Commission Junction has no obligation

Wow! Sounds like Commission Junction covers their own, while leaving you alone! Looks like everyone is S.O.L!


CJ wrote: Commission Junction cannot issue payments from advertisers unless the advertiser has adequately funded their account, as stated in the Publisher Service Agreement (http://www.cj.com/psa.html).

PSA Section 3(e) states: “CJ shall have no obligation to make payment of any Payouts for which CJ has not received payment from the relevant Advertiser of all monies due to CJ (including for all Payouts owed by such Advertiser to all of such Advertiser's Publishers).”

 

That's why you choose your advertisers carefully.

I wouldn't mess with an advertiser that does not have a bit of a track record there. All CJ is is a conduit for the advertisers and the publishers...

 

Why would they have an obligation? All they do is provide you a platform to find advertisers to advertise. Does eBay pay you when you buy an item but the seller doesn't ship it? When you work at a business that uses a third party payroll company to direct deposit your pay check... does that payroll company pay you if the company you work for doesn't pay them?

Basically CJ is just an intermediary between you and the Advertiser. If they advertiser doesn't pay them then they can't pay you.

This information is inside the agreements that no on reads when they sign up for an account. When you sign up, you are asked to agree to the Terms and Conditions as well as the Service Agreements and in it is in what we agree to that has the policies outlined.

You are not earning money from CJ, you are earning from the Advertiser. It's as if you joined the Advertiser affiliate program directly but didn't have to because CJ provides a platform where you can find thousands of advertisers easily.

 

ShareASale tells the publisher in their Admin interface if the publisher has low funds so you can avoid them.

 

A company only needs to keep a balance of $500 in their account to stay active with CJ. If they were legit the min. would be a bit higher than that.

If this happens to you don't say I didn't warn you!

Cj = no way

 

The company that is not paying is CJM Taravoyance out of France. Tara Medium. I am really looking for some contact information on this company so that I can try to collect some money.

 

The check arrives from CJ, so I am paid by CJ. In any other business it would be unthinkable to pass your bad debts on down the line like that. Do they do it with their employees too, I wonder, "Sorry, no wages this month, Buy.com didn't pay us". Makes it all pretty low-risk for CJ. I wonder if that clause would really stand up in a court, whether you agreed to it or not...

 

So your issue is not with CJ but with Taravoyance... why didn't you say that to begin with?

Railing on CJ because this advertiser is not taking care of business is pretty crummy.

I am sure that you are frustrated as I remember getting burned by an advertiser once but the deal is you have to pick your customers better.

I make good money with CJ... some people would say real good money but I know CJ isn't the one that pays me, it's the advertisers and I talk to them before I sign up with them to make sure that we are on the same page.

Going forward, I suggest you do the same.

 

My problem is with CJ as well. The are letting any company join as long as they deposit $500. You said it yourself you've been burned before and more than likely will be burned again.

If you talk to companies before you sign up with them then why are you using CJ. What I am learning here is your better off cutting out the middle man. I found that a lot of companies that are on CJ pay more if you go to them directly. So it might be smart to use CJ just to find out what works and then transfer your business to the company and get paid more.

Live and learn i guess

 

I doubt I will be burned again. I now interview the advertisers as opposed to taking CJ's word for it. I got burned once, that was enough for me.

Fortunately it was not a lot of money (under 500.00) so I really didn't feel it.

I'm pretty sure that the deposti with CJ is 5,000.00, not 500.00... still not a princely sum but it does weed out some trash.

You were dealing with a company that deals in the occult... in my opinion serves you right.

 

Agreed, real trash - you probably wouldn't have needed clairvoyant power to predict that they would default.

Though I still don't agree that CJ has no obligation towards it's affiliates - I mean in a moral and business sense - I employ freelancers all the time, and they get paid in 30 days whether I get paid or not! How is this different?

 

Good point, when I farm out work, I do the same.

Perhaps CJ should be culpable to a certain extent.

 

The difference is - when you farm out work, that person is working for YOU, not your client. So you are responsible for paying that person in accordance with the agreement or contract you have with them.

Same with the comment above about whether CJ treats its employees the same... no. Because they work directly for CJ, not the advertisers so it is CJ's responsibility to pay its employees regardless.

