DigiResults Paypal problems?

As good as digiresults looks and appears, a lot of people, me included are being put off from selling on it due to there not being any buffer between the buyer and your paypal account. A few chargebacks or 'suspicious transactions' and you could be looking at a nice little 6 month account freeze.

If they could set up their own merch account to act as a buffer between vendors and customers then no doubt they would be the stand out choice for a lot of marketers, but until then, paypal are just too volatile regarding sales of IM related stuff.

Right. So, in cases like these, buying and using that WSO about how to protect your Paypal account wouldn't really help, would it? The only real thing you could do is to stop being a DigiResults vendor before it's too late.

Interestingly enough, before I switched to DigiResults, I used ejunkie because I could offer a coupon code, which you can't do with Clickbank, and I have never had any investigation type emails from Paypal using ejunkie, and now have had probably 3x more ejunkie sales than DigiResults. I sure hope the DigiResults dude can email us back soon, because if I get one more email from Paypal immediately after a purchase, it'll either result in my Paypal account getting shut down, or me shutting my DigiResults account down myself.

I'm not a huge fan of Clickbank, and it has its' own inhering issues with the buy and return crowd, but at least they process their own payments and give you as a vendor a better hedge of protection.

That was the exact message I got. Now have three of them going. I really can't say enough how much I like DigiResults, but this is making me nervous.

I had a bunch of affiliates try and join my program that all had a yahoo email. The names were all different as well.

I let 2 in to see if they were legit and within 15 minutes my product had a sale and a charge back through both affiliates.

I am starting to move away from Digiresults because of this type of thing.

Travis

There are whispers in certain circles that PayPal is beginning to frown heavily on "instant commission" systems, even if they use PayPal's Advanced Payments API.

I kind of expected this to happen with the "rotating pay" systems like RAP and WSO Pro, but the idea that it's happening with PayPal's own API is rather shocking to me.

I've also heard that many people in PayPal's risk department don't know anything about this API and are demanding to know details on why transactions are being handled the way PayPal is handling them internally - even though most people using this API don't understand why they're handled that way, because it seems smarter to handle them differently. So people are being asked by PayPal to justify why PayPal is doing what they're doing, when these people don't even think PayPal should be doing it.

Imagine the sheer hell that represents. "Explain to me exactly why we did this instead of something that doesn't look as suspicious." I don't know, because you're stupid? WTF.

I don't have any actual official word on this. It's just rumours here and there. I'm not sure what this means to my current business model, but I'm certainly evaluating it and trying to establish some kind of reliable contingency plan before I get too invested in the "instant commission" model.

I still like DigiResults very much and will continue to use them. I appreciate the response I got, but it is using flawed logic. This assumes that all investigated activity is by affiliates, and that is not the case. At least one of the claims was on a self gen sale through organic searches.

DigiResults has collected their commission on these sales, so I as the vendor am left holding the bag.

Besides, how does an affiliate gain anything by this? At best they could maybe get a couple of commission deposits, I'm not sure how, but if their account is then suspended by DigiResults, that means DigiResults is aware of this specific problem, and should also refund me the money that came out of my PayPal account.

Shouldn't there be something that DigiResults can be doing that is more proactive?

And have any if you gotten a similar email from DigiResults?

And now the whole wide world knows how to scam with digiresults:rolleyes:

Thank you for this fantastic suggestion, Christophe! I have gone home and set up this exact program, and I'll test it out to see how it works.

I'm going through my paypal transactions, and trying to make sense of this all, and I get more confused the more I dig. I may have to call PayPal and figure out if I can file a dispute against the affiliate, but I just don't know if it will work.

Here's how I'm seeing the whole transaction going, say it's a $50 with a straight 50% commission, to make it easy, and DigiResults charges $2.50:
buyer buys a product - VENDOR gets paid $50.00 from buyer email address: +50.00
immediately, VENDOR pays AFFILIATE'S email address $25.00: -25.00
immediately, VENDOR pays DigiResults email address $2.50: -2.50
So you are left with a +22.50 balance in your PayPal account, as the VENDOR

PayPal opens a claim, and puts a hold on $50.00, so you're now -50.00
but you've been paid +22.50, so the net is that you are -27.50 in this whole transaction

If PayPal upholds the dispute, they will PAY the buyer's email address the $50.00 from YOUR account that was on hold, and you're left as a VENDOR with a -27.50 in your account from this whole transaction.

Does that sound right? it's that amount because you basically get paid nothing for a sale, because of a reversal, but you have paid DigiResults $2.50 and you have paid the AFFILIATE $25.00

So, as a vendor, what can you do in this case? Can you file a dispute on the AFFILIATE for the $25.00 you paid them? Can you file a dispute on DigiResults for the $2.50 you paid them?

