CCBill inaccurate rebilling since November.

[Huskyhunks]

I noticed that Naked Sword affiliates were not currectly credited for sales as far back as November. It's a great thing that someone caught this but to me this leaves me with the feeling that so many sales are just not being counted.

Here's the notice:

___________________________________

Dear NakedSword Affiliate,

Rebill News Update Good news for affiliates with NakedSword.com membership sales! We've discovered that rebills for membership sales purchased through the CCBill billing processor were not properly credited to our affiliates. To correct this, we will be reprocessing your sales stats on NakedDollars and mailing checks with rebill amounts dating back through mid-November. Any current rebills and membership purchases will be properly included (and rebilled) beginning with your February payouts. This will only have a positive affect on accounts - no affiliates sales stats will decrease.

Early next week, after your sales stats have been corrected, we will mail out checks reflecting any difference between any previous payouts mailed and your new, increased sales stats.

________________________________________________


Again, I'm not saying anything bad about Naked Sword, but there just doesn't seem to be a reliable 3rd party processor anymore. I know there will be alot of people to the defense of CCBill, all I am trying to say is "check your stats". I'm sure they are not trying to deceive or become the next Ibill. Just be mindful that billing mistakes are being made every day. :coffee:

[JustBryce]

Was this a CCbill problem or a Naked Sword problem? It sounds to me like it was their affiliate software unless they natively use CCBill's affiliate program?

I'm just curious as we use CCBill in our cascade and I haven't heard about any problems from them.

[Huskyhunks]

I read this post over and over and couldn't come up with any other scenerio other than CCBill inaccurately did not report the rebills.

I believe that the point I am trying to get across is that inaccurate billing is going on everyday by major players in this industry. Yes, CCbill has a great reputation, but errors do occur. I just want everyone to be aware that even "good guys" make mistakes. Businesses with great reputations can and do make mistakes and whether the fault lies with CCbill or NakedDollars, some webmasters were not credited and paid for sales. I think that's the bigger issue here.

[Xstr8guy]

It sounds to me that NS was getting sales credited to their house account that should have been going to the affliates.

[Rainbo1956]

Well, I have another post on another board that I said we're leaving the "Adult" biz because of CCBill, because we're sick of the stats....

And, I AM going to add here, the first time we ever had any problems with a sponsors program was with Naked Sword...our FIRST CCBill program we joined.

Since then, we let that/them go...that was years ago...however, over the past months (since Nov...strangly enough) we've joind many Programs that use CCBill...WOW, what a mistake!

I'll only say this much....we've sent more traffic to the sponsors that use them then we've ever sent anyone else and have made less then we've ever made since we've been in the business.

That's pretty damn sad....so, that's why we're going mainstrean and will no longer use anyone who uses CCBill.

[gaybucks_chip]

I remember a couple of months ago there was some sort of meltdown at ccbill that had something to do with stats reporting.

I called in because all the sudden our sales for the week went to like 15% of normal or something... and the support person said that they'd been working on an upgrade and something went horribly wrong and they'd called in several ppl to work on it... I know that stats were weird for a day or two after that and then returned to normal... so perhaps the "upgrade" was related to, or was attempting to fix, the issue.

FWIW, we've just about decided to take the plunge and go for NATS affiliate tracking system. We're adding Paycom plus a couple other options, I've heard numerous horror stories about Mansion, nobody (including Jettis) seems to know about Jettis' standalone affiliate billing solution, and I've heard nothing but wonderful things about NATS. If anyone has any comments, positive or negative, I'd love to hear them.

[desslock]

Last week I began asking around privately if folks were seeing anomolies in the Naked Sword stats. I hadn't been paying very close attention to them, and on a recent inspection I noticed that I had no rebills ever, post-iBill.

Dzinerbear had the same anomolies in his stats. We marshalled our evidence and brought it up to the NS staff, and sure enough there were tracking problems.

Holly was very responsive, and I want to thank her and the Naked Sword team for attending to it.

I have learned that this kind of stuff happens all the time. I had a voluble tracking issue with FalconBucks last Fall. It isn't really because the people running these programs are trying to be deceptive, or because they are inept.

The lesson I took home is that you need to simply need to keep an eye on your reports, and see if things make sense. Sometimes it is necessary to make a test purchase.

Here's one thing I have noticed, and I'm only pointing this out to be constructive. CCbill's program -- on the affiliate side -- is really complicated. They are not by any means the only ones. These reporting programs *really* have the look and feel like they were designed by entrenched computer programmers, Working in them is like canoeing through a complicated Visual Basic flowchart.

When I just want to see what my sales are on ccBill, I am presented with a screen that includes this impenetrable language:

___

CONVERSTIONS The Conversions report details the total number of signups for a specified time period, and the overall number of conversions that occurred for these signups.

TRANSACTIONS The Transactions report breaks down the transactions for your account. It reports the clicks per URL and the sales resulting from banner clicks.

___ Who speaks like this anyways?

I am reminded of when
Diane Keaton in Woody Allen's Love and Death exclaims: "I am not afraid of death...... I'm freightened...."

