Clickbank ripping of affiliates - Someone filing charges against clickbank

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.

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.
"

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.

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!!)

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

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

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.

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

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.

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...

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.

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...

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

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.

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".

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

That claim is way off base. Clickbank
makes the same amount of money whether
there is an affiliate associated with the
sale or not. Actually they probably make
a little more if there's a commission since
they charge to send a check out.

If Affiliate=none that doesn't mean
Clickbank is making any extra money.

If it was Affiliate=clickbank - some ID
that might belong to Clickbank, then
Clickbank would be stealing.

From the information presented, it's the
MERCHANT that stands to gain here -
not Clickbank.

As a Clickbank merchant, I can say
that roughly 1/3 of all sales that SHOULD
be credited to an affiliate are NOT. That's
from sending PPC traffic to a new product
offer where the only way that product is
found is via my ad, and tracking with
an affiliate ID.

This is not unique to CB - although their
tracking performs the worst. Most
affiliate tracking loses 1/4 of sales.

Now, I do have issue with Clickbank
charging me for money sitting in accounts
that have been idle for a while - that
IS B.S.

X

I've been saying they have issues for months now. They know marketers are having issues. Whether their taking measures to rectify the situation is another story.

Frank Bruno

As I posted in another thread, I have been hearing from a lot of people who received payment errors when attempting to purchase.

I have to wonder if CB's merchant provider is having problems or if their fraud algorithm is blocking legitimate sales.

You can't tell me CB hasn't known about this going on for a few months, if not a few years. It sounds like they "just" heard about it. I don't know what to make of the Ripoff Report, but whether its bogus or not, Clickbank is mentioned on there, and that's definitely a strike against them just because most people look to the Ripoff Report as an unbiased review source.

Ages back I got my friend to purchase a product through one of my affiliate links and I never got the commission! I don't know how poor tracking could of been responsible either cos frankly he went directly to my site, clicked a regular affiliate link and proceeded to purchase from the merchant.

The idea that this has been happening en masse hadn't crossed my mind but by the sounds of it this isn't uncommon! Definetely want to see where this fiasco ends up...

well, i created a new CB account last night, and changed my links this afternoon.. we'll see if things change any.

I am also going to take one of the products I use CB for (for payment processing, it is not in the marketplace), and create a second page for it and use a different payment system.. I'll rotate my traffic between the 2, and see if anything looks fishy.

karen - you NEVER know who is capable of these things.. greed get's the best of lots of people - even some of the most respected executives in the country (think enron, etc).

My father is a youth hockey coach. It turns out that the leagues book keeper has stolen over $950,000 from the league over the past several years.. nobody ever would have suspected it..

You also have to consider with CB being the one of the largest affiliate networks out there that all the crapware toolbars, addons, cookie stuffing and malware target it to overwrite their own cookies.

I reported a thread right here in the Warrior Forum not long ago where it appeared someone was trying to stuff cookies...it was not for CB, but it happens a lot and there are a lot of sites out there doing this crap below the radar.

My mom had like 5 toolbars and a scumware screensaver installed on her PC and she didn't even realize it. You have to realize that this is what many of your customers are like. They may have software that is stealing your commissions and don't even know it.

Think about that when you read that next WSO that tells you to make money promoting toolbar installs to people for $1 each.

You might want to fully examine all sides of the issue before praising Rip Off Report.

SEOmoz | Accusations that Rip-Off Report just an Extortion Business

Ripoff Report Ripping Off Those Reported?

Bad Business Bureau badbusinessbureau.com Founder Ed Magedson

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with any of these links....but they are certainly interesting.

Hi folks,

Obviously affiliates are affected by this "glitch", but has anybody tested if the sale itself got credited to the seller?

I have no idea what's been going down there in Clickbank....but I REALLY hope that they'll start working out their problems. It's becoming too much really.

As I posted in my orginal post... If you're logging into an affiliate account and not seeing sales then you can't be sure what it is that is causing the problem. The above is just something to add into the equation.

For the record, I have never experienced the "change the ID" issue.

i think we can exclude all "shady" 3rd party influences like cookie stuffing, affiliate hijacking and anti virus programs.

ASSUMING that the original poster's claims are true, because he says his ID was always showing when he did the purchases. If someone would have hijacked his ID or replaced his cookie - his ID wouldn't have shown in the first place.

On affiliate side, we can only track until the final stage - this is clickbank checkout page right before purchase. Up to this stage it seems that everything looks normal, cookie is set, affID is shown and so forth - so this would excl. all those "external" factors and make this a "clickbank internal" issue.

