Clickbank ripping you off too??

I think that a class action lawsuit is in order. People being ripped off should unite and make it happen.

I'm not being ripped off because I'm not promoting via clickbank, so I'm out.

It is something you should seriously consider and think about.

James

Never had this experience before... anyone else? Please share, I think this is extremely important for affiliates.

Let me guess what might've happened:

Your "friend" who wasn't credited for the sale is actually you, or a person from the same house/office. Clickbank's system figured that out and didn't want the "affiliate" to get the credit for such a tactic.

So who's ripping off who?

Actually, if you read on Clickbank's website they make it clear that an affiliate is allowed to purchase a product through their own link. The only time it's a problem is if they can determine that you signed up as an affiliate solely to get a "discount" on items. I think it's clear from this thread that this affiliate is not doing that and that they are not trying to rip anybody off. If they want to purchase through their own link or reimburse a couple of people for purchasing through their link they are perfectly within their rights to do so and it in no way rips anyone off. The only way it could be construed that way is if this affiliate was then having these people request refunds through Clickbank.

Hi

I've made a couple of sales recently and I walked the customers through the sign up process - it was for a membership site. None of tehm were recognised by Clickbank, I did this just to check. I'm not too bothered as it was only going to make me about $500 a year - so it's not big fish BUT it is $500 which should be in my pocket.

It just makes me wary of promoting Clickbank products, why waste my time and effort on something that I may not even get recognition for?

I emailed support and got a message on what a hoplink should look like. A bit patronising really. Has anyone started a petition? I'll sign....

Regards

David

Adam - re: It gets a little fishy when you're making 2-3 sales a day with around a 1:100 conversion rate, then nothing for weeks with a 1:10,000 conversion rate. I mean come on?

I have to say that I too have been very concerned about this since the beginning of this year. I have one product that was converting very well and very consistently then suddenly bammo! Zero sales from consistent levels of high traffic. Too weird to be true.

I have considered taking the product off CB but the dilemma is that I have a lot of affiliates promoting it and no way to contact many of them to let them know if I want to move it. I don't want to upset my afiliates as I value them highly but something has to be done as it's just ridiculous.

CB deny any problems with their tracking as a matter of course, but too many people have now tested this and not been paid commissions for provable sales made. I've even heard several people say that they got someone to buy their own product via an aff link and the sale was not recorded.

Like I say, my own experience with a top selling product that has dropped to zero has me hoping that CB get things sorted and fast. I've always thought CB was a great service but they surely cannot keep ignoring this problem.

It's all very well for people to come on and defend CB, but when it happens to their own business they'll see how frustrating this is and perhaps understand that there are way too many people that this is happening to for it to be cast aside as not relevant.

Well i only make a few sales a day so my experience is some what limited. But i hav e noticed a sharp decrease in sales in the last month or so.

One thing i do notice is that my tracking stats are screwed up bad. I redirect my domains to the click bank page via ezinearticles and no matter what i do i keep getting 50% of my stats saying no tracking code even though the TID is there when i check my redirect link.

I also get some really weird tracking codes coming through that are 10-18 characters long.

I actually refuse to use clickbank for these reasons, even as an affiliate they still have nearly $500 in commissions on hold just because it was only a few sales, not enough "different" forms of payment. (Ridiculous - obviously these people haven't refunded, its been there since August of last year!)

One thing that "might" be affecting it: If people have certain settings in their browser.

i.e,. cookie tracking. I had this happen with one of my affiliate program scripts, even though it was supposedly the newest version, it didn't track properly if people had their cookies off or blocked. (I obviously switched aff programs very quickly, and compared my raw traffic logs to match those few up thankfully).

Had it happening in a way with people logging into one of my sites, people weren't seeing the changes, even though they were there.

It can come down to:

- their browser
- their browser version
- their security settings
- their cookie settings.

You'd "THINK" CB would have sessions and IP tracking too, not just cookies, but I suspect that's a lot of what's happening here.

The newest (full) version of IE really messes this stuff up. If so many have upgraded to the newer IE, they might be the ones causing these issues without even knowing it. It's really bad for cacheing and blocking unless you *know* where to change your settings.

Food for thought - it might not "just" be CB's fault, might be a combination of these factors. (I also rarely use IE either except for testing LOL)

Amber

Amber - re:- they still have nearly $500 in commissions on hold just because it was only a few sales, not enough "different" forms of payment. (Ridiculous - obviously these people haven't refunded, its been there since August of last year!)


If you email them and just ask, they will release that money for you.


