caused me to distrust them.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

I'm sure someone will come in and say, stop whining...

But, the hell with that

If business is slow...It's slow -- I get that...

But, changing affiliate ID's should not magically make business pick up again, right?

Anything is possible. And some of CB's policies are a little off center anyway so it wouldn't shock me.

Another possibility of course is just a gremlin in the software, so to speak. Affiliate tracking is pretty far from perfected even today so it's possible no intended foul play was involved.

Definitely will be interesting if this turns out to be the real thing and CB gets reamed in a legal battle. They'll have people coming out of the woodwork filing claims - this could actually make some waves in the affiliate marketing world.

[adamv]

I stopped promoting click bank products a couple of months ago. Everytime I think about promoting click bank stuff I read a post like this one and think I'll just stick to promoting other offers.

I'm very interested to see what comes out of this mess.

[Derek Pankaew]

This is very interesting indeed. I'll be following this closely.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

I still promote ClickBank products -- I just open a new account every once in a while

[adamv]

Originally Posted by Tim Whiston

Anything is possible. And some of CB's policies are a little off center anyway so it wouldn't shock me.

Another possibility of course is just a gremlin in the software, so to speak. Affiliate tracking is pretty far from perfected even today so it's possible no intended foul play was involved.

Definitely will be interesting if this turns out to be the real thing and CB gets reamed in a legal battle. They'll have people coming out of the woodwork filing claims - this could actually make some waves in the affiliate marketing world.

With what people are describing it's highly unlikely that it's an honest mistake. People are repeatedly seeing sales drop to nothing only to suddenly surge when a new account is opened. It's happening again and again to a lot of different people. There's no way that's just a coincidence.

[adamv]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

I still promote ClickBank products -- I just open a new account every once in a while

Yeah, I guess if I've got my eye on something that looks like a winner I should just use a new hop link.

I'll add to my monthly to do list: Change clickbank ID.

[Marhelper]

I have seen wild fluctuations in my CB sales over some period of time now. I do believe that there is something fishy going on but it is hard to prove. Needles to say, I have since moved on. With all of the negative posts on this forum and others, CB has surely lost a lot of affiliates.

[AlfredKo]

Everything can happen when it comes to money. Sigh.

[GeorgR.]

well yes, affiliate tracking is COMPLEX, i agree.

it depends what measures they (CB) implemented to weed out "invalid" clicks, fraud and things like cookie stuffing.

There could be measures in place which check browser referers and similar - and then it could be decided that a (apparantly) click is invalid and a sale would never be credited.

[GarrieWilson]

In the "article" he said it happened at certain times of the day. That could very well be a system issue. The server(s) that are tracking arent "keeping up". It could then cause that ID to be "flagged" falsely or get in a "stuck" mode.

What I would like to know from the writter is what showed up on his publisher account. Did he get the full sale or was a different account credited? If I read correctly, he purchased his products usings IDs of friends and others of his.

It also doesn't "prove" that it's being done on purpose. Actually, it didn't show or prove anything.

I do find the "FBI investigation" to be over the top though. They *could be* investigating it but they wouldnt tell him "You can tell everyone and advertise about it BUT dont show the videos." IMHO, It would be more like, "We will look into it."

Garrie

[jasonl70]

well, I just set up a new CB account. I'll see if I get the same boost that so many others seem to get.

[GeorgR.]

well....i also first thought the "FBI" part is a little over the top.

BUT..guys, mind you..there can be HUGE sums in play. Now, i am little earner with clickbank, but there are people making thousands/day. And in this case i could see someone actually doing something drastic.
Assume you have a real reason to believe that "they" are screwing you - which would mean the difference between 0/ZERO earnings or "thousand(s) a day".

So...i can understand someone freaking out. Also, lets not forget people spending HUGE sums on ads for this also. Very interested in following this story...

[GarrieWilson]

The main reason I don't believe it's on purpose, if it's actually happening on CBs end, is because they wouldn't take someone making 1000s a day or even hundreds down to almost nothing.

They, a person, would take a small percent under 5% to keep it from being noticed. Think someone who makes 100 sales is going to notice 5 missing? I dont but they would notice going from 100 to 5.

They would also be doing false refunds if they wanted to scam people. Most vendors would never notice an extra refund or two and wouldn't notice a sale not credited.