Secondly.....here it gets interesting and legal advice would actually be appreciated.

What rights does an affiliate actually have - how can someone actually "prove" that money is owed to him, i man with hard facts?

Say: "A" is promoting my product(s)...and i see A sold 100 products of mine. All i can see is that A never got credited...(i can check this on my vendor stats since i dont see A's id anywhere) - HOWEVER, "A" will have a hard time to prove that everyone buying my (vendor's) product use a proper (HIS) afflink and that CB is actually owing him money. HOW could he prove this?

Even if he could prove that everyone of the 100 actually clicked the link there is no way to prove that on customer's site everything was ok.

G.

Interesting stuff here....

On another note, those who have opened up another account and switched their aff ID in their links, have you noticed an increase in sales?

I've considered doing this in the past, but wanted to see if anyone has noticed this working more recently...

I personally have not done any affiliate promotions, but, I have seen many threads here at the forum about affiliates not getting credited for their sales.

It seems to me that something should have been discovered as to what the cause may be.

Is it clickbank? I seriously doubt that they would be that stupid as to intentionally rip off affiliates.

Is it affiliate error? Again I seriously doubt that every single affiliate that has bitched about this could be wrong about foul play.

I read a post on this thread that has merit, someone that works (or another possibility did work) at clickbank.

Regardless of where the fault lies, clickbank is responsible for the tracking of affiliate sales through their system. Therefore, they are responsible to set things right. From what I gather they have not been to eager to do that.

Steve contacted a vp at clickbank. Hopefully this will get straightened out now as I don't think that the executives at clickbank were aware of this problem as they don't get the emails sent by affiliates that are complaining about their sales dropping off.

Let's see what happens.

As a newbie I have been promoting clickbank products and was doing fairly well, sales everyday. For the last 5 days I have had zero sales. I will try adding a new account and see if a new hoplink starts the sales going again. Thanks for the info.

No one in their right mind who is taking legal action would write an article like that and post it on the internet.

Either they're an idiot, or they're full of it...not to say this isn't happening

Scott

Lol, that's funny. I also doubt that someone's affiliate id is "none"

I think that clickbank knows that they have internal problems, but they don't want to make it public. Maybe they are already working on this issues but can't find the issue?

wow...this thread surely grew over night, a good thing hopefully.

There is some observations:

I just wanted to ask whether the vendor actually gets credited 100% of the sale if an affiliate sale "fails"....but quickly can answer this question with yes.

Its not the case that the vendor only gets the remaining 25%...and the 75% of commission go "somewhere", assuming that affiliate never gets credited.

So..what i am saying is, from a CB's point of view it doesnt matter whether affiliate gets credited or not, their cut is always the same. If the affiliate sale doesnt go through the vendor gets the WHOLE amount.

"Affiliates don't get commissions" does not mean CB gets it instead.

If the OP on that ripoff site would have done tests being a vendor AND affiliate at the same time he could ONLY base his accusations if he observes that he buys through his afflink, and he as a VENDOR would only get the remaining, say, 25%, and the 75% originally meant for the affiliate would be "missing"..

But this is not the case!

The way I see it, here are the problems:

1) Most product owners won't admit they are getting 'free sales' from affiliates. Most will just take 100% of the sales. They don't even know which affiliate was supposed to be credited anyway. If they can get free money, they will take it.

2) If the page shows affiliate=youraffiliateid and you still don't get credited, you won't know. The money may be going god knows where.

3) It may not be that out of the way to suggest that the economy has some part to play in this. That said, faulty tracking isn't helping matters. You could be making $1000 per day, but what happened to say the other $300 that didn't get credited to you when it should have been? Again, who knows where the money went.

People were happily cruising along in spite of lost sales because the conversions were still reading well. Now, you add in the economy with this faulty system and you have a recipe for underachieving sales.

Fabian

I have promoted Clickbank products off and on since 2003 and I can say that these arguments and discussions have ALWAYS been around. Unfortunately, there does seem to be some serious issues with Clickbank, but again, that seems to have always been the case and little is ever done to improve it.

Sadly, I tend to feel that the PayDotCom experiment has not worked out as well as it could have. And so until there is a viable alternative we are stuck with Clickbank.

I don't see why someone like Commission Junction or SearchFeed or even Yahoo haven't jumped into this market with a serious program to compete with Clickbank. I can understand that some of the bigger names don't want to be associated with some of the scammier programs out there, but with proper background checks and balances it seems to me that someone like Yahoo or even MSN could come up with a program that not only competes with Clickbank but also Adsense.