Roy

Hi Steven

I don't believe that CB are intentionally ripping people off at all, for exactly the reasons that you outline. I DO strongly believe they have a problem with their tracking though, and a big one.

Interesting post Jennifer.

Glad I was able to help.

I think Clickbank's problems, which I think somebody above stated, goes
beyond Clickbank itself.

I know for a fact that many browsers, if certain things are set, will not
write cookies correctly, if at all.

Then there is Spybot. I don't know if that problem has been resolved or
not but it was a problem at one time.

Is Clickbank's tracking system great? Not by a longshot. I think there is a
ton of room for improvement. I think they know this. I also think that if
there was a way to improve it, they would do it.

If I had to take a guess at this, I'd say the problem they're having is a
similar one to one that a friend of mine is having with his site. He is stuck
with an architecture that is old and outdated. For him to make the changes
needed, it would cost him a small fortune. We're talking about a huge site.

The problem is, he's not making enough from the membership to justify
the cost of upgrading.

Now, I know Clickbank is making a fortune every year. Still, they need to
justify the cost of revamping their system to the board. If they can't
do that (it's not about our problems) then it's not going to happen.

The only way it will happen is if they lose enough business (something
that's not yet happened) to the point where they have no choice.

Then...something will be done.

Do we have a long wait?

Probably. Depends on how many merchants and affiliates get fed up with
their poor tracking and go elsewhere.

The problem is, they are so big and so popular, for every affiliate and
merchant who leaves, 10 take their place.

The campaign that would have to be waged to get people to stop using
Clickbank would cost mega dollars to launch. I think even somebody like
John Reese wouldn't find it economically feasible, unless he was the one
coming up with an alternative to Clickbank.

A lot of people thought PayDotCom was the solution. I honestly don't
know why Mike hasn't done more to make it a serious contender. But the
main problem is that merchants have to pay their own commissions. This
is not an attractive option to first time merchants looking to get into the
marketplace. So they go to Clickbank. On the flip side, affiliates don't want
to promote products that they might not get paid for. I myself have been
burned by PayDotCom merchants and thus will only promote products of
people who I know personally.

Bottom line...Clickbank has no real competition. And as long as that
fact remains, there is no real incentive for them to do anything about any
of their problems...if they do in fact exist.

That is the reality that we have to deal with.

Good points about paydotcom too STeven....not sure what I will do then...

I agree, Jennifer. I'm tired of the apologists.

I don't believe CB is intentionally "ripping off affiliates".

However, their old, outdated tracking system is not reliably crediting affiliates and the result is the same as if they were stealing commissions.

The complaints have increased as more affiliates are taking a look at their CB links. Sellers don't complain because the sales are going through - CB is happy because the sales are going through. The affiliate is left out of the loop because tracking links disappear randomly for some reason.

Unlike other affiliate programs, CB has not upgraded it's tracking in years. If CB were as profitable as some think it would have competition by now. When PDC was started it was advertised as a replacement that would surpass CB - but it can't because it doesn't pay affiliates directly. That is CB's hook. From search options to find products to the tracking of sales, CB is an outdated site that refuses to invest in improvements.

kay

My vote is there system. Its borderline stone age.

There is obviously a problem.

Those who declare there isn't just hasn't been effected yet

So what ya gonna do about it?

Whether the problem is intentional or not (I think not) the end result is the same = you not getting paid for work done.

Clickbank, why have you forsaken us?!

I met the Clickbank management team in London, personally, so I got to talk to them direct. I honestly dont think they would intentionally do such a thing

Chris - I think most people realise that they are not intentionally ripping affiliates off, as has been said. But Steven is right, unless people start deserting them in droves (which has already started) then little will be done to force them to upgrade their system.

I know that I and many, many others don't actually want to abandon them, but they are virtually forcing us to do so for future products because I believe they are well aware that there is a problem but they seem to want to bury their heads in the sand and hope it will just go away. It won't.

If they responded to people's enquiries and concerns with the approach that they are aware of the problem and are working vigorously to sort it, then I think that people would feel a little more able to continue with them, knowing that the problem was being addressed.

Instead they give glib answers. Sorry, but we have reached the stage where people are no longer prepared to accept that.

I was going to use Clickbank as a way to make sales, when I noticed that a lot of customers and publishers were complaining a lot about the products. The products at Clickbank are GARBAGE! They don't bother to screen their advertisers at all before accepting their campaign. In return, there are a lot more chargebacks, meaning in the end you will just be wasting your time.