[GeorgR.]

true, i was thinking that too. It would not be very "intelligent" to cut off super-affiliates from one day to the other, it would just be too obvious. I mean, people know what they usually are making, they have traffic stats and so forth...

[JayXtreme]

Whilst I don't believe clickbank is doing this on purpose... they ARE using a pre-historic tracking system and servers that obviously can't handle the load..

My test domains get pounded for this purpose and I know 100% that clickbank has tracking issues that are isolated situations across the day.. it isn't one big failure and I still use clickbank in a huge fashion...but they have problems with tracking for sure.

Peace

Jay

p.s. I wouldn't even think about looking at rip off report for information, but in this case.. the dude probably is telling the truth.. based on what my tests have shown me

[yoshiko]

Even if CB may not be shaving on purpose for obvious reasons, by now they would have noticed the inherent tracking problems internally. It is absolutely unacceptable as such a huge setup to keep mum or even do the blame game on affiliates.

I have been observing the rollercoaster rides of my own sales for a period now, written to CB with no avail, been reading endless similar grievance stories of affiliates-in-arms and hope for an end to all our unanswered queries.

Somebody keep this thread ALIVE pls!! thanks.

[genome]

As "fresh meat" in this arena I am not nearly as experienced as any of the people who's posts I read. But being very interested in Affilliate Marketing, Clickbank was a very high probability starting point for me. I have read of these claims through alot of different threads and in my opinion of the players involved ( Affiliates and Clickbank ) it seems quite obvious that there is indeed a problem regardless of who denies it as whining or otherwise.

As for the ones who claim Clickbank is purposely skimming affliliate commisions, the method in which it is being done is highly detectable by anyone who watches their stats diligently. So it would either be a VERY sloppy inside job and I cant imagine they would really be that overt about if they were employing such a tactic.

And as to the affiliates who are making noise about this, it occurs to me that among them might be the culprit ( or culprits ) behind this ongoing activity. What better way to hide your actions than to draw direction to the biggest target ( Clickbank ) while hiding among and pretending to be one of the true victims of this. Whoever may be behind this must be well versed in Clickbanks inner workings as well.

One thing for sure in either case, their ( Clickbank ) lack of action does nothing in making this situation better for them, their credibility or their affiliates whether its an inside job or otherwise.

[GeorgR.]

Problem is, any time a CB employee is confronted with this they reply with standard mails, or blame things on user side.

However, they don't take into account that there are people who know what they are talking about. It is just not normal if someone would have +/-$1000 sales for months in a row...and then *significant* drops or maybe zero sales for a week straight. There ARE natural fluctuations, all right, but there are also obvious inconsistencies if such things happen, which can NOT be explained away with "natural fluctuations" or similar.

CB should really take those inquiries serious if they want to keep their reputation. Also, a company of that size should NOT have flaky tracking systems or servers which are "overloaded".

[Fabian Tan]

Originally Posted by Tim Whiston

Another possibility of course is just a gremlin in the software, so to speak. Affiliate tracking is pretty far from perfected even today so it's possible no intended foul play was involved.

What happens when a plane crashes because of malfunction? The plane manufacturer gets sued.

If something is wrong with Clickbank's tracking, who is to blame?

Fabian

[LB]

The question I never see answered when people claim that they make a sale themselves that goes uncredited...is your affiliate ID at the bottom of the order page when you pay?

If not, then you can't expect to get credited for the sale.

I'm not saying that there is or isn't a problem but I find it sort of ridiculous when people claim to make a purchase through their own link and don't get credited and then are asked if their ID was on the checkout page, "hmmm...I don't remember".

Also, this guy may be for real. BUT if you are really part of an ongoing criminal investigation AND party to a lawsuit then both your lawyer and law enforcement involved are going to tell you to shut up while it's in progress...and this guy is posting this stuff. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Max Ramocsai]

So, this problem is only affecting ClickBank affiliates and not vendors?

[Tyson Faulkner]

While I know there are still lots of people who like
Clickbank and use it for their affiliate programs, it's
for reasons like these that I am not going to use
them.

Even if this does all wash and it wasn't Clickbank's
fault, bad press changes perception, and we all
know that perception is more powerful than truth.

If you're promoting a product and someone who's
been influenced by this comes across it, there's a
good chance that they won't jump to promote it
no matter how good it is. After all, what's the
point of promoting something you don't get paid
for?