And, every now and then, I will have a payment TO DigiResults of about $24.00 - what's up with that???

This whole thing is as confusing as hell, and I really like DigiResults, but on this end, I wish they did a better job.

can you tell me where the autoresponder option is for affiliates as i cant find it on Digiresults?

cheers

Greg, I don't know bout others, but when I joined, I did get warn.

Maybe some other people ignored it, or they didn't get the warning through them.

As I've mentioned in the post above to reply Frank, ASK, before you get to be regret. Similar things happened for those who are using W+.

CB is even worst.... As mentioned, this is internet, so DON'T take things for granted.

I have been scammed too, but not in DR, not in W+... It was on a website, software website. and I didn't read Paypal's TOS, and I tried to file a dispute, but I lost it, because Paypal doesn't cover digital product buyers or those which was being sold outside of eBay.

So whom do I blame? Paypal? They didn't warn me? They did, in their TOS, and they don't even give a damn when I call them.

So that's my story, not to say that's your case, but shyt happens, and it usually happens, because we take things for granted, imho...

So now, I've came up with a very strict policy of my own. If I don't know the affiliate personally beforehand, I will NEVER approve it, that easy.

Aiden

I got your points and all of the other people's points too.

What I meant was, SIMPLY reach out and ask them questions, I have a very strict policy on accepting affiliates, and that's why things are less likely happen to me. Not only that I reach out to affiliates, I reach out to ANDY FLETCHER and I ask him tons of questions, BECAUSE I AM SERIOUS ABOUT MY BUSINESS.

I don't want to take anything for granted, that's why I DON'T let others to hold my fate or luck or whatever... I am responsible for my own business. Period...

I don't only deny YAHOO accounts, my friend, you didn't get my point, REACH OUT to them, ask them questions. Email them, if they are the real deal, they will answer those questions, and you will also get a better relationship formed up with them, get to know more about your affiliates, etc.

I can start a whole new topic about the importance of us vendors getting to know about our affiliates, but that's a whole new kind of topic...

I am a JV broker kind of person, so I know what it takes to make the vendor-affiliates kind of relationship happen, and what kind of numbers we can do within a short amount of time, if we do reach out to affiliates and treat them like how we wanted to be treated.

Anywhere you go, there are people who's gonna game the system. Try to go CB, you haven't heard of the nightmares that happened in there.

So, my point is, I'm willing to take up all of those responsibilities and I did my job to protect myself, that's why I didn't get any headaches like some of the people in here did.

I feel bad for all of them, but if we don't take the responsibility to take utmost care of our own business, no one else will! Not even Paypal! I hate Paypal as much as I hate those scammers, but what to do? The only thing I can think of, is to reach out to Paypal and ask them all sorts of questions even before I launch some stuff.

That's how serious I am, about managing the RISK side of my business.

HOW TO DETERMINE A GOOD AFFILIATE: Let me share with you bout my experience... It's certainly NOT by taking a look on how well that affiliate can speak in English.

I ask them WHERE are they gonna promote, where does the traffic come from, and how targeted is the traffic, and probably a few more questions - that I can't remember right now.

If they sounded like they are doing so great, I will ask for a screenshot or so.

OR, I will simply go out to ask DR if that affiliate is a legit one, any negative records with DR or not, things like that...

Ask Andy and his team and you'll know, I did take security measure to ensure I'm best to be protected by myself, from the information that I've gathered...

The BIG LESSON for me or anyone else in here, IS TO PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS by asking the right questions... NOT ONLY IN DigiResults, but anywhere else...

How many of you reach out to your affiliates and also Andy or his team BEFORE you approve your affiliates that you don't already know?

The feature was being set up for a reason, and a lot of people are neglecting it.. I am not here to say that DR is the best, I'm just saying that WE should be responsible for our own business...

Don't tell me that you can't possibly get to know the affiliate, and so that you're approving him/her... Heck. That's why you guys fall to their traps!

I do have some issues with W+, I push some sales, and a few of my associates pushes a lot of sales through W+.

And we're in the "inner circle" where we get to know whatever things that's happening in the W+ and product launch community. So yea, maybe you haven't get that my friend, but JUST LIKE DR, if you don't protect yourself good enough, you'll get it...

And like what I've mentioned, not only in DR or W+, any where you run your business, the same principles apply, unless you're not serious enough with your business... so conduct all the necessary risk management assessment, and you're most likely going to be protected no matter what comes along.

HOpe that helps.

Aiden

Christophe,

I love your attitude. People THIS IS THE SORT OF ATTITUDE you ought to have.

And thanks for clarifying the gmail part, or else, those people who are lazy will say that your system of just weeding out the Yahoo mail is not working because now they get a gmail scammers scamming them...