Also, Clickbank doesn't pay you unless you get sales using two different credit cards. i mean....most people who shop online use Paypal! I say create your own product and sale that...make an ebook, book, or cookbook and sell it online.

you know whose a bigger lead shaver than clickbank?.. paydotcom!

goto ejunkie.. its the best out there!.. for $5, they provide amazing features...
simply put, you'd be an idiot to not use them.

OMG!!! What about Commission Junction or E-Junkie then? you all scared me to death as a newbie to use CB.

ClickBank may not be intentionally ripping affiliates off but they sure don't seem to be in any rush to try and permanently fix the tracking problems that many of us see on a daily basis.

Like Steve said until ClickBank have some more direct competition they have no real reason to fix this. They still make their fees. They may lose some affiliates over this but more new ones come along everyday.

I think many anti spyware and antivirus is blocking cookies from CPA network and Clickbank, may be this is one of the reason why many affiliate sales is not track correctly!

Good Post, and Good responses:
However, here is something I discovered on Clickbank. I set up to promote a product and readied the landing page, etc etc, then I tested the hoplink, to follow through all the way and make sure the clickbank/paypal page shows affilliate=*ME*. It did! HOWEVER: when i exited the page a popup came up, as they do, and offered a discount if I purchased it. I followed the discount page to ensure the affiliate link would also be on the payment page. BUT, when I arrived at the 'discount paypal page' affiliate=none . So I investigated a little further, and here is what I found. When the popup came up, and I clicked,
it redirects to a NON-TRACKED page, in other words as if I entered the page directly and not through a hoplink. The redirected page was a totally different domain name. I do not think it is Clickbank, but it is the saavy marketers who set up redirect pages to avoid paying the affiliates.
My advice is to follow all redirects and check to make sure the affiliate=*you* at the bottom of the paypal page. I am not sure if this solves the overall problem, but needless to say I will not promote a product that uses these redirects.

Set up new accounts with new hoplinks....

I must have 30 accts on clickbank now. Whenever they start with the shaving shit, I just open a new acct, change out my hoplinks, and my conversions go back to normal.

After posting about this a few months ago, other people tried the same thing and had the same results.

Anyone that says that Clickbank isn't screwing their affiliates is in denial.

Hmmm may be cookie stuffing is stealing your sales.

I'm with Jeremy here..

I wouldn't say clickbank is keeping the commissh.. but I DO now 100% that the detail he described above works..

My partner and I constantly test this on 2 domains of ours.. the moment we see some shady stats, we jump into the link cloaker.. switch all the hops to a fresh or other account...

POOF... conversions stay normal....

There is NO question on my end that clickbank has "tracking issues"...

We work too hard and too smart to let it affect us on a grand scale, but if you aren't being pro-active about this, it can cripple your business. It would have crippled mine if we didn't take regular preventative action.

Peace

Jay

With my important niche sites/accounts etc...

We use a link cloaker, so we can go into the dashboard and quickly edit out the faulty CB I.D. and place a new one in there.. works a charm and speeds up the process... not to mention hides ugly hoplinks

Peace

Jay

Hi Adam

I think we all have a beef with ClickBank in one way or another. I have experienced the same issues as you have with sales not getting properly credited. But my biggest beef as a ClickBank publisher is the "stupid" returns.

When I say "stupid" I'm referring to the reason for the return. ClickBank has refunded customers on more than one occassion with the customer's reason being "I don't know what I ordered."

2Checkout has a far supperior system where they work with the publisher and allow you to contact the customer and see if you can help, before simply issuing a refund.

So I am in the process of migrating all of my business over to PayPal and will be using PayDotCom to track my affiliates. Nothing is perfect, but I've had enough "stupid" for 2 lifetimes

Talk again soon.

Enjoy your day!
Terry

Apparently Jeremy is very true about this... see the rip off report:

Rip-off Report: Clickbank.com - Click Bank - CB - Affiliate Marketing WARNING: Clickbank.com Is Stealing Money From Affiliates - Click Bank Shaves Commission Boise Idaho

I can't imagine Clickbank doing this, if they don't stop ripping people off, I'm afraid people will start to file law suit against them, very soon!

Meanwhile, we just have to keep creating new accounts!

I started with clickbank years ago and heard these same stories back then. Yet clickbank has grown bigger then ever.

I have had the same account since day one and the past 3 weeks have been my best this year so far. So no need to change accounts here.

Why keep bitching about it with these threads if you don't like clickbank just move on to some other program.

And doesn't this break rule #1? Or I guess clickbank is the exception.

Maybe someone should do a little investigative work, find the direct phone numbers and addresses for the top guys at CB and start sending them package, after package, after package and call after call after call.

