I used to do some clickbank affiliate selling but stopped for a couple of years and always just thought any residual sales would be tallied and a check sent at some point. Instead, clickbank changed its rules and between the "customer distribution requirement" and the "doormant accounts policy" managed to confiscate every bit of $137 in commissions. The really seedy part here is that I had to have met the CDR before the rules were changed. I guess previous sales did not count toward the requirement. Here's the irony. Clickbank says these policies are in place to prevent affiliates from cheating the system. Yet they have no reservations at all about taking money from small affiliates trying to earn a little extra money. Oh well, It's their world. Got to watch them like a hawk I guess. I messed up by merely trusting them. Hopefully, it won't happen again.
Think about if you ran a business with outstanding monies owed. You need to mitigate the risk somewhat. I'm glad CB do it. If they didn't, they would be a much less stable company.
What risk? What monies owed? The money was collected from the customer and the vendor share was paid. Other than that it is mainly just an arbitrary way to keep commissions so as not to inconvenience Clickbank by having to hold the commissions indefinitely. It is punitive, don't you think? The sale would never have taken place without the affiliate. Don't you think that might make them worth the herculean effort to hold onto their money in good faith until whatever arbitrary hoops have been jumped through. Hey, I'm not naive enough to think anything will change but I don't have to like it and do not see how any affiliate would. Got any affiliates here?
I like the CDR requirement but the dormant account is bull. The affiliate earns that money and it shouldn't matter how long it takes to the paycheck.
To be fair to them (even though they're not fair with us!), the customer distribution requirement does actually inhibit many people from cheating the system, and it's probably not a bad idea (even though there are ways round it). Absolutely, the dormant account thing is grotesquely unreasonable and absolutely brazen and quite shameless, and in my opinion it tells you a lot about the kind of people you're dealing with and what their integrity-level is. I'm afraid so. I wish they had better competition. I bet that someone else genuinely and reliably providing the exact service that Clickbank are unreliably providing would change their behaviour a bit!
There are other affiliate networks that do what clickbank does. The problem is, none of them have the affiliate audience/userbase that clickbank does for it's marketplace. Do what the rest of us are doing. Take advantage of their marketplace to gain an affiliate following, then move to a better network and bring your affiliates with you. Or even smarter, don't join another network, just launch your own affiliate system with affiliates that trust you using PayPal or some other payment processor. With PayPal for example, the payments are instant so no waiting on checks and DDs from Clickbank. You can scale your campaigns IMMEDIATELY. Bah, I just realized where I'm posting this.... Disregard everything I just said.
Boo hoo. They state their CDR and dormant account policies up front. You don't like it - don't sign up with CB. It's that simple.
No DLM. My balance existed before the terms were changed. Why not give me the balance and then let me decide if I want to stay or not. That would have been the decent thing to do. My guess is that they collected a ton of those fees from casual users like myself.
I had some money left in my Clickbank account and can't get it out because it didn't hit the threshhold, but I banked on it being gone because Clickbank is nothing but a fraud who never looks into their blatant issues (cookie theft/overwriting, etc). Just cut your losses and use a real affiliate program.
I hear you, and a court would certainly hear you, but I'm afraid that may be too subtle a point for our friend Dlm to appreciate.
It is not unreasonable at all. Clickbank is a business, not a bank for hobbyists who want to claim their $100 in earnings 20 years after earning it. The terms are stated up-front quite clearly.
They are now, yes. The problem we're discussing here is the fact that they're also applying those terms to people to whom they were not "stated up-front quite clearly" (or in fact at all!) when they opened their accounts and earned the money to which they're applying those terms.
They can, of course. But just because something's imposed as a contractual clause, that doesn't mean that a court will uphold it. However, it's not going to get tested in court, and Clickbank are of course relying on that (just as many companies rely on "deterrent clauses" that their lawyers have carefully inserted in their agreements with individuals who won't be willing to test them in court). It speaks reams about their integrity, doesn't it, that for the sake of a few bucks, they seek to impose some crap like that retrospectively on the people with whom they do business?
It's still a perverse system. CB is making money on that outstanding money - how can they CHARGE money for MAKING money? The longer you let them hold on to your cash - the more money you're actually giving them. Why should you have to pay?
I don't see the problem. If you actually USE your Clickbank account there is no issue. If you haven't made a sale in 6 months (and haven't reached your minimum payment threshold) you probably shouldn't be complaining.
Clickbank is such a scam! I'm a newbie selling things online and after hard work made about $50 in commission selling a book that I wrote, and within a few months the $50 was gone, clickbank deducted $5 each month! I will never use clickbank EVER AGAIN! Can someone tell me if Click2sell is the same? Any other companies I can use to start an affiliate program for my products?
Clickbank has it's upside and downside... just like every service out there really. I must say that they have never missed a payment for me, and I always get my cheque every two weeks like clockwork. However... I HAVE run into some VERY BIG problems that cost affiliates HUGE commissions, if they don't know about it. I have created a video to show how YOU MIGHT BE GETTING JACKED by clickbank, but I just discovered this forum and don't have enough posts to put a link here yet. If you would like to see my FREE video on " how clickbank might be jacking you " just PM me and I'll send you the link. I am not bashing clickbank. I LOVE clickbank. I made my first affiliate commission with them... and for years now my cheques keep getting bigger, and they've never missed a SINGLE sale owed to me. However this issue needs to be addressed. I sent them a copy of the video too. We'll see what they say ! cheers Jeff