Hostgator - did any warriors face similar problems ?

Hello gvsridhar171,

That's a terrible experience, therefore. I do hope that you'll get a clear justification from HostGator's affiliate manager as to why their system works that way. You deserve to receive an explanation from them, I believe.

Ok - let's clarify this.

You dishonestly sent your own personal discount coupon to hundreds of people?
Hundreds of people signed up using a coupon that was meant for only you?
Each person got a discount off their hosting fee AND you expect Hostgator to pay you commission AS WELL as giving your customers a discount?
Now you're complainiing that Hostgator won't pay you commission on dishonestly obtained sign-ups?

Does that cover it?

PS - is "innovative" now an alternative word for dishonest?

Thank you rosetrees. I had to laugh at this post a little.

Call them and make a mess, show proof of your activity, fax them mail them, warn them that if after you showed all the proof they wont pay you your money, you will sue them, if you have nothing to hide and all the proof needed, they would know better not to go in court with you and pay you youre money instead.

I've never had a problem being paid by hostgator but I'm not making 50 sales a month with them. It is possible that if your affiliate account was relatively inactive before that this spike in sales was a red flag and they assumed you were black hatting. I can't tell from your OP if you were or not but if you were, you don't get the commissions no matter how innovative your methods are.

I stopped promoting Hostgator a long time ago because I never got paid for buyers I sent and I know they bought and paid their bill. Some I sent were friends and one was a test to see if I would get credit. For whatever reason, there are too many referrals that go unpaid so I would not promote them again.

I use their hosting and am happy with it, but not their affiliate program.

I promote them myself and have never had a problem with payment, although there have been one or two occassions when I felt I had to wait to long. But other than that.....

I tried Hostgator 2 years ago, sold just around a dozen of accounts and never get paid. Enough reason to stop doing it as I don't waste another time to argue with them....

You can speculate till the cows come home, but only HostGator (and probably yourself) know the real reason.

Between your "Innovative Methods" and "Selling" their coupon code, what you're saying doesn't surprise me. Somehow I doubt HostGator condones the sale of coupon codes - if someone complained, I'm sure you're end up forfeiting commissions.

Be that as it may, the smart thing to do would have been to test your "Innovative Methods" on a small scale and wait to see what happened. Additionally, if I were you, I would have contact HostGator sales and outlined my plan, to obtain their response in writing.

Given the strict terms of their affiliate program, it's unlikely you would have been entitled to 150 commissions anyways. In my experience, HostGator has a high number of "Dropouts" who don't stick around long enough for the first billing, don't pay their bill or were previous customers to begin with, who didn't qualify you for the sale.

We've always been paid when co-promoting HostGator with other offers, but I wouldn't base a whole business model on them.

I too had problems in the past with them they keep changing status to duplicate than active than not active..more than 50 times in one month..I send several emails to them and at the end they paid my commission that was $150 but this is really frustrating we promote their services a lot and hey did lots of hassle paying us a commission .;this is not justice ...well,Dreamhost has Nice service they pay me on time without even sending email ...I recommend Dreamhost ..promote it

Hi, you're not the only one. Do Google searches for:

• Hostgator ripoff
• Hostgator scam
• Hostgator shaving

From my experience of being an affiliate for several companies throughout the years, I expect companies to cheat a little. But my friend and I are also concerned with Hostgator; out of the hundreds of reviews we've read about the affiliate program, only about 2 or 3 were positive. Even their affiliate forum is filled with stories of not being paid for active commissions, not being paid for commissions of friends / customers they've referred, active commissions mysteriously turning to duplicate, overdue and fraud at the time of payout.

It's one of those things where you feel the truth inside, but still pray for the best. However, we have stopped creating advertisements for them until our payout day comes. We've invested so much time in this; I'd hate to not get paid for all the long hours and weeks we've put into this!

Back to your question: we've noticed a pattern with our account, every 3 to 4 sales turn to DUPLICATE (a few which we know for a fact aren't). So far, there's only 1 fraud even though this so-called fraud account has verified his account with Hostgator and is successfully set up...

Another thing we've noticed was: every time we reach a new pay level, the sales will stop coming in for a few days. I had to email them and ask for them to turn our tracking back on. According to them, it was on. But funny thing is right after emailing, the sales started back coming in... and of course when they did, the stats quickly went from active to duplicate!

My best advice is to read all you can regarding this and stop promoting until you get paid. Sorry this is happening to you, but you are definitely not alone!

With this company when i was starting affiliate program i receive couple hundreds $ but after that no commissions at all.I think they have so many customers that they just don't want to give money away.