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DigiResults - Scammy Affiliates?

by HungLe86
16 replies
Hey warriors,

Just looking for some advice out of frustration..

I listed my own product on Digiresults and then recruited a number of affiliates (in total 3 affiliates made sales) and of those 3 affiliates there was 1 affiliate who made $2,400 worth of sales.. however. To my surprise, within 1 week each and every sale which was made was refunded and paypal sent me a notification for multiple chargebacks and now my Paypal account is -$600 (as I give my affiliates 75% commission).

Now due to the multiple chargebacks which I assume have come from a dodgy affiliate.. my paypal accounts have now all been limited and I cannot purchase anything with any of my credit cards or paypal accounts. I even contacted paypal and their response was 'we wish not to do business with you'.

Has anyone encountered this problem? It sucks that all because of a stupid affiliate who scammed some people I ended up getting screwed over :-(

Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Hung
#affiliates #digiresults #scammy
  • Profile picture of the author Mark Ferguson
    I had something similar happen to me last year. It was frustrating as I thought I was doing really well and then I had the rug pulled from under me.

    The way I get around it is to set delayed payments for my affiliates. I state that in my 'About your Affiliate Program' section so everyone knows before they join my affiliate program, they won't get paid for 30 or 60 days, like Clickbank.

    Any true affiliate marketer will not be bothered about the delay. They have probably used Clickbank so understand the system.

    Digiresults themselves say (in their help and support section):

    We recommend using a 30-day delay as your default for new affiliates, though even a delay of 7-days is enough to protect you from most fraud. You should only use instant payments for trusted affiliates that you have an established relationship with.

    I do love Digiresults though. It's so simple to set up. And I prefer the way it deals with sales funnels to JVZoo.
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  • Profile picture of the author shintaiguy
    This has not happened to me but I have some friends who have been hit like this. Only offer instant payout to people you know and take the time to check the affiliate out. South east Asia has the biggest refund / scam rate so it might be a good idea to make a note of their location to.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
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    Had this happen with JVZoo, so it's not the affiliate platform ... it can happen on any Instant Commission platform. I was able to quickly identify and get rid of the criminal affiliates and keep enough cash in my Paypal account to cover the disaster, so my account is still fine, gratefully.

    Don't accept affiliates on an Instant Commission basis that you don't know and trust. Never. I email affiliates first and ask them how they intend to promote. Some answer back ... most don't. The ones that don't are denied. I don't automatically approve the ones who do answer back. Put them on Delayed Payments if you just want to try them out.

    With Warrior Plus, the affiliate request links to the Warrior Forum profile for that affiliate, so you have an additional way to investigate the affiliate. Look at their profile and read their posts and see how long they've been a WF member and decide whether or not you feel they're trustworthy.

    Whatever you do ... just don't approve people you don't know for Instant Commissions. It's a disaster.
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    • Profile picture of the author RogueOne
      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      Had this happen with JVZoo, so it's not the affiliate platform ... it can happen on any Instant Commission platform. I was able to quickly identify and get rid of the criminal affiliates and keep enough cash in my Paypal account to cover the disaster, so my account is still fine, gratefully.
      I had an almost identical experience. I was able to catch it after two reversals and quickly refunded the remaining sales made by that affiliate. Problem solved.

      I suggest, if you have a reversal, quickly refund any sales made by that affiliate and deny them access to all your products. It might seem like a loss but I bet the OP wishes they still had that option.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ettienne
      Originally Posted by sbucciarel View Post

      Had this happen with JVZoo, so it's not the affiliate platform ... it can happen on any Instant Commission platform. I was able to quickly identify and get rid of the criminal affiliates and keep enough cash in my Paypal account to cover the disaster, so my account is still fine, gratefully.

      Don't accept affiliates on an Instant Commission basis that you don't know and trust. Never. I email affiliates first and ask them how they intend to promote. Some answer back ... most don't. The ones that don't are denied. I don't automatically approve the ones who do answer back. Put them on Delayed Payments if you just want to try them out.

      With Warrior Plus, the affiliate request links to the Warrior Forum profile for that affiliate, so you have an additional way to investigate the affiliate. Look at their profile and read their posts and see how long they've been a WF member and decide whether or not you feel they're trustworthy.

      Whatever you do ... just don't approve people you don't know for Instant Commissions. It's a disaster.
      Holy sh**, thanks for the heads up, never thought about it like that. I've had a number of JVzoo sales come through recently, and now I'm not too excited anymore. Do they have an option to delay affiliate payments for X amount of days?
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  • Profile picture of the author briantymes
    The sad fact of the matter is that there are a lot of scammy affiliates out there. I have actually had hosting accounts cancelled because of affiliates spamming.

    If you are going to use affiliates, you need to make sure you have 100% trust in them. And I would never allow a new affiliate marketer to market my products.
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  • Profile picture of the author AndrewStark
    have a look at the affiliate history, if they don't and you don't know who they are, either set them to 30 days or deny them.

    The other red flag will be when the conversion rate is stupidly high, that means the "buyers" have been using stolen cards, so start refunding asap - much cheaper and better for you than chargebacks.
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  • Profile picture of the author CAPTCHAbiz
    This EXACTLY happened with me and my partner.

    Paypal do not allow adaptive payment thing for my country so i did JV with my partner who were using Digiresults.

    Same way one affiliate made us around $3000+ of sales, and after 1 month, all sales were charged back, paypal decided in the favor of buyers (which i assume is one person using multiple credit cards), this way guy got all the money back + affiliate commission and me and my partner have to pay i guess $10 chargeback fee on EACH CHARGEBACK + complete balance become negative.

