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legal advice concerning clickbooth.com

by Gclunis
8 replies
"Hello Gregg,

Your Clickbooth.com account has been shut down due to the following violation of our policies:

1. Complaint from our advertiser for Exclusive - **** Super Blend - Dark Page - Promo Code of fraudulent traffic and extremely poor lead quality (due to the illegal leads).

This is a very serious violation.

All leads generated for the offers have been removed and credited back to the associated advertisers. We have zero tolerance for fraud and you have put our relationship with these advertisers in jeopardy and wasted our time. This type of fraud can not only lead to significant civil claims against you but also criminal claims. You must take down all Clickbooth.com campaigns immediately. Failure to do so will result in legal action. Please do not attempt to further associate yourself with our network. Any attempts to sign up for other accounts will immediately be denied."

I received this email today and I wasn't sure what to think of it. You see I had someone running my account for me (not against the TOS) however their method of promotion would be the reason for me receiving this email. I am trying to get in contact with the person in order to get any active campaigns pulled however I am not sure how to be 100% positive that they will all be pulled. I am very scared of what this could result in and as such I am trying to do everything in my power to get what needs to be done done. If anyone has done anything like this and has some advice I would greatly appreciate it. When I started IM I never thought id have to deal with possible civil and criminal charges. I know now that I was stupid to trust someone with m account however I was under the idea that any violations would result in account termination and that was it. I also needed the start up money to purchase various things towards my own white hat methods. Please respond as soon as possible.
#advice #clickboothcom #legal
  • Profile picture of the author Kenster
    Cant say I have any great advice. You are responsible for what went on with your account whether you did the campaigns yourself or not.

    I know I would never ever let anybody mess with my account and if I was having somebody run campaigns for me, I would know exactly what they were doing down to the last detail and have numerous controls set up to prevent this type of thing.

    Start fresh and go whitehat or this will happen agian and again
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  • Profile picture of the author InternetDollars
    Wow, you got owned by Clickbooth. You are probably industry blacklisted as well. Good riddance, good try, game over.
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  • Profile picture of the author PPC-Coach
    When in doubt, blame the phantom other guy who was running your account...

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  • Profile picture of the author Cash37
    BIG once said "dont be mad, UPS is hiring"
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    • Profile picture of the author p2y
      Well first of all, handing over your account to another person was a very STUPID idea. Just a quick note about this because I know many newbies fall for this scam:

      What ends up happening is that some fraudster will approach you and say they can send whitehat traffic to your offers and you guys will split the profits 50/50. What they really do is use stolen credit cards to signup for trial offers and leave you holding the bag (in this case a legal mess). Anybody who gets approached for a "jv deal" or "cpa partnership" should immediately decline it because I can promise you they will send 100% fraud to the offers. Don't fall for these lines about the network not accepting affiliates from India or whatever, they are nothing more than lies. This is why networks are so tough with their screening and demand phone verification of accounts, and that verification process is why fraudster seek out newbies to exploit.

      Now as for your situation, it is entirely possible that either the network or the advertiser would file formal charges against you in order to get their money back. If I were you I would start collecting and saving every email/im/ip address/conversation/etc that you had with the person who you gave your account to. It may not help you avoid civil charges in regards to the money they paid out, but it may spare you from criminal charges if you can prove that you had nothing to do with the fraud.

      Moving forward, you can expect to be automatically rejected from many networks since most of them do share data with each other about banned affiliates especially if it was for fraud. When you do get accepted to networks, never under any circumstances hand over your account information to a 3rd party.
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      • Profile picture of the author Robyn8243
        Sorry I don't have any specific advice to offer you as far as dealing with this situation.

        You did not mention whether you have already been paid for past performance or whether this email was advising you that you were to be losing credit for pending sales.

        This post should serve as a warning to other newbies who are approached by people who promise to make them money if they give access to their accounts. This is NEVER a good idea. YOU agree as part of TOS in every network that YOU are responsible for transactions that go through your account....the potential for fraud in CPA marketing is huge.

        There have been several instances here, where people started PM'ing people with these kinds of offers.

        They are always reported and deleted, but apparently not always fast enough.

        When I received one myself, I knew it was a scam because it just didn't make sense that anyone who knew how to legitimately make money would offer to do so as a partner with random strangers....it simply is not that difficult for anyone who actually knows how to market to get their own CPA account.... but I never knew what the actual scam was.

        Hope you are able to work this out with minimum damage.

        Robyn
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisBa
    Originally Posted by Gclunis View Post

    You see I had someone running my account for me
    Ouch..

    If you're truly looking for legal advice, find a lawyer. Most people here are affiliate marketers or aspiring affiliate marketers and not lawyers.


    I guess this is a lesson to everyone and a good example of why to not let people "use" or "run" your accounts!
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  • Profile picture of the author derekwong28
    The tone of that letter is not as bad as it could be. For a start, they could have sued you and reported you to the FBI right away without any warning whatsoever. I doubt that your "partner" will continue to promote this campaign once he knows that he won't be paid. In any case, the Clickbooth affiliate links will no longer work.

    Since many **** berry merchants are under both cival and criminal investigation for shady practice, I doubt they will be keen to pursue this matter. Obviously a lot depends on the amount involved and I could be wrong. I would take this one step at a time and not worry too much about it.

    I have received many threatening attorney letters in the past and have been even sued in a U.S. court for selling stuff whose logo allegedly infringed a multi-national company. None of them ever come to anything.
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    Do not get between a wombat and a chocolate biscuit; you will regret it dearly!

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