Now back to the farming out scenario... change that role around like CJ. Client is the advertiser, You are CJ and who you farm out to is the person promoting the advertiser. The difference here is you are just the contact person that hooked the advertiser and the promoter together and you say - okay guys, I hooked you up but rather than you guys working directly, I'll stay the middle man and will collect money from the advertiser, take out my cut and give the rest to the promoter. In return I provide all the tracking and statistics.

Yes, your check comes from CJ but you are not earning the income from CJ, you are earning the income from the advertiser, abiding by the advertisers rules, and using the advertisers links and banners. CJ just kind of acts like a payment processor in a way in that rather than you having to collect money from all the advertisers individually, CJ collects it on your behalf, and forwards it on to you by way of a check.

So why should CJ be on the hook if the advertiser doesn't pay them?

CJ's model is rather than you having to find thousands of sites yourself to make an affiliate living, keeping track of those individual companies, checks, etc - they do it for you.

 

OK, agreed, but I would add, "with minimum risk to themselves". Well, you've got to hand it to them, I suppose...

 

It is what it is!

I've been doing my homework and found that you WILL get paid more, have a better quality tracking system and access to more up to date banners if you just cut out the middle man (Commission Junction). I have spoken with many different Affiliate Managers and they all say the same. Not only that but you will have a direct number to the source not some 1-800 number to a bunch of valley girls in California.

I understand that signing up for all of the programs individually can be time consuming and a pain in the neck. That's where Commission Junction comes into play. Just use CJ to find out what products or service works best and then join that company!

Good luck to all of you CJ lovers that come in here and claim that your making big $$$. It's about making money not talking about it.

One last thing... Thank you CJ for doing all of our leg work. Jokes on you!

 

But surely they all use some kind of software that CJ gives them to link them into their system, and don't even have tracking of their own. I doubt it would be effective, or even possible to connect directly with many of them. Probably they are as tied to CJ as we are...

That's one way of looking at it

 

I use CJ for 2 years and never had problems with any advertiser. If you pick your advertisers carefully, you will find out they are legit. Do not hesitate to contact the advertiser affiliate manager to ask for more information and higher rates, 9 changes out of 10 they will give it.

Regards

 

With the exceptions of large advertisers that have lines of credit open with CJ (similar to a backed-line of credit for anything else, like a mortgage), the minimum balance is $500. Once a commissioned sale is made, that money immediately comes out of the advertiser's balance. If the advertiser's balance drops below $500 for too long (not sure what the limit is), the advertiser is disabled.

Most networks work like this - show me any network that doesn't. Remember - if the advertiser doesn't pay up, not only do you lose money but CJ loses money too. CJ usually takes ~30% on top of your commission - so if you're getting paid $10 for a sale, CJ earns $3 in fees.

CJ won't just let things go if the advertiser doesn't pay. In roughly $300,000 of commissions at CJ, I have never NOT gotten paid. There was one time where I was paid about $300 two months late - but $300 out of $300,000 isn't bad.

 

You go & attempt to setup direct deals with advertisers like Best Buy, Zappos, and Wall Street Journal. Let me know how that works out for you.

CJ's tracking system is great - I used to work for an agency that managed a few large advertisers, and the commission numbers in CJ were roughly the same as our advertisers stats on the backend (a slight discrepancy for users that block/clear cookies or use software that deletes all advertising cookies), but those numbers were extremely small.

 

All of these companies we deactivated today, I am owed money by two!

Software Store (937827), BigFitness.net (474963), Anthony Robbins Companies (1815767), ABS Bible and book store (1915081), Trend Micro Small & Medium Business (1867119), ThermoSpas (1945933), USO Inc. (2239754), Nursery Depot (1104971), VitaDigest (2487342), AtBatt (2534592), Celazome Skin (2623772), PlanSwift (2604667), SurfSecret - Privacy and Identity Theft Protection (2671895) Have all Be deactivated, you will not receive commissions for traffic you drive via the advertiser's banners, text links, and/or other link types. Consequently, please replace these links as soon as possible with links from active advertisers.

Here's to all of the cj employees who post on here pretending to make money.

WTF... looks like I'm not the only one SOL...