Let's get the mindset right again, NO MATTTER WHAT KIND OF email providers that they are using, even if they are using their own domain names that seems to be legit, WE ourselves, the vendors has to take the responsibilities to ensure WE are protected by ourselves, in the correct way.

Be lazy and not conducting the risk management side of the things, and say bye bye to your online business or any business.

Thanks for this, Christophe...

Aiden

Aiden,

I agree, that's a very good way to do business and I'm already headed in that direction. I plan on dumping Clickbank soon because, frankly, most affiliates there are worthless!

Eventually, I'm going to move to an invitation only affiliate program so I can really establish a partnership with potential affiliates. That's the best way to find some good ones who will make you sales.

I have this exact problem with W+ ! Out of those sales that I got, I got around 3-4 cases which happens in WarriorPlus.

But did I bitch that out? Nope. The money goes back to the buyer because I failed to fight those cases. Paypal wasn't on my side, so whom should I blame now? WarriorPlus?

Nope. BEcause I understand that things happens. Some of those were organic buying with no referrals as well.

So my friend, just do whatever thing you can, to protect yourself, worst come to worst, don't use DR. Use WarriorPlus, and if you can push a lot of sales to it, you will get these sort of problems as well.

Alright my friend, get it sorted, and move on, there are a lot more other things waiting for us to deal with...

Later!

Aiden

I agree that DigiResults needs to not do instant payments or have the affiliates fill out an appliation. DigiResults has created a platform that has made it a hotspot for scammers. As a result DigiResults needs to figure out how to fix the problem.

I am hoping that since that have started asking for 1099 information that will reduce the number of scammers.

Oh yes, absolutely! I also want to be clear that I DO NOT think that DigiResults is responsible for this stuff. The ones who are responsible are the affiliates who try to cheat the system, and the ones who are ACCOUNTABLE are us as vendors.

I think that much good has come of this thread, and I think that you, Christophe, and also Aiden have contributed very much to what people can learn from this thread.

I know that there are lurkers who don't ever post, and to people like that - read through this thread, implement what Christophe and Aiden say BEFORE you get any sales investigated, and you will have very few problems.

Daniel,

I was curious what the procedure is when refunds are requested by customers. So I sent an email to DG asking them, and this was their reply:

So, looks like they will refund their fee but I don't really understand their comment regarding reversing the affiliate commission. What I'm going to do is, first contact DG requesting they reverse it. Then, if that doesn't work, email the affiliate asking them to reverse their commission.

Then, if that still doesn't work I'll dispute the charge with Paypal. I just had my first transaction held by Paypal recently. I provided them with the necessary information and I'm waiting for them to complete their review.

Will post what happens.

That's a really good idea, I like it.

That itself is probably worth more than any potential lost sales.

.

I disagree.

Did you check out each of your affiliates?

There's a few obvious warning signs. I personally just ignore any affiliate request coming from a yahoo, hotmail or similar email address. Typically these requests will only use a single name all in lowercase.

I did put a request into DigiResults support to possibly add a filtering mechanism in to automatically reject/ignore these type of affiliate requests.

Actually, since I implemented the couple of suggestions I got from this thread, I have had ZERO problems with DigiResults. I DO NOT autoapprove any affiliate; and I use the autoresponder that DigiResults has built in.

I ask ANY person wanting to become an affiliate to tell me a little about themselves and how they plan to promote the product.

About 80% of them never reply at all, and those get denied immediately.

About another 19% do reply, but it's a variation of the exact same message, in the same broken English. I'm not trying to profile or stereotype here, but I mean the language and what it says are pretty much the exact same thing (I am student, I plan to promote your great product to my family, my cousins and my classmates. I find them being highly receptive). Those also get denied.

So, there's literally about 1% who actually have a response that is different or unique, and they get approved.

I haven't had any chargebacks at all since I've done this. I've had very few sales, but I'm ok with that. I'll take making $0 over paying an affiliate and having PayPal made at me any day.

And a 50% commission on a $197 sale has got to have some of those nefarious types salivating. They can easily get almost $100 through trying to game the system, and guess who is ultimately on the hook for that $100? I'll give you a hint - it ain't Digiresults, and it ain't Paypal.

Actually, you are facing the problem of approving anybody as an affiliate :p

Here is what I did: in the Digiresult admin panel, where you set up the product and affiliates, I changed the message for the email that goes out for them when they apply to be an affiliate. In the new email message I say something like:

Approx. 1% (yes, one percent!) replies to the email. After careful consideration some of them get approved. All the others get rejected. Simple.

I did submit a support request a while back to suggest that they include a filter so that you can automatically ignore affiliate requests coming from .yahoo, .hotmail etc email addresses.

Mass reject/delete option would be very useful. I currently have over 200 requests sitting in my queue.