Imagine a program like CBsense.com or CBadspro being run by Yahoo. That would be sweet.

Just my 2 cents.
Phil G

Ok - maybe I'm missing something here, but whether or not an affiliate ID makes it through to the sales page - Clickbank still makes the same amount of money on the transaction. This person said that they bought using their own affiliate ID. The only way that they could prove that CB was shaving money, would be to contact the merchant of the product to see if the sale actually went through on their end or not. Because the only way clickbank would make any extra money would be to cut off the transaction, even before the merchant sees it. Because even if the merchant makes the sale, clickbank makes the same amount on the transaction.

My vote is that there are multiple problems:

1st we know for a fact that there are some security softwares out there that block the clickbank cookies. - There have even been some versions of internet explorer that block clickbank right out of the gate.

2nd there's the Google factor. Anyone that's been around long enough, and has familiarized themselves w/ google's ever famous algorithms, knows that it can be the cause of extreme variations in your traffic - and not only the amount of traffic, but the quality of traffic you receive. So one day you could be receiving thousands of interested visitors, and the next day you'll receive the same amount of traffic, but all from countries that don't even read the language of your webpage. - Which would explain affiliates going from a lot of sales to none, with the same amount of traffic.

Then there's of course the cookie stuffers and adware type. Software sitting on your computer, because you thought it might be nice to get photoshop for "free". The software that says "hey I recognize that purchase you're about to make as an obvious clickbank purchase because of the obvious hoplink". And then changes out the affiliate cookie.

Finally - there probably is a glitch in clickbank's own software or servers that will once in a while drop the affiliate from the equation. - Personally I think they could do a little better of a job communicating to us that they are working on our concerns.

If you look at the top products on CB their referred percentage is typically 90% or more. This means that last 10% is going to include people that order through organic search results and those who order the product direct from the merchant (PPC and other ads) etc. This 10% would have to also include affiliate sales that weren't credited properly and the 3% or so of people who have javascript/cookies blocked.

So in short, I don't see the huge numbers people are talking about being credited to merchants with no affiliate commission.

Either the affiliate sales are being hijacked (by either the purchaser themselves or parasiteware) or sales are not being processed at all...which is what I've experienced. Certain days CB just doesn't seem to process sales properly.

A week of sales and than a full week of zeros is not an issue of spyware, virus scanners or cookie blocking software.

A few people here have made comments about what Clickbank would have to gain by passing a sale thru with 'affiliate=none'. Just a shot in the dark here, as I'm not quite sure how their fees work, but...
From a faq on their website, their standard markup is 7.5%, but if the sale is from an affiliate, the markup decreases, for example, its only 2.5% w/ a 66% commission.

Does the affiliate 'eat' the rest of the markup to make up for the difference, or could this be a potential benefit for Clickbank? An extra 5% of even a fraction of the volume they do would be a huge number...

I have been following the arbitrage conspiracy. Clickbank has by far been the best money producer so far. We have been using Adwords for almost all of our traffic. There are some big differences now and then between the clicks shown on Adwords and the clicks on Clickbank analytic report. There have been some pretty big differences in Adwords click reports and many of the CPA networks reports as well. We had one campaign showing hundreds of clicks and a couple sales on the CPA network site and Adwords shows like 5 clicks. Maybe all of this is the affiliate software.

This all kind of throws me.

I am a vendor and an affiliate for Clickbank.

As a vendor, I can look in my stats and see everything about a transaction.

For example:

This is what my stats look like for a standard/non-affiliate sale:




This is what a sale looks like thru an affiliate:



This is what my stats look like when someone enters my product page thru one hoplink and ends up buying thru another (hoplink switched)




If an affiliate of mine had consistent traffic but experienced a suddenly lower sales ratio, I could give them an idea of what I see happening.

I can also easily compare my traffic stats to my Clickbank vendor sales stats and SEE that each and every sale was credited properly.

What I CAN'T do anything about is if a consumer clicks an affiliate hoplink and their computer software (or whatever) prevents a hop link from being dropped. But, once that hoplink is clicked and accounted for, I CAN account for any activity after that.

Also, each unique download package that goes out after a purchase is tagged with the Clickbank receipt number, customer name, AND the affiliate that was credited (if applicable).


In my humble opinion, if the affiliate in that "rip off" report was making that much money for a vendor, WHY didn't he/she contact the vendor and ASK what was up from their end?

