Long story short, an affiliate program that I've been a part of for awhile terminated my account on pay day this month so they wouldn't have to pay me. They made up a bogus rule about coupon codes that was never stated. They don't have any program terms stated and they owe me around $1000. What should I do?
Open a huge bot net on their network, get them "swatted", ruin their personal lives with mail orders from websites you shouldn't be ordering from etc. They will pay.
If they have a ghost identity online you can't do anything bad to their personal identity. If you make a revenge like a botnet or to pay someone to DDos them even this isn't a good thing. Momentally you are the victim and might you think you can't do nothing , maybe you will fail also in the step i will tell you. Contact to they , explain why they ripped you maybe something goes wrong with you if you rreally feel you didn't make any mistake you have to play bad , make to they a pressure people feel conscious when they are under pressure and make the right decission to save their ass. Talk about they i will share negative opinions with facts that you are running a fake program. Say if i needed a month to work to get those money i will spend 2 months saying everywhere you are a scam program and people will not choose you anymore. If even this won't help you its in your hand what to do they are not google or facebook they also can feel bad like you , if you know what i mean.
If you read the terms of service of pretty much any affiliate program, they will say things like they can terminate you for any reason and withhold your accrued commissions. Also, they pretty much state they can change rules whenever they want. They structure the agreement so they have all the power and you are powerless. I don't like that idea myself. I have read horror stories about affiliates being terminated and losing $50,000 in accrued commissions. About your only option is to name the affiliate program so people can use that as a factor into whether or not they want to do business with them. Of all the complaints I have seen about affiliate terminations and commission forfeiture, never once has the affiliate admitted they did something wrong, illegal, or unethical. There are two sides to every story. $1,000 is not enough to go to small claims court over, anyway. Also included in many affiliate programs' terms are clauses like if you sue them, you have to do so in a court of their choosing (meaning you might have to travel) or that you waive any right to sue and must go through arbitration, in which case you could lose even more money.
Well that's what I was upset about was that there were no terms and conditions at all stated. You sign up and you get a link and that was about it. Also on my site with over 40 different products, this is the only company that tried to pull this BS. I've been working full time as an affiliate for almost 6 years so I don't mess around with any blackhat or grayhat stuff. I really wish there was a database or forum which brought more attention to what affiliate programs are good and bad. In speaking to my friend who is a lawyer, if a company had enough complaints, it could result in a class action suit.
By sharing your story with the program name on forums like this you'll probably get their attention, I'm sure they don't want any bad publicity on popular webmasters boards. Forget about "small claims court" and similar routes, you'll only waste your time.