In terms of reality creation it might not be the best way to revive a website after a looong time with an angry RANT *lol*, but if someone kicks me in an unfriendly and illegit way, I kick back.
Many of you will know Clickbank. They still are one of the biggest payment processors on the net and spezialized in affiliate products. Their system is old and simple to use and one of THE standards if you want to sell digital products or earn some cash as an affiliate by recommending other folks’ products on your website.
I had some “hoplinks” (as the affiliate links for clickbank products are called) on my sites (many of the products there are crap and heavily overprized, but there are some good ones as well) and made a sale here and there. Nothing much.
The last months I had different things to do, real life, cleared out some obstacles, came clear with a few decisions (like leaving Germany for good and making my eco-village project happen in Paraguay) - so I did not bother much about my websites and sales or clickbank and had left my small commissions sitting in my account there.
They have certain requirements for your first payout, and they only pay by check - so if you are not from the US its a good idea to wait until your commissions sum up a bit so that the banking fees for cashing the check do not eat up all of the check… …or so I thought.
Today I wanted to recommend “Money beyond Belief“ to my readers, a great course by Joe Vitale and Brad Yates, that combines reality creation, EFT and our all greed for money&success into a unique blend… cool program, …and sold via Clickbank.
So I logged into my CB account to set up my affiliate link - and found the account empty. Zero.
After I sifted through their FAQs and the not-so-self-explanatory “codes” for the charges in my account history (five bucks here, one buck there…) I found they have “fees” for “dormant accounts” which heavily ramp up over time. So if your account is inactive for some time, they start stealing your money until it is gone. Without warning or notice.
OK - I lost about 30 bucks, so no big drama - but this way of doing business is something I still do not understand and something I strongly dislike. You prevent someone from withdrawing his money by imposing strange regulations and limiting payment options (hey, checks are from the stoneages…) - and then, after it has earned you (CB, of course) some interest, you just take it away completely.
I found MANY similar reports all over the net - I am not the only one. How many millions has Clickbank made by stealing the commissions of their small and not-so-successful affiliates? Don’t ask.
So - if you are a blogger like me or any other kind of affiliate marketer: have an eye or two on your CB account.
Or even better: do not open one.
STAY AWAY FROM CLICKBANK.
Popularity: 26% [?]
Thank you for the info. I am new with Clickbank, so it’s good to know. In general it sounds like unfair business practices, which is a good reason to file a complaint with the FTC.
But the question now is: if not Clickbank, that who? CJ? Are they better?
September 12, 2008
well, Rita - sometimes its hard to swallow the truth (*grin* - you have some things about that on your site).
Lets face it: most players in the “make money” game are not your spiritual awakened, mentally sane and in-a-state-of-relaxed-universal-love human being. Most are greedy corporations, not driven by delivering something useful, but by raking in as much as possible, by whatever means.
Clickbank is ok - if you keep monitoring your account, read all their legal mumbojumbo when you sign up and be on your watch. Same goes for most affiliate programs. The big ones cheat you, the small ones often have crappy tracking software so you get no sales even if you refer plenty.
If you are like me and prefer doing business in an “acceptable” way - there are many reasons to dislike AdSense or Amazon, but they work well for me and never cheated me out of commissions.
They pay my hosting + X - with minimal effort on my part.
But my focus for the future will be very simple: sell my own products and services. Real stuff, where I am in control of my own business practices.
September 25, 2008
Update: Link fixed. Being upset about CB should not hinder you from checking out “Money beyond Belief“. I broke the link when trying to avoid CB. Now click along and lern some EFT put to VERY good use! :)
I have actually experienced some loss due to inactivity. I did receive the check ($183) but was not able to encash due to financial incapacity to open up a dollar account in the Philippines. Check got stale and one was reissued. At this time there was still about $20 left in my account which got depleted due to the dormancy fees. Check got stale again and several times I’ve emailed them for over 2 years now but still they won’t even email me back. I said they can check and the money has not been taken. Yet, they do nothing.
Hello,
I noticed your headline: “A Scrapbook on Brainwaves, …. other fascinating phenomenons of the Human Mind.” and thought I’d tell you that the plural form of phenomenon is “phenomena”.
Keep up the sharing .. Devin
Hi Devin - thanks! Since English is not my first language, I consulted Collins Pro dictionary and they gave both options, - ‘phenomenons’ being the more “recent” one. And since I am all for cultural decay, *lol*, I chose that one… Btw - since it is originally borrowed from Greek, was abused in late Latin and even worse by Kant, I did not care too much anyways…
;-)
Oh, and I took the liberty to fix your link - usually dot works better than colon, at least in that context… :)
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