Now, I’m not one to complain too often about how companies do business, because I understand a lot of their issues and why they do things. But in this case, Clickbank, the affiliate company, is simply stealing my money, and that makes me very angry.
I’ve been both an affiliate for Clickbank as well as a publisher, and granted, I’ve not got the hang of how to do this kind of thing yet. But listen to this.
I signed up with Clickbank, and have been promoting affiliate products for a while now. Because I’m admittedly not very good at this, I’ve not gotten many sales. The few I did get came early on, but I haven’t gotten in a while. Now, of course almost every company has some minimum amount you have to earn before they do a payout, and as a sidenote, there’s no good reason for that considering you can send any amount to Paypal accounts with not much difference in cost. The reason they hang on to your money in their bank account is to generate and capitalize on the interest. It’s the long tail of savings accounts if you want to think of it that way.
Now, that’s fine, whatever. I don’t care too much about that. But this morning I went to check my stats and instead of finding $0 income, which I’m used to now, I find the past 4 days have $1.00 charges on them. WTF?
So, I emailed Clickbank this quick message, inquiring why the charges:
I have 4 -$1.00 charges on my account. Why are you taking away my money?
Relatively simple, I thought. Here was Clickbank’s response:
Thanks for your inquiry. It looks like your account is receiving dormant fees. Our dormant policy is:
Dormant Accounts
Accounts with a positive balance but no earnings for an extended period of time are considered dormant. Dormant accounts are subject to a charge of $1 per pay period after 90 days of inactivity, $5 per pay period after 180 days of inactivity, and $15 per pay period after 365 days of inactivity.
For further information, please review our accounting policy at: http://www.clickbank.com/accounting.html.
Kind regards,
ClickBank Accounting
Um…..
So, let me get this straight. Not only will you keep the interest on the money I earned originally, you’ll CHARGE ME for not making any more money? OMG! (and I don’t use that acronym lightly)!
I promptly replied with:
Well then just pay me what I’m owed and I’ll cancel the account. That’s ridiculous.
… let’s see if I ever get the money I made from them. What do you think?
Spanish Class Tempe Arizona
nate
Kevin Thompson
Joao Carlos Caribe
Posted by nate on Feb 08, 2008 at 03:51pm
Update: They replied with this:
And I replied with:
Posted by Brad on Feb 08, 2008 at 06:18pm
Man, that sucks!
Posted by Wes Mahler on Feb 09, 2008 at 01:30am
Wow, there really going to charge you for a somewhat inactive account, that is really bad business imho. Don’t they make enough money, that is a bad policy, someone crazy must have though that up to Charge accounts for not making enough money. Good Call I’d close it too, that is unacceptable. Sure makes you want to promote them more. *sarcastic*
Posted by nate on Feb 09, 2008 at 02:24am
Yea, exactly. I’m still waiting for reply on the 8 days, but since I’m still new to the game, I have no trouble quitting a program and moving somewhere else. There’s always another game in town.
Posted by kay on Feb 09, 2008 at 08:31pm
What makes this worse is that clickbank will NOT pay you any commissions earned until you have met their 5-card rule. To get paid, no matter how much you’ve earned, you must have purchasers using 5 different credit cards, which must include mastercard and visa. The requirement was originally three, then four - and now it’s five cards.
This wasn’t a big problem until clickbank began accepting paypal - but the rule stayed in place and paypal purchases don’t count toward the requirement.
It’s true that affiliate companies may have minimums they pay out but other companies are dollar minimums such as $50 or $25. Paypal’s requirement is ridiculous when you consider that while they are refusing to pay you, they will also start siphoning off your commissions.
If you have sales and haven’t met the 5 card requirement - give some money to relatives/friends and have them make a cheap purchase with their credit card.
Posted by Kyle on Feb 09, 2008 at 11:33pm
ClickBank Is A Thief!!!
Posted by Justin VerBurg on Feb 13, 2008 at 12:40pm
It sounds very suspicious to me as well. These days, even well-established companies, who you think you should be able to trust, have deceptive ways of getting more money than they’re entitled to. All in an effort to keep Wall Street happy… (-:
Posted by jen on Mar 15, 2008 at 01:46pm
omg that sucks they probly know that not many people will make over $100 that sucks thats wrong