Yes of course. Interesting distinction. I don't mean to single out any one company. Epoch's stats reporting for affiliates looks like a complete afterthought. My point is that these kinds of tracking errors occur as a factor of the usability of the software.

Look the task of doing your personal income taxes. A complicated tax system works in an ideal world, but a simplified system would probably mean getting to the same place quicker, easier and with fewer snags.

Steve

[Huskyhunks]

Another eye opening thread for me. Thanks for posting your own personal experiences. Unfortunately, they all seem to be bad experiences. It almost seems like the processors want to provide so much information, the ability to track accurately is compromised.

I would rather have the money in my pocket than try to decipher complicated language or even micro statistics. You can break information down the the nth degree but really, why is that desirable if the money never gets to you ?

I use Verotel and have taken alot of heat for that but I've gotten paid on time, every time. The stats are easy to read, certainly not exhaustive, and seem to be very accurate.

Oh yeah, one more thing, what is NATS ? :goseek:

[desslock]

Oh yeah, one more thing, what is NATS ? :goseek:

They fly up out of my plants if I don't spray some insecticide on them.

Steve

[Squirt]

all the sudden our sales for the week went to like 15% of normal or something...

Similar experience here. Sales down with CCBill affiliates, while memberships for my site, and traffic, have INCREASED significantly.

Someone is making money off this.

[Dzinerbear]

Why is everyone so quick to blame the billing company or sponsor when sales are down?

The first week of this period was downright nasty for sales with one of my major sponsors and I was starting to go into crisis mode. Then the last period picked right up and everything's fine. Sometimes it's just how it is.

Don't forget this is Feburary. People are supposed to be depressed ... the February blahs. Also everybody's gotten their Christmas credit card statements by now and the financial reality is setting in.

Rainbo, I visited your inferno site and it took a good 30 seconds to download. I actually thought you had crashed my browser and started doing a control + alt + del. Maybe this has something to do with your woes.

My sales have tripled since Naked Sword moved from iBill to ccbill. And I do next to nothing to promote them, in fact, I have been in the middle of a site reno that took three weeks to finish and I had taken most of my NS banners down. Still sales are up. I have a branded theatre and it does well.

My ccbill sales for affiliates during the month of Feburary hit an all-time record high. They were higher than last month and that's with three days less to convert.

I was talking to another fairly experience webmaster about sales and he simply said, "I've noticed over the years that every year I have two periods that absolutely suck, you never know when they're going to happen, they just do. I seem to be experiencing the first one of 2005 right now."

Maybe, just maybe, these last couple of weeks no one has felt like buying porn. Maybe they felt all of the sites they've visited really sucked. Maybe everyone's credit cards are maxed.

Just some other things to think about in my opinion.
Dzinerbear

[Squirt]

My ccbill sales for affiliates during the month of Feburary hit an all-time record high. They were higher than last month and that's with three days less to convert.

This is exactly why I usually don't post about sales/stats because someone always comes in and says exactly the opposite, whether good or bad.

The fact here is CCBill admitted problems... so it's not people just blaming the processor for the hell of it.. or quickly jumping to conclusions. I researched my stats for 45 minutes after reading Huskies post. I wanted to make sure my post was accurate.

My sales with other affiliates have increased, my site sales have increased, my traffic has increased and my CCBill sales have DECREASED dramatically. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out

[Huskyhunks]

Just speaking for myself here, sales have been steady for at least a year now. No major changes up or down. I am surprised that I still have so many loyal members to my site. I have nothing all that original or even video, but my members are loyal. I am very grateful for that.

For me trends are definitely away from aen and towards vod or any kind of sponsor with a decent amount of video Also, my mirror is doing great at a cheaper price point than my main site with CA Platinum. AEBN is doing nicely for me. So price point and video offerings seem to be very important for my traffic. I have to make my own banners to sponsors to sell to my traffic.

As much as I hate it, user submitted photos (amateurs) are where I do excedingly well I recently took them down but now I'm having second thoughts. I just cannot seem to get in the mindset of someone who wants to purchase the regular model videos and imagery. The only thing I can excel at is selling every day men, average joe's, guys next door because I share the strong attraction with my visitors.

[Dzinerbear]

This is exactly why I usually don't post about sales/stats because someone always comes in and says exactly the opposite, whether good or bad.

Yes, it's called variety. Wouldn't the world be a terribly boring place if we all saw and experienced things exactly the same way.

Dzinerbear

[gaybucks_chip]

Similar experience here. Sales down with CCBill affiliates, while memberships for my site, and traffic, have INCREASED significantly.

Someone is making money off this.

Hmmm. Guess I wasn't clear. What I was trying to say was our TOTAL SALES (affiliates plus our own traffic) were showing about 15% of normal. Once stats were fixed, our sales numbers for the previous week were magically restored to normal levels, so it was a reporting error, not an actual error in the posting of the funds.

And our affiliate sales have continued to grow and have maintained consistency, so I don't think that there's any horrible issue with ccbill. In fact, I love ccbill.