Be careful who you promote

Recently I was ripprd off of several months worth of recurring affiliate commissions. I had been promoting a particular web hosting company for over 3 years without any problems, but earlier this year they stopped sending my checks.

I emailed them several times and always was assured that they were only having temporary mixups but would issue my check soon.

This went on for some time. Last week, I learned from a friend of mine that the owner of the company had emailed him in reply to his own questions about not getting paid and was told that the affiliate program had been closed “awhile” ago and that no money was owed. In fact, the owner actually took down the affiliate stats page so that we were no longer even able to check our past sales.

Long story short, I will never see the money owed to me and the lesson is that one always has to be careful about who you are promoting. That’s why I like affiliate networks such as ClickBank, Linkshare, and Commission Junction. Networks like these make it much less likely that you will have problems getting paid or ever being ripped off.