    Our Mistake: To approve affiliate whom we doesn't know about. Guys, this is very serious thing going on this instant commission model of paypal, make 1000% sure that you only approve affiliate whom you actually know personally, not just by there 'promise' of getting you lots of sales.

    This is probably the easiest way to scam for $1000's using the 'loophole' of instant payments.
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  • Profile picture of the author HungLe86
    Hey warriors,

    My apologies for such a delayed response.

    Thanks so much for everyone's input and advice. It's sad how people out there can do this.. It's gone up to $2k now which I have to recover out of my own pocket cause of a stupid affiliate who scammed the hell outta me..

    I guess there's always a lesson in everything.

    Thanks again for the comments :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve Wells
    Sounds to me like these affiliate recruiting sites/platforms need to do more to protect the vendors from this type of stuff.

    Maybe make it harder to become an affiliate or something because this type of crap should not be happening. These loop holes have to be covered and closed up by someone. Someone needs to come up with an idea to prevent this.

    Yes, I know, no auto-approve and no instant commissions. That makes sense, but there has got to be other things that can be done.

    Not sure what, just kinda throwing it out there.

    Honestly, there should be some kind of legal action that could be taken against the affiliate who did this or the ones who do this crap.

    I feel for any of you that this has happened to, I'm sure you'll recover from it, but wow, what a sucky thing to happen to someone.
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    • Profile picture of the author BIG Mike
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      • Profile picture of the author Steve Wells
        Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

        Our system checks every affiliate through PayPal to make sure they have a Verified Business or Premiere account that's in good standing. The affiliate then has to apply to the merchant to become an affiliate of their product.

        Merchants can set them up on delayed payments, different commission levels, etc., or just deny their request.

        It's easy to blame the system, but to be fair, merchants are constantly warned not to approve affiliates they don't know/have a relationship with. They're also urged to use delayed payments and lower commissions for any they're trying out for the first time.

        Merchants have to be accountable too...
        Mike, I wasn't laying blame to you or your system or any other system, just stating that there has got to be more that can be done, or at least more thought can go into preventing this stuff, which means implementing more safeguards.

        Someone mentioned above a few reasons that make it less likely for this to happen on Warrior Plus, which I agree with, anytime someone has to leave a footprint or pay in someway, there is more safety, cockroaches like to work in the dark.

        Constant improvement and adaption, is always the best way to go, especially to assure survival.
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  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    I would expect Warrior Plus has less instances of this happening because:

    a) they charge affiliates a monthly fee...

    b) affiliates need to pay that monthly fee using a Paypal account so a footprint is left...

    c) we are able to see their Warrior Forum profile before approving -- it' helps a lot.

    The easier the platforms make it to become an affiliate the more likely it is they will do this type of thing. I'm not sure what a 7 day delay achieves though. Can't they just do chargebacks after the 7 days? Isn't it just pro-longing the inevitable?

    But as Mike said, if people choose to keep approving affiliates they don't know then this will keep on happening. Vendors are the ones who lose out from this so they are the ones that need to take responsibility for their own actions.
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    • Profile picture of the author BIG Mike
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      • Profile picture of the author Tony Marriott
        Originally Posted by BIG Mike View Post

        Will,

        Payments can be delayed for up to 90 days - the purpose of course is to prevent a scammer from grabbing their cash and running. If they used stolen credit cards, the payments can at least be returned to the credit card company.

        Ideally, it works like this:
        1. You set up the affiliate program for your products.
        2. When affiliates you know and trust apply, you put them on instant payment and at whatever commission you want to pay them.
        3. When someone you don't know "Well" applies, you can set the payout to take place in say 10 days. For example, since I know "Of You" through the WF and have for a while, I "Think" I can trust you. So a 7 or 10 or so delay in paying you is fair until our relationship develops. Meanwhile, if you're scamming me, it will most likely come up fairly quickly.
        4. When someone you don't know at all applies, you either deny their application or set them up on 30 or more days delayed payout. You explain that until you see his or her performance you can't risk instant payments. If they're scammers, that's more than enough time to catch them

        Scammers jump on instant payments because they can get the money immediately, but they're not going to waste stolen credit cards on delayed payments because the CC has to be used fast and hard to be profitable for them.

        I don't know about the other affiliate systems, but mine requires a PayPal login - this ensures that the affiliate (or merchant) has an active account, i.e.; it's verified and is a premiere or business account, which scammers also have trouble getting/maintaining. It's not perfect, but PayPal at least confirms that much for us so that our merchants aren't going to see a bunch of scammers using throwaway personal accounts.
        Hi Mike,

        Appreciate everything you said above and in an earlier post.

        Of course vendors (or any business or individuals) have to use due diligence and common sense to protect themselves from both accidental and intentional abuse.

        However not all scams and misuse are obvious to everyone using the affiliate systems.

        Warnings and messages explaining these likely issues are, of course, welcome and useful. However could you have things like the 90 day payment delay as default rater than an option? That way it would take some additional thought/actions to choose the less secure options.

        As service providers you will be very much more aware (or at least aware sooner) of the scams and abuse that exist in the system.
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  • Profile picture of the author YasirYar
    It's sad that some unscrupulous affiliates had to resort to some scamming activities just so they can earn money online.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anonymous Affiliate
    BIG MIKE, thanks for the detailed explanation. What affiliate network would that be for, Warrior Plus?
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Munch
    Don't approve affiliates you don't know. It's that simple. Those with free email addresses are always suspect.

    Its not an issue with Digiresults, but and issue with platforms using the PayPal API which include Digiresults, W+ and JVZoo.

    Delaying payments doesn't always helps as the scammers do the purchases anyway and they still get chargedback - just the scammers don't get paid, but your PayPal account still gets hits with chargebacks.

    I've never had any issues as we don't approve affiliates we don't know and do due diligence on all affiliates.
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