http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000581409&tstart=0&mod=1212642571078 I wouldn't bank on the "make goods" being as good as we think they might be though
Of course there were. I personally signed up 4 friends/family, activated the account and bidded. Only two were recorded. eBay HAD to deny there was a problem. At least it's being looked into now. I assume it has been a known issue but now that they admit there is a problem, they will indeed be under a lot of pressure from ALL affiliates to get this resolved.
Now I wonder if there's any way for us to backtrack and find out if there were any CRUs recorded where bids were placed at a later date?
So this is why I'm eating 40 cents noodles for dinner? With the amount of money and resources that eBay have at their disposable, I'm amazed that they can't manage a simple affiliate program. At least they've owned up to it... A simple "it's not you, it's me" would have sufficed - but frankly, it's too little, too late. I've already lost interest in EPN.
"We are bringing in a third party not involved in the original development to do a full, independent end-to-end test of our tracking system" That MUST be an admission that something is wrong, or at least that they are taking affiliate complaints seriously (which means in turn that there are enough of them to recognise there must be something wrong). Well, I don't care too much about make-goods, just that they get it fixed. Unlike some I WANT to stay in the eBay program...
You guys miss the fact that ebay still has made hundreds of thousands of dollars on you without paying you a dime. You have driven traffic to ebay, you have spent your valuable time yet have ended up in a hole for last two months or so... who is going to recompense that? Demand a reward of at least a thousand of dollars to its top-paid affiliates from ebay. Demand it. It's not enough for ebay to say: "We are looking into the problem". Or really? You have cheated your affiliates out of their money because of your unprofessionalism, how about apologizing to them by giving them a good bonus check? I said it before and I will say it again: the Internet has given a temporary protection to the companies like ebay, they need to understand that they will be out of bisness in the next five years if they do not realize that they deal with real people and those people need to be respected like they would have been, had they come to a real ebay store somewhere on Manhattan.
I must agree with you completly, vitalbusiness. Ebay made a mistake, is making a mistake, and who knows how many dollars they didn't pay us with this glitch on the system!! I'm begining to think if the rest (comissions and clicks) are working ok.
You guys should understand that ebay (and I should add many other similar internet companies) are american based which means that they still have to abide by the american laws, code of ethics, etc. In this world bloggers can make or break companies if they want to. If today everyone would start saying "do not purchase on ebay" and blog about it giving the company a terrible reputation, if the radio talk show hosts would start saying that ebay sucks, guess what would happen to them in a year or so down the road? That's right they would be REALLY struggling to stay afloat. Keep in mind, a company with a billion dollar revenue has a lot of obligations on every front. A company like that falls down faster than some small business owner would. Today they may feel like a god tomorrow they can be reduced to nothing. I think there should be created offices that defend the rights of affiliates. And in cases like this one they should have the right to sue the companies for mismanaging their services and getting a profit from the affiliates without sharing the revenue. We need american based lawyers to take care of it. I hope some of the lawyers will stand up to the challenge and start defend the rights of the affiliates, because it has been long overdue. Any lawyers here?
I'm making hundreds of dollars per day from the Ebay Affiliate Program - and I don't see why everyone's complaining.
Lucky you. I AM in favour of eBay being held accountable to its affiliates. I just don't buy the idea that they are under any illusions that a big screw-up like this will benefit them in some way. A lot of people are going around claiming that eBay is laughing all the way to the bank having ripped of its affiliates. Well, they're not stupid, they need their affiliates and no serious company is going to risk its reputation in this way. Now, would I object to a nice make-good cheque at the end of the month..? That's another matter...