A few weeks of that, especially if it is signed-received mail would wear anyone thin

Then the senders would also have proof that it has been received.

Does anyone live near the CB headquarters? Maybe drop in with a camera for an interview and actually ask what the hell is going on, with paper printout proof in hand. Dateline NBC style, like when they catch the perverts in the act trying to get with kids.



James

Another blog post and comments about clickbank...

The Clickbank Mafia | Clickbank Is Stealing My Money | Tatumba.com

I have heard the same in my circle of friends that CB is less than perfectly honest, and I'm sure there is fraud in some form there. But how can we cure the problem when we have no control over the situation? I woud dread being a newbie and spending a whole lot of money (which newbies often cannot afford to lose) on advertising only to get my click-throughs ripped off. Man, that really sucks.

If people are unsatisfied with clickbank either as affiliates or people selling their own products, I would strongly recommend PAYDOTCOM.com... it has a great repuatation so far and they use paypal as their trusted payment system which makes buyers feel extremely safe... i've made several commissions from marketing affiliate products with their system and i've also tested their system on several occasions... haven't been let down yet (btw im not affiliated with their company, just a fan lol...)

Why don't I hear much about CJ (commission junction)?

Is Clickbank a Warrior, Guru, or God? No.

hey there ... I'm having the same problem.

I use prosper 202 to track all my sales through clickbank and this afternoon when I imported all my SUBIDS to check my traffic refers I;m showing different stats from CB

Has anyone had this problem using prosper 202 and CB ??

ClickBank is a sleazy organization. They do everything in their power to claw back affiliate commissions. I really do not know how they get away with their CDR policy.

Further, on my blog I have affiliate marketers who earn in excess of $1,000,000 commissions from ClickBank, accusing ClickBank of outright fraud.

Just checked you PayGear.com it is nothing more than a paydotcom.com clone but with more payment options.

So far there is not a competitor to cb. e-junkie, paydotcom, etc... are all based on you handling your own payments through your own payment processor. None of them keep payout affiliates for you, send them the correct tax forms, take payment for you etc...

CB is the only game in town at the moment. Although, I'm working on changing that, and suspect quite a few other people are too.

James

A lot of conjecture here and a very serious issue that needs resolution.

Apparently the problem is:

1) Criminal Acts at CB (either the co or an employee)
2) Criminal Acts outside of CB (cyber crime)
3) Incompetence at CB (sometimes negligence can turn criminal through subsequent actions)
4) Some combination of the above

They always say "follow the money". So who benefits, can it be proven and who can prove it.

The product provider has no way to influence payments so their off the hook, customers are apparently receiving what they paid for so they too are innocent, the affiliates are the ones screaming so they aren't doing it, CB (the Co) could benefit but they're also losing sales & affiliates to their competition but they could be incompetent or a criminal (inside or outside of the Co).

So where's the proof? Currently there is none.

Who can find out? Probably the FBI, a big league lawsuit (where someone fronts big bucks for the investigation and CB itself (if they're not incompetent or have liability). If the FBI investigates it, you won't know of the investigation for years and it'll be more years before they acknowledge it or arrest the criminals. Nobody can afford to investigate and gain access to the necessary records except the FBI. So you have to complain to the FBI and local US attorneys.

The other choice, since individual lawsuits are impractical, is to bring pressure on CB to clean up the mess. First you would have to trust them to do so, it would help if they acknowledge that there was a problem and you trusted them to properly fix things along with notifying you of the outcome.

That said, it seems like the most practical course of action for you is 1) move your business elsewhere 2) stay with the current status quo or 3) file complaints with the government investigative agencies.

Looks like doing either 1) or 2) along with the bonus action of 3) is one practical solution.

Good Luck All,
Pat

Geez aren't you guys afraid of getting sued by Clickbank one day for posting slanderous threads about them "ripping affiliates off"?

I just opened up a new account and swicthed one of my products over, lets see what happens.

John,
I think there is sense in what Jonstein said. I equally believe that Clikbank has nothing to gain by duping you of your hard earned commission. doing so will tantamount to self destruction. We should try to appeal to some savvy marketers who are in the habit of using re-direction programming to avoid commission payment

Can someone recommend a link cloaker that makes it easy to switch out the hop links?
Thanks

Hi,

I think it would be a useful experience to launch a class action (as mentioned above) against the entity being discussed here. It might even do some good. Does anyone have such experience?

Cheers,

Steve

I believe not being credited as an affiliate is part of the business risks. If you think it happens to you, find ways to overcome this - as Jeremy proposed: create new CB accounts (assuming it works) or you can create your own products. Or you can dump CB totally.

