Is it normal for Affiliate Programs

[tombarr]

to charge a "check" fee to send you an affiliate check by regular post mail?

[vs eddie]

We've never charged a check fee to send payments. The only thing we charge is a wire fee and that's because the bank charges us. That's def. kind of shady to charge your affiliate to receive their cut of the money IMO.

[Lee]

Some do, some dont.

Its always been that way

Regards,

Lee

[tombarr]

I think it's a shady way to do business. It's a NATs based program so there is not a whole lot of time involved in calculating the payouts, it is a computer printed check so there is no labor in writing the check, and it's a US based company sending via first class mail to another US based company. I can understand fees for wires, epassporte, courier delivery and such, but not paper printed and postal service mailed checks.

Sends a very bad signal about the program to the affiliate and in my book makes it a program not worth promoting anymore. Links removed.

[Chilihost]

We charge $5 per cheque and nothing for epass payouts. The reason is simple, cheques cost us a lot of money to process while epass is cheap & fast.

I think the whole "gotta have cheques" is such an American mentality, it really is dated.

[Kushiel]

We don't charge for cheques, actually. We've just eaten the cost for it, even if a check occasionally needs to be voided and reissued (which costs money as well).

We do however charge for overseas wire transfers because these are rather expensive. One of the ways that we try to help affiliates cope with this is to counsel them to raise their minimum payout - that way they're losing as small a percentage of money from their earnings as possible.

Due to the postal systems being occasionally (and without warning) unreliable... We've also over the last year offered secure Direct Deposit ACH's for domestic accounts. This helps ensure swifter, more reliable arrival of payouts, and it's free all around.