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Infolinks.com stole my money

Discussion in 'Pay Per Click Advertising' started by exoticpublishing, Mar 22, 2015.

  1. #1
    So I've been with infolinks.com for years since 2010, & every time you add a site, they have to manually approve it. If they don't, you have to fix the issue & only then will they let the site's links go live.

    I had TONS of sites listed with them including a few (around 3) adult ones. They weren't real adult, meaning they weren't porn, they just talked business about a niche within the adult industry.

    I just found out that they shut down my account with NO WARNING & stole all my money.

    They had approved those sites years ago & NOT ONCE did they write to me to say their Terms & Conditions had changed & I needed to remove the links from my sites, instead they stole my money & shut down my account for ALL my sites 95% which weren't adult at all.

    Be aware this site is now considered a scam in my books.

    Any company that approves your site & then blames you for committing fraud when you haven't is a scam!

    Before when there was a problem with one of my non adult sites they just removed that one site. Here they didn't, they just stole my money & closed my account.

    Whether you are running an adult site or you abhore the adult industry is not the issue, what you should care about is how infolinks.com handled the situation.

    I even wrote to them furious & again they blamed me instead of taking any responsibility for their own actions. They were the ones responsible because they must have been caught for allowing adult sites when they shouldn't have been allowing them.

    I never even got an e-mail saying adult sites were no longer allowed.

    If anyone knows how or where to report this site for fraudulent scammy behavior please let me know.

    Thank you


    Michelle
     
    exoticpublishing, Mar 22, 2015 IP
  2. lukey372

    lukey372 Notable Member

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    #2
    Unfortunately if you read their TOS it states they do not allow these kinds of sites. SO NO it's not their fault it's your fault for applying to a network that does not allow these kinds of sites. Would you run adult ads on an Adsense account if you had one approved? I think the answer would be NO here.

    Sure but how easy is it to change the content and overall design of a website and not only that but pick up dropped / expired domains. Anyway this is just my two bits. No they did not scam you, no they did not take your money (which wasn't yours in the first place) so you should suck it up, learn to read the TOS / FAQ of a website and get over it.
     
    lukey372, Mar 22, 2015 IP
  3. aassociatehit

    aassociatehit Well-Known Member

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    #3
    For any network it does not take 5 years to find that out, how come that user were getting paid since 2010 and got ban now ? simple answer is now infolinks trying to get rid of payment they owe to their users and that is why they banning more and more account for no reason and no payment.

    This may be a wake up call for more webmaster to be careful with such network, if they can ban a user which they had for 2010, then anyone can get ban.

    There are always ways to short out things with user, specially such an old user, if they had such issue then they should contact user rather just banning account and not paying.



     
    aassociatehit, Mar 22, 2015 IP
  4. exoticpublishing

    exoticpublishing Well-Known Member

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    #4
    Brains much?

    THEY ALLOWED MY SITES FROM THE GETGO. LEARN HOW TO READ ENGLISH!

    In fact, they have seen my sites many a times when I contacted them re: issues with my sites.

    Oh AND I just did a search on their original agreement & the word ADULT doesn't come up in there.

    If they in fact changed their Terms & Conditions, they did NOT notify me of that & I just checked my e-mail, there was no such e-mail stating they changed their T&C & giving us all a summary of what the changes are.

    I'll repeat AGAIN, all they had to do was ask me nicely to take down the links & I would have.

    I CAN'T READ PEOPLE'S MINDS. I'm glad you can though. You are AWESOME!
     
    exoticpublishing, Mar 22, 2015 IP
  5. exoticpublishing

    exoticpublishing Well-Known Member

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    #5
    Contact info for www.infolinks.com

    Infolinks Inc.
    Owner: Oren Dobronsky
    Owner Address: 2058 Sandalwood ct.
    Owner City: Palo Alto
    Owner Postcode: 94303
    Phone Number: 16506463687 [​IMG]
    Phone Type: mobile :palo Alto, CA T-mobile Usa, Inc.
    Email:
     
    exoticpublishing, Mar 22, 2015 IP
  6. exoticpublishing

    exoticpublishing Well-Known Member

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    #6
    Thank you. Much appreciated for being smart & not attacking me.

    Please read my post above, I even did a search on their original agreement. It was in an e-mail so it was easy to search the word "adult." Nothing there.

    It's not worth it to go after these assholes b/c I barely made any money & while I thought it was just me, a search on another forum told me others make no money off of them either.

    It's the principal of the matter. They show lack of integrity, professionalism & like you said, are just using any excuse to shut down accounts & pocket the money.
     
    exoticpublishing, Mar 22, 2015 IP
  7. lukey372

    lukey372 Notable Member

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    #7
    Well if that's the way you think call them, they have a contact number on their website.
    Or shoot your account manager a call, they don't hide anything they have been around since 2001.
     
    lukey372, Mar 22, 2015 IP
  8. exoticpublishing

    exoticpublishing Well-Known Member

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    #8
    Maybe I will, although the phone number I found & did call was just Oren Dobronsky telling everyone to e-mail him & don't leave a message. But what's the point? If they were assholes in the e-mail, chances are they will just continue to blame me for their actions. I don't tolerate people who blame others for their mistakes.

    It's unfortunate, but most of these types of companies are like that. Even Google closed my YT account about 2 years ago claiming I violated their T&C when I hadn't. I had had the same professional looking adult commercial video (no nudity) up since long before Google even bought out YT, plus others in my industry have videos live that are sleazy & cheap looking.