I am, BY FAR, NOT a "power vendor" on Clickbank, but if one of my affiliates had concerns like this, I would be all over it. If my records show the affiliate was recorded as getting the commission - both on my traffic stats AND on my Clickbank vendor stats, and the affiliate shows they DIDN'T get it... that would be PROOF of a real problem.

Surely I am not the only vendor that can track these things? I'm just a little drop of water in the big vendor world....lol

In my opinion, if Clickbank wanted to do something that would REALLY protect their affiliates, they would do something about being able to buy thru your own hop link. My affiliates work hard and it saddens me when I see their link just swiped away and replaced by another.


Just my two cents.. with pictures =)


Jennifer
~PotPieGirl

WOW! ClickBank??? Didn't think the economic slump was that bad.

There are a LOT of people who depend on ClickBank income, it would really be a shame if this revelation turns out to be true. PayPal would have a near monoply . Now that's scary!

It's not like affiliate enabled ecommerce is all that difficult to engineer in 2009.

If someone wants to set up their OWN clickbank, I could probably come up with something pretty quickly.

Of course, there would be a price.

Mass hysteria is amusing.

You guys aren't listening.

X

A few other things i have found is that clickbank have credited hops to me from products i have never promoted. Go figure???

Steve

I am just starting my CB adventure as a Vendor and this is scary! Hope there is a solution for this issue.

Ok so what's the verdit on this? Is there any real proof or accusations made yet so we can see a response from clickbank.

I just don't believe all the people like Steven who have seen their affiliate id dropped from the order page are lying...

Nor do I think all the emails I and others get from customers regarding their payments to CB not being accepted are from clueless nit-wits who don't know what they are doing...

It is evident to me that there are numerous problems..

It's not like we are claiming glabal warming is real, or that we saw elvis

What is an alternative for publishers using ClickBank? I just got started with them and also would like to know how we can get new affiliates for our e-book.

If clickbank just shaves 1 sale out of 100 sales, then they must be making at least $1000 per day extra?..lol

I wonder why the veeps from pepperJam, Hydra, CJ, NeverBlue & Company haven't weighed on this one yet?

Maybe someone should ping one of the VP's from one of these competitive networks to find out if they have an 'educated' opinion or a semi-sinister Sun Tzu counter attack in the works to shave a few points off the marketshare lead CB has been enjoying for so long?

wow. very interesting. I'd like to see what comes out of this as I'm a ACTIVE promoter on Clickbank. Wow again lol

my individual tracking IDs are not working today? They are all coming through as just my username???


My sales have stopped for the last three days

captivereef, the situation is getting more serious and it is beginning to get me worried. I may hold back plans to further market CB products for the moment and see how things turn out... this is getting depressing indeed.

Eswar,

I too have been asking the same question. No one has answered.

I too had the same bad experience with PDC. The way PDC works is very different from CB. The Vendor has final say to pay you or to run, unlike CB which manages just about all the financials, which is also not a good biz model as we can see from this thread here...

Must people always grumble! Clickbank made many IM their 1st bucks and many earn most of their online income from it. Were it to go bust, many would weep.

A boxer once said about Don King- 30% of what he promises to pay is more that a 100% of what other promoters promise to pay.

Clickbank is miles ahead of the rest and they do payout more than 30% of what they promise (obviously). I won't be surprised its up to 90% or more.

Their model is good, though not perfect! If you think clickbank should kick the bucket, do let us know!

hey hes from az lol

does cb even have a number to contact them?

Excuse me, everybody, but maybe I am missing something here. Wouldn't all of this be rather quickly resolved if a few highly active affiliates contacted a product owner and asked them to place a bit of Google Analytics code on their "Thank You" page?

Even if the CB tracking failed, Google would continue to track properly and that would give us all the answer we're looking for, wouldn't it?

Eric

I went like 6 days straight without a sale a while back. I have been getting several sales per day for the past several days. Pretty up and down.

with one of my sites i made $2k one month and then $1k and it started going down.
I havent earned anything from it in a couple of months now even thought i am getting over 600 unique visitors a month.

Do you think i should try and open a new clickbank account for this site?

Always something fishly going on with CB these days. If they are stealing from us it's probably because they are in a financial trouble. And they need the money to make up for some losses. This is not good.

well i had a sale today but it did not show what tracking ID it came from, why the tracking IDS do not work is beyond me???

I have never had a problem with CB. (knocks wood)

...er, at least I THINK I haven't. I still see TIDs with traffic, and the conversion rate is consistent with what it's always been. And the visits are consistent with the traffic to my pages, so...I'm hoping I've escaped somehow.

