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Has Clickbank lost it?

by sylviad
34 replies
Has anyone been on Clickbank today?

I just spent an entire afternoon trying to get from one page to another. Each page took at least 5 minutes to download. The Support button didn't even work. When I finally got to a contact form, the Submit button didn't work.

I managed to find a phone number by running a Google search - I found it on another site, not Clickbank.

The operator at customer support told me the reason the site is slow is because of their contact/ticket support program, which seemed to be zendesk . com

So she had no solution for me. Just, the system is busy. What does support have to do with working within my account? Apparently they're linked. Ok. But this is not a good plan if it slows the rest of the site.

Of course she said she was on the site today and had no problem. I was left hanging. So what, am I just supposed to sit and wait? Apparently yes. She finally agreed to "look into it".

At the time, I also needed to reactivate my product because it was not in the marketplace. She supposedly reactivated it, but now, 45 minutes later, I'm still waiting 5 minutes to get into the marketplace, and my product still is not listed.

Has anyone else had these problems and how did you get them resolved? Should not the product show up in the marketplace as soon as I confirmed the email she sent to reactivate it? That was 45 minutes ago which I would think is sufficient time for the activation to happen.

She suggested that the slow page download was caused by my ISP, but I've also been on Amazon and several other sites without incident.

Thanks for your feedback and ideas.

Sylvia
#clickbank #lost
  • Profile picture of the author bkmjet
    I just went on to clickbank, logged in and did a search in the marketplace. Everything seems to be fine for me. Pages are loading quickly. The support site was a little slower but still no more than a couple seconds. Not sure what's going on for you.
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    • Profile picture of the author malteser4u
      This exact thing happened with clickbank and I am sure it has happened since. The first time my mother bought one to try it, this was followed by a friend who actually wanted one, so I was 101% sure of these two sales, I went to check my stats and there was only one sale.

      I contacted clickbank who waffled about there not being a sale, I had total proof including bank statements and in the end they stop answering my emails. So be warned the so called large companys can be as bad.
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    • Profile picture of the author sylviad
      Originally Posted by bkmjet View Post

      I just went on to clickbank, logged in and did a search in the marketplace. Everything seems to be fine for me. Pages are loading quickly. The support site was a little slower but still no more than a couple seconds. Not sure what's going on for you.
      Thank you. It is odd, to be sure. I wonder why it works for you and not for me. I'm using Firefox, if that makes a difference. Maybe I'll try IE.
      Sylvia
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  • Profile picture of the author malteser4u
    Clickbank Warning
    Can I just warn people who deal with clickbank about a rule they have. Yes it is hidden in one of the inner pages, but they hope you don't see it and that they can then take your money.

    I sell my book on there and have not really pushed people to sell it to be honest, something I will get around to. Anyway I sold about $100 worth and then made a mistake when redoing a page, the bottom line was that people were not being directed to the right page as I stupidly forgot to change my settings in clickbank.

    Well luckily I spotted the mistake as I wondered why I had sold none in a 5 month period. So I made the changes and sold a book within a couple of days. Maybe I have that $100 dollars now and can have my paycheck?

    When i went to my account there was $23 in?????

    So I contacted clickbank and they said they had a rule that if you left money in for 3 months or more you would be charged a $ a day!!

    Money aside this has made me very angry and I asked for what reason do they have this rule. Surely they make money on the interest, you would not have a bank say "Sorry Mr Smith but you have not touched your savings for 3 month so we decided to start taking your money".

    Why do they not email you to tell you about this or send the money out to you when the 3 months is up. The reason is because they hope you wont trawl through every rule(as most people don't) when signing up, so they then can rob you later on. I mean who would think there would be a danger of this sort of rule being there in the first place.

    This had made me very bitter towards them and I just wanted to warn others about this pointless, rip off rule.

    This rule should not be there in the first place, if it is it should be made very clear and not hidden in one of the inner pages.