-Tyson

[Trader54]

But what does it take to post at this Ripoffreport site?

Doesn't seem like one needs any more proof then their own story
which could be someone that is just sour on how their sales are
going looking for someone else to blame.

[Tyson Faulkner]

That could be the case indeed. It just seems a little
odd that there have been many problems lately,
reported by so many different people.

And if all they do when asked about the problem is
send a template email out, that is a little concerning
as well.

-Tyson

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by Trader54

But what does it take to post at this Ripoffreport site?

Doesn't seem like one needs any more proof then their own story
which could be someone that is just sour on how their sales are
going looking for someone else to blame.

Did you even read it? This isn't a paragraph of someone simply complaining saying "clikbank sux, they shouldnt steel my money".

This person brings up some very good points; points that many other ClickBank affiliates tend to agree with.

[Kim Standerline]

I'll bring the soda if you save me a seat, this looks as tho it could prove to be very interesting

Kim

Originally Posted by Josh Kulp

Wow, that guy has some pretty serious claims...supposed video proof and everything.

This should get interesting.
I'll get the popcorn.

[LB]

Originally Posted by MaxMoneyOnline

Did you even read it? This isn't a paragraph of someone simply complaining saying "clikbank sux, they shouldnt steel my money".

This person brings up some very good points; points that many other ClickBank affiliates tend to agree with.

Yes, but as was said...what does it take to post on that site? Nothing.

Could be real, could not be. Could be an unhappy affiliate looking to stir the pot.

It just pays to keep in mind that what is posted may or may not be true.

I had negative stuff posted about my product and my company and upon investigation it turned out it was one of my competitors.

[Trader54]

Originally Posted by MaxMoneyOnline

Did you even read it? This isn't a paragraph of someone simply complaining saying "clikbank sux, they shouldnt steel my money".

This person brings up some very good points; points that many other ClickBank affiliates tend to agree with.

Perhaps some good points that others agree with. That can be seen in this thread.

But offers no more proof then what anyone has said here.

Did you read it??

[Steven Wagenheim]

Folks, here is something you have to check.

Just for the hell of it, a few days ago, I checked one of my products that I
sell through Clickbank (my own product) but used an affiliate link to get to
the payment page.

Now, before I go on, I do not have Spybot, I do not have any browsers that
block cookies and have never had a problem with the affiliate ID being set
before.

Well, low and behold, I went to the sales page, clicked on pay now and what
do you think it showed at the bottom of the payment page?

Affiliate=none

I wish I had taken a screen print of it.

Well, yesterday, after telling one of my partners about it, he tested it
and said it was fine.

So I went back and tried it again.

Sure enough...it was working.

So something is not right somewhere.

Take what you want from this story.

Oddly, every other product I have ever tested has always come back
with the right affiliate ID. So I don't know what to make of this.

Temporary glitch?

Clickbank randomly killing affiliate IDs periodically?

I doubt anybody is ever really going to prove anything one way or the
other, but it should be interesting to see how this plays out.

[stevecl]

Well, i just set up a new account and changed some links over on a product i'm promoting. Only getting highly targeted traffic - no sales using my old account. Lets see if anything changes with a new account and new hoplink.

Steve

[Max Ramocsai]

Originally Posted by Trader54

Perhaps some good points that others agree with. That can be seen in this thread.

But offers no more proof then what anyone has said here.

Did you read it??

I completely understand where you are coming from when you say that just about anyone can go on that site and create a post making a claim. However, what I am saying is that this claim is more than just a claim because of the fact that others in this thread are agreeing.

Oh yeah, I didn't read it. I just enjoy picking someone at random and questioning their stance on something I have no knowledge of.

[Floyd Fisher]

Originally Posted by GarrieWilson

In the "article" he said it happened at certain times of the day. That could very well be a system issue. The server(s) that are tracking arent "keeping up". It could then cause that ID to be "flagged" falsely or get in a "stuck" mode.

What I would like to know from the writter is what showed up on his publisher account. Did he get the full sale or was a different account credited? If I read correctly, he purchased his products usings IDs of friends and others of his.

It also doesn't "prove" that it's being done on purpose. Actually, it didn't show or prove anything.

I do find the "FBI investigation" to be over the top though. They *could be* investigating it but they wouldnt tell him "You can tell everyone and advertise about it BUT dont show the videos." IMHO, It would be more like, "We will look into it."