Clickbank just changed it's terms of service today. https://www.clickbank.com/terms.html

Anyone see anything that was changed or that maybe important to know?

They also allowed users to close their accounts now. I suppose customer service was getting busy with the requests of people closing their accounts out of protest.

Hi all,

I think people are getting off course here and I just want to add my two cents worth.

The way that I have read his comments and claims is that the Affiliate ID is on the Clickbank payment form and the VENDOR can see the affiliate link but the AFFILIATE is NOT being notified OR being credited/paid for the sale.

This is very alarming as since Clickbank is being paid the entire amount of the sale and NOT giving the 50%-75% commissions to the affiliate where is the money going?

Is it going into Clickbank's OVERDRAFT FUND?

He is claiming that he bought his own products as a VENDOR and an AFFILIATE and as the vendor it is showing an affiliate sale but as an affiliate he is not getting credit.

IF HIS CLAIMS ARE TRUE THEN THE MONEY IS GOING INTO CLICKBANKS POCKET.

Now I am new to affiliate marketing and I had high hopes about selling affiliate products but this scares the crap out of me as I first off can not afford to be scammed by the company that I am promoting whether intentional or not.

If these claims are true I would think it would be easy to prove by getting together with the vendor and affiliate and comparing sales for a specific time frame.

I sure hope there is a solution to this problem quickly or their may be no more Clickbank after the lawsuits.

Am I blowing this out of proportion? :rolleyes:

For some reason, my clickbank account for the past couple of months has been flooded with sales, and stuff that I don't even promote. I'm talking about $20,000 to $30,000 per day in commissions.

All your losses must be going into my account.







Just kidding

i can only imagine how much they have stolen already

I thought they were the best

Sorry to double post, but just wanted to add.. paydotcom.com is great, but I have two problems with it.

1) It relies on PayPal, and we all know about the problems people have had with them.
2) It relies on the merchant to pay the affiliate. I'm sure most of the merchants there are honest people who pay their affiliates on time whenever possible, but one thing I like about clickbank is the fact that they take that little bit of extra work away from the merchant and handle it for you. Not to mention the fact that it relies on PayPal (oh, did I mention that already), so what happens if a merchant's PayPal account gets suspended with no explainiation and no way to quickly or easily get it back before they've paid their affiliates?

An interesting read, and certainly clickbank has a lot of explaining to do. Personally speaking, I haven't had any bad experiences with clickbank yet (touch wood), because I tend to create multiple accounts. Hopefully they will offer an explaination at the very least, quite coincidental that many have had the same problems though...

in all fairness,

we should NOT come to premature conclusions.

The validity of whatever the OP wrote on ripoffreport is still undetermined, it could very well be that this person is indeed only ranting and nothing more.

Recommend clickbank?

I do. Especially right now with a new approach selling products i make really good money....and i see sales...so it looks like its working.

I just checked my ClickBank account. I had sales 7 days in a row and have now gone 2 days with no sales.

This guy should contact the publisher and check the publisher's stats too. Because if the publisher's stats show no sales from this affiliate CB is cheating the publisher too. Or if the stats show that x sales was made trough this affiliate link and the publisher get only 25% (or 50% etc.) and the affiliate gets nothing. That would be really "interesting" too.

Yes. The tracking issues are a norm now. My account has been butchered. The fact that I can go from sales every single day to one day of sales a week is a joke.

How much of this fluctuation is from customers arriving via PPC?

Just wondering, could any of this be the fact that X number of people are going to get "outbid" or even "outclassed" by better constructed ads?

Also wonder if this is where it pays to have those AFFILIATE LEAD CAPTURE pages which will, in the very least, capture info pre-sale so then you can follow-up to see how many bought...

...even offering some kind of bonus if the person buys through your link. State it simply, "I need to know if Clickbank is working properly, so, if you buy through my link, send me a copy of the receipt and I will give you X, Y and Z as a bonus..."

hi - I'm new to all this and have set up a clickbank account but not used it yet. I was planning to set up a subscription based area on my site and use clickbank for affiliates but now i'm not sure. Is there another alternative?

Over the years I have bought many clickbank items throught my own CBmall site and have always gotten the affiliate credit, I always check, hard to say what the truth is.

this is scary stuff....I noticed my sales dip for weeks now... I thought I was going crazy....

I cant believe I found this thread...

why clickbank....WHY!!!!!

ClickBank Alternative: Click2Sell.eu

I have not tried them, but they may be worth looking into.