    So please beware.
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    • Profile picture of the author Raydal
      Originally Posted by malteser4u View Post

      Money aside this has made me very angry and I asked for what reason do they have this rule. Surely they make money on the interest, you would not have a bank say "Sorry Mr Smith but you have not touched your savings for 3 month so we decided to start taking your money".
      In fact there are many banks with a "minimum balance" rule below which
      they deduct a certain amount until if zeros out. Maybe you didn't know
      about that rule but is is pretty well-known. It's one of the things you agreed
      to when you signed up as am affiliate. I'm not saying anyone has to like it
      but the only way to get away from this is not use them or keep selling.

      -Ray Edwwards
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by malteser4u View Post

      This rule should not be there in the first place, if it is it should be made very clear and not hidden in one of the inner pages.
      I agree with you about that.

      The deduction you mention, however, starts at $1 per pay period (2 weeks), not $1 per day as you say.

      (It does go up, eventually, after that, if not remedied. But never to $1 per day.)

      These are ClickBank's iniquitous and unpleasant "dormant account charges", and they can easily be completely avoided simply by buying a $3 product through your own hoplink (or asking a friend/relative to do that for you). That re-sets the clock to 0 again, and gives you another 90 days.

      I agree that they shouldn't exist at all, and that since they do, they should be much more prominently displayed. :p

      I strongly suspect that the ill-will ClickBank has generated with this system has actually cost them a lot more, over the years, than the money they've recouped with it. It's one of the points about which they seem completely intransigent and comparatively unwilling even to discuss. To my own knowledge, they've had letters about it, questioning its legality, from lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic, but apparently they won't change it. One has to deal with them on their own terms, or not at all.

      I've had no difficulty accessing CB's site.
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      • Profile picture of the author sylviad
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        I agree with you about that.

        The deduction you mention, however, starts at $1 per pay period (2 weeks), not $1 per day as you say.

        (It does go up, eventually, after that, if not remedied. But never to $1 per day.)

        These are ClickBank's iniquitous and unpleasant "dormant account charges", and they can easily be completely avoided simply by buying a $3 product through your own hoplink (or asking a friend/relative to do that for you). That re-sets the clock to 0 again, and gives you another 90 days.

        I agree that they shouldn't exist at all, and that since they do, they should be more prominently displayed. :p

        I've had no difficulty accessing CB's site.
        Thanks, Alexa. Are you using Firefox or IE?

        Yes, I knew about this rule from day 1, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. I once had about $50 in there from sales of my product, but it soon vanished as I wasn't promoting the book or selling it. That was before I knew much about marketing. What I also don't understand is why they'd take your book off the marketplace if you don't sell in 12 weeks. What difference is it to them if it's listed or not? If it doesn't show, affiliates can't find it. It makes no sense.

        Sylvia
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by sylviad View Post

          Thanks, Alexa. Are you using Firefox or IE?
          Firefox, actually.

          I haven't used IE since the war.

          It might be an intermittent problem? I could have just "tried at good times"? I haven't been there much ...

          Originally Posted by sylviad View Post

          Yes, I knew about this rule from day 1, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.
          No, I agree.

          I like Sunil's suggestions, just above. He's not just a pretty face, you know.

          Originally Posted by sylviad View Post

          What I also don't understand is why they'd take your book off the marketplace if you don't sell in 12 weeks. What difference is it to them if it's listed or not? If it doesn't show, affiliates can't find it. It makes no sense.
          I see ... yes, strange indeed ... I don't think I was aware of this, at all. Or if I was at some point, I'd forgotten - but with memory and concentration like mine, that would be no surprise, anyway. I've certainly promoted as an affiliate things that hadn't had an affiliate sale for ages, and had 0 gravity, but were still listed in the Marketplace. But maybe they'd had a vendor sale, or even 1,000 of them, which wouldn't raise their gravity from 0, of course?