Garrie

Garrie:

That right there proves to me this is a bogus complaint. The FBI are not the people that would get involved in such an investigation. It would more likely be investigated by the Federal Trade Comission, or the US or state Attorney General's office.

I've heard lots of bad things about Ripoff Report itself, so I would take this with a grain of salt.

This isn't to say nothing is wrong with clickbank, just that this report rings alarm bells that scream 'bogus'.

[Roy Carter]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

Problem is, any time a CB employee is confronted with this they reply with standard mails, or blame things on user side.

However, they don't take into account that there are people who know what they are talking about. It is just not normal if someone would have +/-$1000 sales for months in a row...and then *significant* drops or maybe zero sales for a week straight. There ARE natural fluctuations, all right, but there are also obvious inconsistencies if such things happen, which can NOT be explained away with "natural fluctuations" or similar.

CB should really take those inquiries serious if they want to keep their reputation. Also, a company of that size should NOT have flaky tracking systems or servers which are "overloaded".

As someone described in the 2nd of your 3 paragraphs there George, I totally agree that CB should stop burying their heads in the sand over this and they should also stop sending template email responses to people who ask them what the heck is going on.

This is NOT just people promoting as affiliates, this is VENDORS as well.

I thought I was just being paranoid but the stats just don't stack up. i.e. No changes to site, similar traffic being generated and a very big drop in sales from a product that has converted consistently for ages.

Stranger than weird. They have a serious tracking problem and they need to pay attention to their customers. i.e. Their affiliates and vendors.

Roy

[jasonl70]

Originally Posted by theyoungmarketer

Any recommendations what I should buy? Under $18

I'm thinking this Wild SEO

what the heck?? I thought you had finally stop posting off-the-wall stuff like this


anyways - I was an affiliate for a CB product for a while that had MRR. By my guess, the stuff had been around for at least 2 years.. so it was nothing new and exciting.

I sold a few every day for about a month. then sales started dipping. So, since it had MRR and I had purchased the product myself, I set it up in CB and simply sold it myself (to recoup the dropped income from declining sales).

After about a month, my sales dropped again - and eventually got to the point it was a few sales a week instead a few a day. Just when I would want to throw in the towel, pow - I'd be back up to a few sales a day for a few weeks.

These cycles I have for my own few products (which I do not have in the marketplace, so I have no affiliates) are actually more pronounced then what I see as an affiliate.

As an affiliate, I've also seen cycles with return rates. One very high volume/gravity product will have a 20% return rate for a few months. Again, when I start thinking I do not want to promote a product with that sort of return rate, the rate will drop to like 1% for a few months. Gotta wonder if during that time, someone else is experience a rise in returns

it reminds me of 'rolling black outs'.

[Trader54]

Are there any publishers that have purchased their own product and not got credited for it?

The other thing is if clickbank was screwing both publisher and affiliate you would think there would be a incident where someone requested a refund from a publisher and the publisher would find out that he never had record of the sale.

I know one of the products I sell as a publisher on clickbank I get a lot of customer feedback and questions. I have never had a case where I got a question from someone or feedback where I had no record of that person purchasing from me. And I been selling the product for about 5 years now.

Has any other publisher run into this?

[Steven Wagenheim]

I just wrote to one of the vice presidents of Clickbank and sent her this
thread.

I don't know what good it will do, if any, but I did pour my heart out to her
to please look into these problems. I've known Jen for over 6 years now so
hopefully she'll take what I said to heart.

[Anomaly1974]

It definitely makes me wonder about posting my new product on click bank that's for sure. I will be watching this one with many other people here.

Now where's that popcorn?

[sedaty]

I think its time to replace the manager and to upgrade clickbank

[WinsonYeung]

I like this site, clickbank is simply !@#$%$%^$%^
I have heard lots clickbank problem recently and gotten sick and tired of it. Hopefully clickbank will come to their sense one day

[mikkosant]

Is there software that will rotate your clickbank id's?

[freudianslip27]

This is nothing new for me either. Clickbank sure seems fishy sometimes, and I have heard talk of this for years. As you mentioned, it certainly could be a clickbank software problem rather than them actually "shaving".

It is concerning the amount of shaving that goes on in CPA networks, it is the standard now!

Matt