If it were me - I'd be denying 75% of those applications, not just delaying them.

Sounds sketchy, I myself don't use W+ or JVZoo, but I have read up on it and can say that lots of people recommend only bringing on experienced affiliates with sales history. Using terrible affiliates might get you some crazy unethical spammy promos to your Ad that could look un professional to the leads leading to a possible bad reputation among some people.

Maybe they signed up to buy your product with their affiliate link. That way they will get it for cheap.

Yes, VERY normal no matter what platform you use (assuming they allow you to approve / disapprove affiliates).

I only approve affiliates that I know or already have a proven track record. Approving annonymous affiliates is a recipe for disaster.

RoD

I would recommend you do not approve a bunch of affiliates from counties that have many scammers. Vietnam and Philippians are probably the two largest countries for having scammers. As Marc says the stolen credit cards are how they get your money.

I would only approve people for instant who you know or you have seen on forums and you can trust.

I have, in the past approved many affiliates that I didn't know, putting
them on delayed payments thinking that would prevent most problems.

What happened in one case, that cause me now to reject most
applicants that look even slightly out of the ordinary is that I got a
LOT of chargebacks... with every single one of the chargebacks
declaring that the Paypal transaction was "unauthorized."

I guess the scammers could have been using stolen credit cards...
it's just struck me as strange that they all used the same reason
for doing chargebacks, which of course the credit card processors
honored.

Given that with most product launches, and most affiliates programs,
a tiny percentage of affiliates are going to promote hard... and
consistently, and make the majority of the sales, I think that you
are better off rejecting potentially good affiliates than you are
risking all of the headaches of bringing scammers into your fold.

And yes... people in different cultures DO think differently, although
you have honest people and dishonest people in all cultures. I do
tend to be more critical/careful when approving affiliates from
certain countries. I do check them out before approving them, and
if I can't find any information on them, I automatically reject them.

Willie

By the way, one way that I check people out is using a Gmail
called Rapportive: Rapportive

When you open an email from anyone within Gmail, and you
have this app installed, it pulls data from their various online
profiles (social media, etc.) and quickly provides you with a
snapshop of who you are dealing with. If I don't get any
information on them using Rapportive, I'm more likely to
reject them.

Incidentally, Rapportive is also great when you need to conduct
a phone or Skype call with someone. Have them coordinate the
call via email, then during the call, pull up that email within Gmail,
and Rapportive tells you things like their urls, company name,
niche, etc.... again data pulled from social media profiles, etc.

This makes it very easy to build rapport with the person you
are talking to, which I guess is where the name came from

Willie

Vietnam is on my personal blacklist. I received 12 fraudulent orders within 5 days for a total of $1200. Luckily I caught the scam quickly and refunded every one before they could charge back.

My experience with approving affiliates I didn't know was a disaster. They used stolen credit cards to make the purchases, got the commission, emptied out their Paypal accounts and then the chargebacks came in Paypal ... six of them. So you give the criminal affiliates their commission, forfeit the sales and have to pay the chargeback fee as well.

Put them on delayed or don't approve at all and don't pay them until the dispute period in Paypal is over.

I personally would automatically reject all those from Vietnam with ZERO sales, but don't be fooled by sales figures. Some of the best con artists have sales (with stolen credit cards).

Interesting thread. I had the same questions just never posted about it so it's great to see them answered.

Run run run!

I must say that is one of the things I prefer about Warrior Plus over JVZoo. At least every Warrior Plus affiliate has to be linked to an account on this forum so you can check out their members account and get some insight into the person that way.

With JVZoo though you have virtually no way of knowing who is good and who is bad. It's just a random name and somehow you are suppose to decide whether to approve them or not.

As such I have basically denied 99% of all affiliate requests on JVZoo. It's just not worth the pain if you approve even one wrong affiliate.

My criteria is this:
1) If they are using a free email account, they will be denied. Must use an email address based on their own domain name.
2) If I don't know them, they must provide some live references, like their Facebook page, or other websites where I can learn about them.
3) Must provide their real name, phone number and/or physical mailing address for reference.
4) Should have a decent amount of overall sales in the JVzoo system.

wow thank goodness I stumbled across this in before i launched my first product on JVZoo! Thanks for sharing all this experience and advice guys, very much appreciated

Imo unless you wanna wake up with a negative Paypal balance you should deny them.

Well, the first time I used both W+ and JVZoo, I just approved all affiliates, not thinking about how many downright criminal affiliates there are, and there are a lot. I instantly got a bunch of sales, then a bunch of Paypal chargebacks from people who "bought" my product but didn't really buy my product. The crooked affiliates were using stolen credit cards. In addition to losing the commission I paid to criminals, I lost the sales of course, plus the additional $25 chargeback fee from Paypal. It was a very expensive lesson.

Vietnam, 0 sales = NO DICE

Do some homework on the people before you approve them. Don't approve new affiliates. In W+, it's easy to see if they have a linked WF account. Check it out. I tend not to approve those who do not have a linked acct. JVZoo doesn't have that feature, so you just have to wing it when trying to look them up in JVZoo.

Why search Vietnam subscribers with low conversion when you can have subscribers from the 5 english speaking countries that understand internet and you gonna have your money back ?

Just focus on USA, New Zealand, Australia, United kingdom, Canada.

Believe me you don't need to search anywhere else.

I am heading on to my first launch, and I can see a bunch of viet nam affiliates with 0 sales in bag requesting affiliate approval from me. I'll now deny them all.