          (I didn't say which war.)
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        • Profile picture of the author sylviad
          So I tried using IE and it was a teeny bit faster, but still several minutes to donwload a page. I tried to go to Support and noticed at the bottom of the browser an "error on page" alert. This is what it said:

          Webpage error details

          User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET4.0C; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
          Timestamp: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 20:28:48 UTC


          Message: 'Zenbox' is undefined
          Line: 1525
          Char: 9
          Code: 0
          URI: https://XXXXXX.accounts.clickbank.co...ion+secrets%22


          Message: 'Zenbox' is undefined
          Line: 1525
          Char: 9
          Code: 0
          URI: https://XXXXX.accounts.clickbank.com...ion+secrets%22

          Is this not a problem on their site as opposed to my computer or browsers? I know this is probably more suited to the web programming/design section, but this is where I started this thread. :confused:

          But if you know....

          Sylvia
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          • Profile picture of the author Kay King
            I believe the reason they have that rule is that a person can earn a few dollars then forget they have a clickbank account, die, give up, quit, etc., without ever reaching the amount for a pay out.
            Easy fix for that one is to close any account with no activity or login for 12 months (or 24 months) and keep that money.

            I think people underestimate the profit generated to CB by applying the "maintenance fees". That is further complicated by the 5 card rule (or whatever it's up to now) that many new to CB don't understand how to manage. A CB user can't get paid at all till they meet the "card rule" and if they go 90 days without a sale they start to lose the money to maintenance fees. As long as you read all the fine print you can avoid these problems but many marketers don't read the terms of sites when they sign up.

            I've found CB hard to navigate - very difficult to find topic specific products as keyword search is not the best quality.
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            • Profile picture of the author sylviad
              Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

              Easy fix for that one is to close any account with no activity or login for 12 months (or 24 months) and keep that money.
              I believe that's how Commission Junction works. I've been kicked off there several times for lack of sales and activity. Each time, they made me jump through hoops to get reinstated with a different account. They wouldn't just reactivate the old one. Sometimes, deterrents like this don't make a lot of sense. They want people to sell product, but they limit the time you have to do it. Bad plan for beginners.

              I've found CB hard to navigate - very difficult to find topic specific products as keyword search is not the best quality.
              Same here. I ran numerous searches for dog nutrition and ended up with results for raising sheep, cats, even fitness programs for humans. Their search engine is useless. One search gave me some sex product at the top of the list, when I asked the results to comeback with most keyword relevant at the top. Now tell me, what does a how-to sex product have to do with dog nutrition? (keep it clean, guys )

              Sylvia
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    • Profile picture of the author SunilTanna
      Originally Posted by malteser4u View Post

      Clickbank Warning
      Can I just warn people who deal with clickbank about a rule they have. Yes it is hidden in one of the inner pages, but they hope you don't see it and that they can then take your money.

      I sell my book on there and have not really pushed people to sell it to be honest, something I will get around to. Anyway I sold about $100 worth and then made a mistake when redoing a page, the bottom line was that people were not being directed to the right page as I stupidly forgot to change my settings in clickbank.

      Well luckily I spotted the mistake as I wondered why I had sold none in a 5 month period. So I made the changes and sold a book within a couple of days. Maybe I have that $100 dollars now and can have my paycheck?

      When i went to my account there was $23 in?????

      So I contacted clickbank and they said they had a rule that if you left money in for 3 months or more you would be charged a $ a day!!

      Money aside this has made me very angry and I asked for what reason do they have this rule. Surely they make money on the interest, you would not have a bank say "Sorry Mr Smith but you have not touched your savings for 3 month so we decided to start taking your money".

      Why do they not email you to tell you about this or send the money out to you when the 3 months is up. The reason is because they hope you wont trawl through every rule(as most people don't) when signing up, so they then can rob you later on. I mean who would think there would be a danger of this sort of rule being there in the first place.

      This had made me very bitter towards them and I just wanted to warn others about this pointless, rip off rule.

      This rule should not be there in the first place, if it is it should be made very clear and not hidden in one of the inner pages.


