International affiliate scams

[Top Cat]

We just had a webmaster from Indonesia - wihtout a website - sign up for our affiliate program. Indonesia is on our list of "banned" countries (he chose "Australia" from our drop-down menu) which we adopted from other affiliate program sites. And we do not absolutely require webmasters have websites (though we require they tell us how they will be generating traffic).

We monitor our affiliate traffic and sales daily and are on the lookout for anything thats seems unusual. But this has me wondering what scams certain unscruplulous webmasters might try to pull on us. Anyone?

[Paco]

maybe ...
Webmaster referal scams: sign-up for two accounts, only one sends traffic/joins, while the other makes referral earnings.

or, he is promoting you via ESP, spamming their dreams.

[desslock]

Why would you want an affiliate without a website?

I know that most mainstream stire - Amazon, eBay, Omaha Steaks for example - require you have a website. That sounds like a potential security hole to me. Or at the very least a useful prophylactic measure.


Steve

[Chilihost]

maybe ...
Webmaster referal scams: sign-up for two accounts, only one sends traffic/joins, while the other makes referral earnings.

or, he is promoting you via ESP, spamming their dreams.

Does anyone know if there is a way in ccbill to stop this from happening, for instance, anyone that makes money only off of referred affilate's sales and never makes any sales of their own should not get paid out?

cheers,
Luke

[robin]

Wonder how he was thinking of getting paid? Oh well.

Anyway, that sounds like a sure-fire way of attracting all sorts of problem children.

spamarama and domain squatters come to mind as for the types that you'll attract. I'm sure there's others.

[Takemytaco]

How about PPC - I know someone who doesn't own a site. Promotes mostly vod s using PPC

[robin]

How about PPC - I know someone who doesn't own a site. Promotes mostly vod s using PPC

That's a good point -- some people do promote affiliate programs that way. And that can be a very good thing for both parties.

[Bec]

Does anyone know if there is a way in ccbill to stop this from happening, for instance, anyone that makes money only off of referred affilate's sales and never makes any sales of their own should not get paid out?

cheers,
Luke

That would be extremely unjust to sites that make a living by being a webmaster resource portal.

[gaybucks_chip]

That would be extremely unjust to sites that make a living by being a webmaster resource portal.

I agree with you, Bec... but I think what Luke was referring to is somebody who sets up a bogus affiliate solely to refer himself using another affiliate, and get the regular affiliate fee plus a webmaster referral fee...

[stickyd]

Laundering money from stolen credit cards is always a possibility. We had some Russian "webmaster" jerk try and pull that last year. He, however, failed, since when he began using the same cards over and over to buy yet more memberships to the same sites, the bells and whistles went off in our secret underground affiliate cave.

[JusThunder]

Ok Andy, you round up a squad of your roughest bears and we'll all go down and pay Mr. Fradulent a little visit. :evil:

[Paco]

Does anyone know if there is a way in ccbill to stop this from happening, for instance, anyone that makes money only off of referred affilate's sales and never makes any sales of their own should not get paid out?
cheers,
Luke

Sorry, I/we do not use CC Bill, but I do not see any reason (a side from being lazy) why an 'admin' could not write up a script (run an app or whatever) that crosschecks the sponsors or processors database, for matching information (IP, company name, affiliate's name, address, phone number, tax ID, SSN/SIN, e-mail address, web site etc)

BTW, I am speaking about webmasters referring him/her self and making money twice: once for the sale/s and the other for referring their account that makes the sales.

[Chilihost]

I agree with you, Bec... but I think what Luke was referring to is somebody who sets up a bogus affiliate solely to refer himself using another affiliate, and get the regular affiliate fee plus a webmaster referral fee...

Yes thats what I was meaning, but I am a bit dopey recently after carnival (it just ended on Tuesday)

cheers,
Luke

[Paco]

Yes thats what I was meaning, but I am a bit dopey recently after carnival (it just ended on Tuesday)
cheers,
Luke

Hey Carnival *dancing around, like Bart S.*

[Bec]

I understand wanting to block a cheater, my concern was something getting setup that would arbitrarily block a site/accounts that only does webmaster referrals without making direct sales. If it can be tracked so that only someone doing that cross account method for scamming the extra bucks, that's fine. :coffee: