Yet Another Reason Why PPS Is A Bad Business Model..

[Lee]

EVANSTON, Ill. - Affiliates and consumers take note: A company called BigLBucks is trolling for consumers willing to sign up for adult-site trial memberships that pay affiliates. BigLBucks then shares its commission with the consumer.

Six websites currently are affected. The sites, owned by either SilverCash or WEGCash, are Simple Fucks, Pom Pom Porn, Busty Solos, Teenage Whores, Lucky Lesbians, and Oriental Orgy. When consumers sign up for a trial membership on one of these websites, BigLBucks receives commissions worth $15 to $40. BigLBucks then gives part of these commissions back to the consumer.

The problem with commission sharing is that it defeats the purpose of trial memberships, which allow consumers to try before they buy. They also encourage affiliate partnerships by showing good faith in their efforts.

According to GoDaddy’s domain registrar, the underlying Whois for BigLBucks lists the name as Evanston, Ill., resident Ezra Shevick. Shevick did not respond to repeated inquiries for comment.

SilverCash Albert, director of business development and operations for SilverCash - Price Communications Inc., said, “Attracting new webmasters and constantly positioning your organization to obtain traffic is the foundation of the online [adult affiliate program]. Unfortunately, both are excessively challenging.

“There is a natural evolution to any market; however, unethical online business models have shaped the challenges of contemporary means to do business online,” he continued. “[Lower barriers] to enter this market and the increasing innovations of webmasters and surfers to unethically earn a ‘shady dollar’ cripple the industry. Competitive advantages are healthy for enterprising; however, lack of ethics can damage the livelihoods of many hardworking webmasters. When globally unified, this niche market has potential to grow exponentially; when stealing from an affiliate program, everyone loses.”

Both SilverCash and WEGCash representatives say they have terminated all websites and accounts associated BigLBucks due to fraud.

http://www.avnonline.com/index.php?P...tent_ID=281340

Whilst AVN actually did something good in warning those in the industry that operate on a PPS business model about this company, i cant help but fell we're going to see more of this happening now that it has been made public information.

Perhaps dropping PPS payouts on low cost trials actually is a good thing?

Regards,

Lee

[maxpower]

Its good in a way, (cant believe I am saying this about fraud) I am sure this may help a bit in combating some of these huge programs from gaining even more control of this industry by throwing around their money. This is why we have laws against monopolies, they are horrible for everyone exempt the few that control them. Just look at what CorbinFisher is planing to do, even though they do not use PPS it just shows what kind of bad things can happen when programs get to big for their britches. Although it would not be too hard for these programs just to remove an affiliate account like BigLBucks especially if they had a large number of sales sending up red flags, but I can see some possible ways they might get around this.

I guess we will have to see how inventive guys like BigLBucks can be now, the money is their so motivation should not be a problem now that the door to this stuff seems open. Not really sure it will amount to very much, these programs still have many weapons they can use to fight this, and they do sigh the checks, but we can still hope. :high:

[tombarr]

Yep. Higher and higher payouts with sponsors trying to one up each other for snagging those affiliates....it was bound to cross the mind of some less than ethical genius at some point how to abuse the system for financial gain.

That sounds like a tough one to catch though.... someone would have to report it i think.

[babymaker]

it's been done before, and i would think with the big companies easy to catch if an affiliate sends 100 $1 trial signups in a day and they all cancel well, i am sure that is not the indusrty average and they will know and for the scammer to have 100's of accounts and addresses to get checks under different names, it wouldnt be cost effective....too many crooks in one pot ...never going to work...

[Squirt]

It's the tail wagging the dog for us content producers

This is a complete 360 , perhaps a turning point for content producers to see how crazy things have gotten.

[Matt 26z]

I just looked at his site, and nowhere on there does it tell the surfer to cancel the membership right away.

He may have thought this was a form of clever marketing that was legit. Adult sponsor programs forbid affiliates from offering rewards to surfers (cash, bonus content, etc...), but the practice isn't outlawed in mainstream.

On the other hand...

First result on Google shows he is still in high school. I wonder what grade? The MySpace connected to his whois email says 18, but who knows.

I don't know if this is the same guy, but it's user "EShevick" (same as his gmail) and he's wearing a Cubs shirt...

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vi...3f5e68.1404074

Look 18 to you?

[tombarr]

If it's the same person.. it appears he just took a college entrance exam and got high marks on it...putting him most likely a senior in high school...could be 18 already.

As the server account appears to be in his name, it would require a credit card in his name also... which would also indicate an over 18 status.

but that also appears to be a common name in Illinois... perhaps a relative?

anyway, by agreeing to the T & C when he becomes an affiliate he is affirming his age of majority under penalty of perjury.

I guess it would be easy to spot for high PPS programs because they certainly watch their conversion numbers from trial to full subscription as it is part of the math that goes into the PPS bonus. Any affiliate running this type of scam is going to have pretty darn near 100% cancellations and no rebills, which would set off all kinds of alarms.