      So please beware.
      I believe the reason they have that rule is that a person can earn a few dollars then forget they have a clickbank account, die, give up, quit, etc., without ever reaching the amount for a pay out. Then you could have a situation where the money is stranded there forever, not really belonging to clickbank or the person, and impossible to deal with for accounting or tax purposes.

      That said, while it is understandable to have that rule, I think they should change two, may be three, things:

      1. Publicise the rule much more clearly

      2. Make the period before the dormant charges kick in much longer. If it was 1 year or 6 months, then few would complain.

      And maybe:

      3. if the person has reached the customer distribution requirement, and has more than say $10, and is about to enter the dormant period, then send them the money anyway, even if they haven't reached the payout threshold.

      Either, or both of the first two, would solve 95% of this problem, I think.
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    • Profile picture of the author StingGB
      Originally Posted by malteser4u View Post

      Clickbank Warning
      Can I just warn people who deal with clickbank about a rule they have. Yes it is hidden in one of the inner pages, but they hope you don't see it and that they can then take your money.

      I sell my book on there and have not really pushed people to sell it to be honest, something I will get around to. Anyway I sold about $100 worth and then made a mistake when redoing a page, the bottom line was that people were not being directed to the right page as I stupidly forgot to change my settings in clickbank.

      Well luckily I spotted the mistake as I wondered why I had sold none in a 5 month period. So I made the changes and sold a book within a couple of days. Maybe I have that $100 dollars now and can have my paycheck?

      When i went to my account there was $23 in?????

      So I contacted clickbank and they said they had a rule that if you left money in for 3 months or more you would be charged a $ a day!!

      Money aside this has made me very angry and I asked for what reason do they have this rule. Surely they make money on the interest, you would not have a bank say "Sorry Mr Smith but you have not touched your savings for 3 month so we decided to start taking your money".

      Why do they not email you to tell you about this or send the money out to you when the 3 months is up. The reason is because they hope you wont trawl through every rule(as most people don't) when signing up, so they then can rob you later on. I mean who would think there would be a danger of this sort of rule being there in the first place.

      This had made me very bitter towards them and I just wanted to warn others about this pointless, rip off rule.

      This rule should not be there in the first place, if it is it should be made very clear and not hidden in one of the inner pages.


      So please beware.
      They did the same with me. I sold about $50 of affiliate product the early part of this year, and they stole every single dime with these 'fees'.

      Clickbank make money in commission from the vendors sale, interest on holding the money from affiliates side of the sale, then after a few months they steal the balance.

      Clickbank make it very easy to set up an account and promote vendors products, but nearly impossible for affiliates to get paid. It's a giant online scam.
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  • Profile picture of the author sree94
    I had some issues logging on either yesterday or the day before, but everything is fine now
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  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    I had endless problems when I used clickbank. After writing to their help desk umpteen times with no response whatsoever - I just dropped them off like a bad habit. Never looked back. When a company doesn't have the decency to respond to the very people who feed the company coffers, then it's time to leave. Period. If I wanted constant financial abuse, I could have had my own kids.:rolleyes:
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by HeySal View Post

      When a company doesn't have the decency to respond to the very people who feed the company coffers, then it's time to leave. Period.
      I don't disagree at all. I'd doubtless have felt exactly the same.

      They've gradually improved. I understand they used to have a dreadful reputation for not replying, and I know you were far from the only one, Sal. I think this is one of the areas in which they've very significantly improved, over the years.

      I used to complain about ClickBank a lot, in 2009, one way and another, but I complain now about very few aspects of their business. For the most part, they have improved and apparently listened, and it's only fair for former public whiners like me to acknowledge that publicly, too. He's far too modest ever even to suggest it, but I also believe that Harvey Segal's input and feedback there, both formally and informally, has had rather a good influence, over the years.

      Originally Posted by HeySal View Post

      If I wanted constant financial abuse, I could have had my own kids.
      LOL, this is one the best comments I've seen for a long time.
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      • Profile picture of the author sylviad
        What a surprise, Alexa. Here's me thinking, these guys are getting WORSE. They were better for awhile, but I don't know what's happening now.