Isn't that picture classic?

That is the story of my life, but Clickbank (about a month ago) told me I wasn't professional with my complaining and will no longer help me. It's apparently "unprofessional" to call them liars when they BS me with their "there's nothing wrong, check your campaign" and they also don't like it when you say you can prove there is a problem through simple statistical analysis.

I have noticed irregularities with my CB commissions for years. So this is nothing new. I even saw a thread a while ago here where product owner actually came out and admitted that many of their sales should have been affiliate sales but were not being registered as such by CB.

Here is just a thought i had that hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet (I don't think
so anyway). Clickbank has a merchant account with a bank to process orders, and if
their refund rate or chargeback rate goes too high they have a danger of losing their
merchant account and not being able to accept orders anymore. Clickbank has always
had way more stricter standards with credit card sales than any other site I know of
online, probably because of so many crap products in their marketplace. There have always been reports of people saying they are not able to order because of problems
with their credit card. I would be curious to know what the average refund rate is for
the people who are saying their sales start up again when opening new accounts. Maybe
it could be possible that their refund rate is reaching a certain plateau where there
account is being placed under stricter standards with the credit card processing and
sales are getting denied. When they open a new account, they are placed under the
normal credit card standards again until they reach the refund rate again that will place
them into the stricter standards again. Not saying this is happening at all, but at the
moment I can't think of anything else, and with all of the people that have reported
over the past several years about trying to order and not being able to with their
credit card, this may be another possibility.

Wayne, That's a very good point and that sort of thing is probably playing out anyway, but I don't believe it is the problem. The reason I believe that is due to the fact that it has to be consistent. It wouldn't produce a great week of sales and a week of zeros. It would be consistent.

After reading this entire thread, and reading that CB is aware of the thread
but has chosen not to respond I'm wondering if they're going through some
kind of major systems problem or some form of system sabotage
or perhaps a cyber attack.

They could be frantically putting out fires as they pop by you all reporting
inconsistencies in payment behavior... plus trying to correct the system at
the same time. If this is the case it would definitely behoove them to not go
public until "after'" the problem is fixed. Otherwise it would become a nightmare
as they would be swamped with calls/complaints.

I'm not condoning their actions in whatever case. It's just another idea of what
could be the problem.

Many companies choose not to announce a system problem until it's resolved.

The only other conclusion I could draw from this is something of a more dire nature.
And that's the possibility they have been impacted negatively by this economy!!

Carol

this totally sucks, how can they get away with this s.it

I posted this in the other thread but it was closed so I will post it here:

Clickbank is not purposely ripping people off, it's just their tracking and payment system is terrible.

In an effort to curb payment from fraudulent credit cards they have overcompensated by temporarily shutting down accounts if something suspicious happens. So this means all it takes is one suspicious payment to stop all sales to your account.

This explains why when people change accounts their sales magically reappear.

After testing selling the same products through different affiliate networks it became IMMEDIATELY clear that Clickbank was missing out on significant conversions.

The most troubling aspect of this ordeal is it has been going on for so long that I question if Clickbank even cares. Surely if they did the company would have done something about it by now.

I think what it has come down to is they would rather have affiliates make less money as long as they can prevent fraudulent payments. And if this mean affiliates missing out on sales then so be it.

I want to come in again here and say that it is NOT just affiliates for whom the sales are not being tracked correctly. Vendors too are suffering the same situation. As stated previously, I have a product as a vendor that showed consistent sales conversions solid as a rock and now, traffic in the thousands and zero sales. I mean, c'mon!

And like many others, I've also seen a drop in affiliate sales from different acounts.

My dilemma, as I've posted before, is that I want to switch my product outside CB, but I have affiliates who have links on their sites/blogs and it would seem unfair for me to take my product off CB as I have no way of contacting most of them.

I have purchased Post Affiliate Pro Version 4 now to run my own affiliate program for various products, but I feel bad about letting affiliates down if I move my product to my own affiliate program without being able to contact them to let them know.

No easy answer. What would you do?

Its true that E-junkie are among the few out there that dont rip you off. But i thought they require you to pay for their services. Like there is a membership fee...not

You know what is REALLY funny? What most people still want to promote is CB products. They want to hear nothing of PayDotCom.

I have said before and I'll say it again - if you're making 100 sales a day, you probably wouldn't notice if you lost 30 sales.

Fabian

I think Steven W.'s test offers the most clarity and best ansswer to this whole thread, as do almost all his posts. It's really great to have you onboard this forum, Steven, thanks