Affiliate scams, misbehavior, "shenanigangs" thread... Post 'em

12 replies
Hi -

What's the biggest problems you've had with affiliates, when deciding how to screen for accepting/recruiting affiliates, to promote for you? (to clarify, how to avoid getting taken advantage of by unscrupulous affiliates, in general)

I'm asking because I'm finally going to start doing more with affiliates, beyond general jv partners, this year in 2013. I was going to do that last year, but postponed it. I'm starting w/shareasale to help w/managing it.

My #1 biggest concern:

a) affiliate puts through phony sales (ripped off cc numbers, whatever), you pay out commisshes net 30 or 60, then all orders charged back 90 days later, and you're left being ripped off of hundreds/thousands of dollars.


Secondary concerns:

b) affiliates spam or send out non-FTC compliant emails, despite being told that it's against affiliate TOS, and gets you in trouble w/FTC/AGs etc

c) affiliates post "review" sites and get your products ranked high in google SEO and cross promotes your competitors using your own keywords/titles at their sites

I'm sure there's more "shenanigans", theft, fraud going on out there in affiliate-land. Any top ones you've been burned by, and any countermeasures or protections? I'd really appreciate any thoughts on this, folks - thanks!

-Ken

p.s. my thinking on first protection is only accept affiliates from countries w/good IP enforcement, like USA, Canada, UK, Australia, and never from affiliates in malaysia, indonesia, china, nigeria etc. I have kept successful in my business by having a keen sense of mistrust and caution about all things.
#affiliate #misbehavior #post #scams #shenanigangs #thread
  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
    Warning: Watch the "Rule #1" violations, folks.
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  • Profile picture of the author kencalhn
    Hi - this isn't about specific affiliates or products to avoid promoting, in fact just the opposite...(I updated the question for clarity in original post)

    In general, what do you do to "screen" for acceptable affiliates, as someone who runs an affiliate program, to avoid getting ripped off by criminal/misbehaving affiliates?

    For example, not accepting affiliates from certain countries, or, other merchant-account protections or affiliate mgmt protections to put in place, to avoid getting bad affiliates who submit false/incorrect orders?

    For example:
    - "before accepting a new affiliate, I check to make sure that their website is credible and looks professional, before approving them as an affiliate in my affiliate program" ... and similar
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by kencalhn View Post

      Hi - this isn't about specific affiliates or products to avoid promoting, in fact just the opposite...(I updated the question for clarity in original post)

      In general, what do you do to "screen" for acceptable affiliates, as someone who runs an affiliate program, to avoid getting ripped off by criminal/misbehaving affiliates?

      For example, not accepting affiliates from certain countries, or, other merchant-account protections or affiliate mgmt protections to put in place, to avoid getting bad affiliates who submit false/incorrect orders?
      I don't trust affiliates from ANY country. Sceening out countries when people can use proxies is useless. The only real protection is delayed affiliate payments .... not paying affiliates until the Paypal dispute period is over.

      Personally, I stopped allowing affiliates completely, as I value my Paypal account and having 6 chargebacks roll in within a couple of days put it at risk... not to mention that I had to pay the commissions for crooks, refund the purchases and pay an additional $25 chargeback fee. So the whole experiment with affiliates wasn't profitable for me.

      I'm sure many others "kill it" with affiliates. Wasn't the case for me though.
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  • Profile picture of the author mattjay
    I think people get greedy when they see affiliate requests and don't pay attention to things. I know I have.

    for example:
    I learned a very painful lesson on an affiliate network when I approved every single affilaite for instant payments. Didn't check them at all.

    Those affiliates sold over 70 copies of a 39 dollar product and I got paid 50%. sounds good right?

    Chargebacks started coming in about a week later and didn't stop for 2 months. Not only that, but the affiliates got to keep their 50% and paypal didn't do a damn thing about it.

    I never approve any affiliates anymore period. without heavy research. If i see them around and know they're legit, that's one thing. But if you let greed get in the way of judgement and see dollar signs, you can get burned about $2000 like I did.

    Once again you just have to use some common sense and discernment.

    Excellent post.
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  • Profile picture of the author kencalhn
    glad to see I'm not the only one... been running my biz since '99 w/o affiliates... it's just I know I'm missing a ton of sales, 10x sales type numbers, by being cautious... thanks for the validation that yes there are a lot of problems w/affs... trying to see how to do it carefully.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      There's good reason that big affiliate programs have a payout delay of anywhere from 2 weeks to 60 days. It's a protection mechanism that can't be found in the IM area with "instant" commissions paid.
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  • Profile picture of the author kencalhn
    right - I was thinking of delaying payouts to 30-60 days or longer, if that's acceptable to affiliates... or partial (80% now, the balance later) as some have done.. not sure the best way to build in safeguards; I'm using shareasale (since they handle 1099s and it's more automated than what I could do with my shopping cart).

    Any other "safeguards you've taken to protect yourself from dishonest affiliates", folks? much appreciated. I'm in the trading biz, so with Forex and other affiliates, there's many bad ones from what I've heard/seen, so trying to be prudent here, to protect the business from affiliate fraud.

    thx,

    k
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonl70
    I have never felt that legit successful affiliates should need "instant commissions". besides the typical CB stuff in the past, and CJ stuff, I've done JV product launches for higher end price point products for some well known people.. and across the board, no one has given "instant commissions".

    I have toyed with the idea of using affiliates/JV's for a software product I am working on - and I have zero qualms about holding pay outs for 60 days. If a potential affiliate has problems with that, then as far as I am concerned they aren't the sort of affiliate I want anyway.
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    -Jason

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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    There are bad and crooked affiliates out there but there are "companies" who like to rip off their affiliates too.

    A few years ago myself and many other affiliates were working with a program that paid us once a week through PayPal.

    These people were always hiding behind their website and never revealed who they are. For over 2 years everyone was getting paid on time. I think they had 1000's of affiliates and many of them were real online gurus back then in 2009.

    Then one day, the owners of that program decided to tell us that their funds were frozen for some reason and were not able to pay their affiliates (That was not true by the way).

    Commissions that were supposed to be paid out was in the $100,000's of dollars.

    So we waited for weeks and they stopped emailing us and replying to our emails. No one was paid. They scammed us out of our commissions. Back in 2009, they owed me like $2000.

    The worst part is that they are still selling the same product and they are still recruiting affiliates to promote their program.

    Tells you a whole lot about people who like to rip other people.
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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    You need to screen each affiliate individually.

    If you have a doubt, don't approve them.

    That's what I do.

    And be very careful.
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  • Profile picture of the author kencalhn
    good points, thanks. one safeguard I'm considering as well, is something like an ID check, meaning at least make them pay a $1-type refundable application fee via 1sc so I can see their IP address to confirm it matches where they say they're at, and their cc confirmation info matches shipping/billing, so I know who they are.

    And only from countries like USA/UK/Canada/Australia etc. Or maybe just work with jv people I know first, for dozens of affiliates, then expand carefully out from there. Nowadays it's critical to be safe/secure. does anyone else know of best practices that top affiliate-accepting people use, or experience from your own work w/affiliates, on how to avoid bad affiliates?
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  • Profile picture of the author GarrieWilson
    Phone verify all of them. You could also post/mail verify.

    Garrie
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