    One thing I've learned about most companies online is that they are control freaks who don't evaluate accounts on a case by case basis. They are trigger happy with the delete button instead of being professional & reaching out to the account holder & actually communicating.

    People will say they can't do that b/c they have too many account holders & I say that's BS. We are their customer (even if we aren't paying anything), we should be treated with respect. Just b/c others are scamming the system doesn't mean the next person is.

    The difference with Google is I had no money owing to me & I wasn't using that account for my mainstream business videos.

    Thanks
     
    exoticpublishing, Mar 22, 2015 IP
  9. wrekoniz3

    wrekoniz3 Well-Known Member

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    #9
    So you had ton's of sites, and a few adult? but not so adult? Did you know adult sites were against the TOS when you brought the few adult sites to them? If you knew it wasn't allowed, but they approved it, you have to have felt like you were taking a gamble. Because you honestly were. Unfortunately today, buyers are even more stringent on brand safety than ever before. Its realistically possible that they lost an advertiser or campaign because they were running a campaign on your adult-ish sites.

    Also,pretty sure according to their tos they do not have to notify you of changes to their TOS. If you know that a company reserves the right to update their TOS, might be a good idea to check it?

    Also, pretty sure their tos is going to contain verbage holding the right to deactivate an account with out warning, for any breach.

    Yes they could be responsible for allowing adult sites when they shouldn't be, I would say that is a valid claim, however - you are getting paid on a RevShare - meaning you get paid a portion of what they get paid - so if you are going to claim they stole your money etc - you have to actually proove they got paid, good luck with that. If this panned out where advertisers were unhappy with the adult inventory (which was most likely agreed on not to be served by infolinks) then its probable that the advertisers demanded a full refund. Meaning that if you get a revshare... of lets say 70% ... you would be getting 70% of $0 which is $0 and in order to prove that they are a scam and all your extra vocabulary then you would need to prove that they got paid. Otherwise its just slander (ie. another reason for you not to get paid).

    Unfortunate situation either way, I think it would have been the right thing for the company to have just bit the bullet on this one, and paid you.
     
    wrekoniz3, Mar 23, 2015 IP
  10. exoticpublishing

    exoticpublishing Well-Known Member

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    #10

    No, didn't know at all. I'm not the type to gamble like that. I know how dysfunctional people in the US & online are about anything to do with adult. Had they told me back then it wasn't allowed, I just wouldn't have inserted the links on my sites. I mean they saw the sites. They knew they were there, I had at least 2-3 people look over my entire account when I first got started with them b/c they were small back then.

    In fact while I can't find an e-mail with them stating my sites were allowed, I have a feeling I asked them prior to signing up b/c I remember being excited that they allowed them. I have a feeling I spoke to someone on the phone about it.

    If a company is professional, they WILL notify all of their users that their T&C have changed, ESPECIALLY if they know they had adult sites & they took this big step of not allowing them. I get these T&C change e-mails every so often from other companies & some of these companies even highlight what they have changed. I value those types of professional clear well run companies the best. They are the types of companies I respect.

    Infolinks was clearly hiding the fact that they changed their terms. They may deny that, but I'll stick to my opinion on that one.

    To clear one thing up you assumed, I wasn't talking about them stealing my revenue from the adult sites, I was talking about stealing my money from my NON adult sites.

    I could have lived with them stealing the adult site revenue although I still don't agree with it b/c they are at fault here, not I, as I didn't do anything wrong, but to steal my other money AND shut down my account (that's another issue), speaks volumes about how unethical they are, how immature & unprofessional they are.

    If they lost an advertiser b/c they allowed my sites, that's on them, that's not on me. I don't run infolinks. If I did, this never would have happened, as I strive to run my company in the most professional manner given my circumstances.

    Also while I get your point of view about reading T&C, I don't have time to read the T&C for EVERY SINGLE SITE I belong to every week to see if the bloody company decided to change their terms.

    Infolinks never made me a lot of money & they weren't even in the forefront of my mind.

    My anger is about how they handled this entire mess & how they continue to call me a fraudster when nothing could be further from the truth. I don't tolerate immature people who blame others for their mistakes. I only deal with mature sane people for this very reason. That's in m personal & business life.

    Thanks for asking the questions that others may have been wondering about.


    Michelle
     
    exoticpublishing, Mar 24, 2015 IP
  11. exoticpublishing

    exoticpublishing Well-Known Member

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    #11
    Sorry to hear that.

    So I guess I have to search for another competitor of infolinks & I'll DEMAND to know how they inform their users of changes to their T&C.

    And btw, while on this topic, I just got TWO notices today from both Groupon & Amazon about changes to their T&C.

    Does anyone have any suggestions for a good replacement to infolinks?

    Just saw this banner ad on here http://propellerads.com/ - anyone?
     
    exoticpublishing, Mar 25, 2015 IP
  12. exoticpublishing

    exoticpublishing Well-Known Member

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    #12
    So I had just wrote to Propeller Ads & I just wrote to Revenue Hits, but they have NO information about where they are located, who owns, the company, etc. which is a red flag for me.

    Also if you feel these 2 are good, then why were you using infolinks?
     
    exoticpublishing, Mar 25, 2015 IP
  13. wrekoniz3

    wrekoniz3 Well-Known Member

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    #13
    He thinks they are good cause he is sending you a referral link. Thats how it works.

    Shoot me a PM with a few URL's of your try to send me the controversial urls also. I work here at PremiumCPM and would be happy to evaluate if we are a valid option for you.
     
    wrekoniz3, Mar 25, 2015 IP