Scammers and rule breakers - its time merchants shared their experiences...

[Miche]

Hi fellow merchants!

I'm the Affiliate Marketing Manager at Dial-a-Phone, and have been
involved with affiliates and used the a4uforum for some time now, but
wanted to post a thread that was aimed at bringing this specific area
into greater use!

I figured that given the amount of time affiliates spend chatting to
one another it would be beneficial to encourage the same between
the merchants, allowing us to share our experiences and be of help to
one another (where we can!).

As a starting point I thought I could explain some of the issues
Dial-a-Phone have had with activity on the programme, leaving it then
up to you to decide what action you'd like to take should you find the
same on yours!

Understandably what is deemed to be unethical or bad practice is
down to the individual merchants, and I'd like to point out that 95% of
our affiliates have been fantastic, really helping us to make the
programme successful.

Below are the following proposed topics:

1) A list of affiliates that have been removed from your programmes
(if you are comfortable disclosing them)
2) Examples of unethical activity to watch out for!
3) Useful links/tools to help monitor affiliate activity, as it is important
that you do your own investigations as well as those checks performed by your
affiliate network (whom have hundreds of merchants to manage so cant
have their eyes everywhere!).
__________________________________________________ _____________

Affiliates removed from our programme:

So to start... since re-commencing our programme in February this year,
we have removed the following:

www.travelpicks.co.uk
- we found an affiliate of theirs using 180 solutions spyware

www.adsingular.com
- investigation showed this affiliate to be linked with the use of hotbar spyware

__________________________________________________ _____________

Unethical activity:

Purchasing the merchants main URL without the "." after "www".

So for example on Dial-a-Phone we found "wwwdialaphone.com"
and "wwwdialaphone.co.uk" had been registered by an affiliate.

The traffic is then redirected (via the affiliate tracking) to your
main site.

The affiliate therefore gains commission for doing NO work, and
there's the added expense of what would be a free user/customer
costing the merchant the commission value.

I cannot think of any merchants who would agree to this activity
as it holds no benefit for them. With trademark protection the process
for retrieving these domains is simple and inexpensive, there is no
need to have your legal teams involved.

Searches conducted this morning revealed a selection of well known
brands who currently have affiliates performing this activity!

> HMV
> Boots
> Asda
> Game
> RAC
> La Senza
> LX Direct
> Thorntons
> MFI

and the list goes on..

In order to retrieve the domains the process required is as follows:

- Contact the affiliate and make them aware of your trademark
protection.

For .co.uk
- addresses they will need to initiate a transfer of ownership from
Nominet
- they will then receive a form and will be required to fill out in full
the relevant section to them
- they then need to send this form to yourselves + 2 original signed
letters on headed paper stating that they are allowing the transfer
- this all then gets sent back to Nominet + a small fee for the transferral
(£30 + V.A.T)

For .com
- addresses you will need to find out with which registry the domain is
with, usually found via a www.whois.net search)
- you then have to request the transfer for the domain name
- the registry will then contact the affiliate who will need to accept
the transfer
- fees will be minimal and can vary with the differing registry's.

__________________________________________________ _____________

Useful link..

I have found the following site very useful for helping to investigate
activity:

http://www.siteadvisor.com/

It is currently undergoing a trial which runs automated tests to determine
if a site sends spam, tries to change your browser start page or search
settings, has multiple links to disreputable sites, or produces pop-up
advertisements.

It gives sites a tick, a caution rating, or a cross, based on the results
of the tests
__________________________________________________ ____


I hope you have found this of interest and look forward to everyone
adding their experiences so this can be built up as a really useful
reference point

kind rgds

Michelle
Affiliate Manager
www.dialaphone.co.uk
Affiliate.Manager@dialaphone.com

[Sammy aff]

Well I never!
I'm gonna make it my business now to run these dirty rats out of town and save you the trouble of hunting them down

[morleymouse]

Hi Michelle,

I actually thought that was quite useful and have PM'ed you about a few things. I've got a good list of dirty 'tricks' which some affiliates have tried but would rather not make these public knowledge!

[Elaine]

interesting - we only usually hear about networks and merchants not playing by the rules - I think it's a good idea to redress the balance although it's a pity you can't go into details of the 'dirty tricks' employed by affiliates - but understandable - might be a temptation too much for some lesser performing souls.

[morleymouse]

i've talked with a few networks and an agency about them, and people spotted doing them

but yes to make it available for all could be a bit risky and catch a few less prepared or inactive merchants off guard, especially with all the new affiliates coming into the industry - could be a bit too tempting to go for the quick buck

probably something for the private forum... but im not a member

[renegade]

Interesting post.

I've just done some searches on wwwmerchant domain names and there are dozens of them being redirected, the rest ending up on junk sites so it is a widespread practice with loads of different registrants.

The networks could easily make this practice known to new merchants - or even check for them when they sign up.

[dialtosave]

Dial a Phone are not all that ethical themselves. Here's an example of an ad campaign they used, but have thankfully agreed to stop doing now:

http://www.dialtosave.co.uk/dialaphone.gif

That screencap is from the beginning of July

[drivetowin]

Can't immediately see what's unethical about the dialaphone ad - if you haven't protected the name dialtosave in Google to stop people bidding on it then that's your problem - not theirs.

On a similar vein, my personal feel is that if any merchant of substance has not taken reasonable efforts to protect all possible variations of their domain name, they only have themselves to blame - it's not like domain names are anything new - and in the world of blue chip marketing budgets it's not like they cost a fortune either

[Energyhelpline]

Good to see someone come out and say openly that there is a problem. Too often affiliate managers are too scared to say so as their boss may decide that affiliate only turns in poor results anyway.

I have had quite severe problems over the past weeks with a number of rogue individuals on incentive / cash back sites. In one case an individual (let’s call him Jim Green from Ewell ) signed up for 43 identical transactions under the same name, address & email. Our quality team spotted it (not really difficult as most had been done over the course of 2 hours) and I got hold of the affiliate network who quickly got the affiliate removed. I got good feedback about what was being done to combat this in the future. I will let that affiliate back on the program is due course if he can prove QC has improved.

However over the next 3 days similar instances of attempted fraud turned up with another affiliate and in those cases I was effectively told ‘if you run a business you have to expect fraud’. Needless to say those affiliates have been kicked off, never to darken my doorstep again.

What I look for in a network or an affiliate is a two way relationship, feedback and action when something goes wrong. We are all in this together and unless we tighten up on the issue of fraud it will hurt us all. My QC manager will force me to reject more and more affiliates and networks and those decent ones will end up being tarred by the same brush by association.

[dialtosave]

Originally Posted by kbudden Can't immediately see what's unethical about the dialaphone ad - if you haven't protected the name dialtosave in Google to stop people bidding on it then that's your problem - not theirs.

Maybe it's not unethical. You may be right.

It just seemed a new concept for merchants to compete with the affiliates of other merchants, rather than competing directly with the other merchants.

But if that's how huge companies want to maintain their position against part time affiliates who are simply advertising a cheaper product, then fine.

Are affiliates really that bad? This post is really concerning from my side of the fence too.