Urgent clickbank fraud issue, hoping some vendors will check & confirm this

6 replies
Hi guys,

On my main clickbank account (I'm a vendor), I have noticed a very large number of sales starting to happen from one affiliate account. I thought this was a good thing, obviously.

But tonight I discovered a major problem that smells like fraud. I was testing out affiliate links for an automated webinar I'm using. I wanted to ensure the affiliate's link would correctly track their sales before having them go live. So I'd click on their test link, then use a naked link to my order form to see if their affiliate ID showed up on the CB order form. It wan't working, and would show up as [affiliate=none].

So I'd try again to fix the affiliate link situation. I expected the form to say [affiliate=my_actual_affID]. But no ... what happened instead is the affilate ID showing up was something TOTALLY DIFFERENT. It was the same ID that matches all of the affiliate sales that have been showing up.

It's impossible, of course, for this to be honest. I never clicked on any affiliate link other than one I was testing for a different ID.

It's against the rules to share names and I don't have the person's name only their Clickbank ID. I won't share it except to say it ends in a letter X. That should be rare enough, but still secret enough to satisfy this forum's rules.

Anyone else suffering form this same problem?

My ratio of self-sales to affiliate sales has dropped bigtime since this particular "affiliate" (fraud) has started.

I have opened a ticket with CB obviously. They need to know about this. Next step is I'll check my hosting account records for suspicious activity.
#check #clickbank #confirm #fraud #hoping #issue #urgent #vendors
  • Profile picture of the author Chris Thompson
    Update,

    I cleared cookies and visited my site directly using http://madeupID.myvendorID.hop.clickbank.net

    Verified that madeupID shows up when I hit the order form.
    Then repeated it again ... suddently the new affiliate ID is there again.

    Clear cookies. Repeat.
    This time it takes 4 visits for the fraud cookie stuffer to appear.

    It seems like there must be a 1x1 iframe on my site somewhere calling a script that cookie stuffs on a random basis between the 2nd and Xth visit (X might be 4 or 5 ...)

    Anyone?
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  • Profile picture of the author Pixovine
    Hi

    Clear your browser cookie/cache and then check your order page again.
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris Thompson
      Originally Posted by Pixovine View Post

      Hi

      Clear your browser cookie/cache and then check your order page again.
      No offence, but did you read my post? I'm not a newbie. I'm familiar with cookie stuffing, clearing, etc.

      UPDATE ON HOW I FOUND THE PROBLEM

      - I checked the date that the fraud-affiliate made his first "sale". It was November 24th.

      - I checked my FTP records against this date. Sure enough somebody uploaded a modified version of the audio-player plugin to my site. Just the single javascript file, not the entire directory.

      - When I disable the plugin, the cookie stuffing does not happen. I verified with a cookie-clearing and then 15 straight visits to my site.

      - When I re-activate the plugin and reload my site, it takes only 1 or 2 visits to my order page for the thief to show up again,

      IF YOU ARE A VENDOR:


      - Check to see if you have strange affiliate action lately
      - If you do, check the "date modified" field in FileZilla to look at all of your files and directories. This is how you will know when something changed on your site.
      - Eliminate and the REPORT the problem.

      I've told Clickbank all about this. Hopefully they'll furnish me with his info so I can go after him.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    Nice detective work, Chris.

    The hacker is a real genius. Those affiliate sales have to lead to someone's bank account...
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  • Profile picture of the author Joe J
    Chris,

    Thanks for posting the whole scenario here. I surely don't understand much of what you have said and surprised you didn't get an answer from someone, but I knew it was something serious and that I would have to look into it eventually since I want to be on the vendor side of the coin soon.

    I will keep this bookmarked and refer to it when I get to this point.

    Thanks Again,

    Joe
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  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    Exactly the type of stuff that made me quit listing my products on clickbank. Not the only one, but prevalent enough to make me feel it just isn't worth it to be there.
    Signature

    Sal
    When the Roads and Paths end, learn to guide yourself through the wilderness
    Beyond the Path

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