        I'm giving up. I still can't send a support request.

        Maybe I will just pack it in and sell elsewhere. This is ridiculous. I just wasted a whole afternoon trying to get things done over there. Another beautiful summer day lost (one of the very few we've had this season).

        Sylvia
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Oooh, you are in difficulties with them, Sylvia - and I'm sorry to hear it.

          Have you tried calling them? 208-345-4245
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          • Profile picture of the author sylviad
            Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

            Oooh, you are in difficulties with them, Sylvia - and I'm sorry to hear it.

            Have you tried calling them? 208-345-4245
            Alex,
            Yes, I did... see OP. She wasn't terribly forthcoming with solutions, but did supposedly reactivate my product - even though it's still not showing in the marketplace searches.

            I should add that I haven't touched my CB account for about 1-1/2 years due to personal setback. I couldn't possibly have done anything wrong. Besides, it doesn't explain why the site doesn't work for me.

            Sylvia

            Sylvia
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            • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
              Banned
              Originally Posted by sylviad View Post

              Yes, I did... see OP.
              Ach, sorry ... didn't pay attention, excuse me.

              Originally Posted by sylviad View Post

              Besides, it doesn't explain why the site doesn't work for me.
              No, I agree.
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              • Profile picture of the author sylviad
                It's okay, Alexa. I've missed tons of stuff - :p

                With the confirmation email she sent was a link if I still have problems. I can send a support request. Guess where it goes? The same page that hasn't worked for me all day. I just tried again and the stupid thing still doesn't send my request, so I'm done now. it just kinda sits there with no indication that it's working and no link showing in the lower bar when I run the mouse over the submit button. :confused:

                Sylvia
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  • Profile picture of the author ATAC
    If you haven't noticed that Clickbank this year has implemented too many changes which hurt the people that made them who they are.

    That is why they haven't had the meg millions of dollars launches this year like they had all the time a few years back. All the big guys and big affiliates are moving over to clicksure and there own payment processor.

    Just the other day I went threw the same thing that you did, when I was trying to log into my vendor account. But they kept trying to sell me some BS service to build a website for me..

    They are targeting rookies to take advantage of them and tax the affiliates for any and all reasons..
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  • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
    I just tried current versions of IE and Chrome and they both worked fine. CB does randomly get very slow for me (maybe 1-3 times a month) no matter what browser I use. I have never found a work-around except to "try again later".

    I agree that the CB search in the Marketplace has to be one of the worst on the web. Sometimes even putting in the exact name of a product that you know is in there does not even bring it up. If you are searching with keywords you might as well assume you will get maybe 5% relevancy and 95% off topic suggestions. If I were a vendor I would be making regular protests that affiliates cannot even find my products.
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  • Profile picture of the author Harvey Segal
    Originally Posted by sylviad View Post

    At the time, I also needed to reactivate my product because it was not in the marketplace. She supposedly reactivated it, but now, 45 minutes later, I'm still waiting 5 minutes to get into the marketplace, and my product still is not listed.
    It should be listed when the daily rebuild of the Marketplace is next run

    .
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  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    It is working fine gor me. Very fast. OP might have spyware on her browser. Slow page load is one symptom.
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  • Profile picture of the author JasonBennet
    I do agree that they need to be more open with their policy but I feel it will be better to focus the time on promoting the products so that there will be no issue with it. With consistent right action taken, this should not be a main issue.
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    • Profile picture of the author KenJ
      Hi Sylvia

      Its good to see you posting again. I wondered where you had gone.

      My experience with clickbank has gone from bad in 2008 to very good in 2013. I honestly believe that they have listened to many of the complaints and gripes that users have bombarded them with over the years.

      Their focus however has moved slightly to concentrating to people who are active and truly making money with them. Witness the account rating and the fact that you cannot view the Marketplace without signing in. You need an ID.

      When all is said and done, Clickbank gives us all a great opportunity to make money.

      KenJ
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