A Company Just STOPPED Paying Its Affiliates!

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There's a company that I've been promoting since last year.

The service has been good. I've been happy. People have been happy.

I've brought them THOUSANDS of registered users and every single day dozens of people register there using my links.

But yesterday they dropped a bomb.

They'll stop paying commissions for affiliates!

They've been paying a percentage for referrals.

However, yesterday they said they'll stop doing that in 2 weeks and in the future they'll pay only a one-time commission for new referrals.

I was shocked!

I asked if they still keep on paying the percentage commision for the old referrals as promised.

They simply replied, "We have stated from the beginning that promotions and/or programs are always subject to change and have never promised that promotions will stay the same. Before joining the platform, users would have been deemed to have read the ToS and agreed to it..."

Pretty nasty.

How to Ruin Company's Reputation?

Yes, I understand that they have a right to do that but another question is if it's ethical.

People do lots of things that is "legally correct" but ethically wrong. Banks pay billions of dollars in fines every single years for the crimes they commit. It's legally correct but ethically questionable.

When reading the comments from this company's Twitter it seems that I'm not the only one who is pissed off at their behavior.

It seems that they're pissing off their most loyal users who have brought them most of their customer base.

Many people are going to stop using that company and recommending it to others.

What Should Have They Done Instead?

In the past, I remember one company that I was promoting shutting down its affiliate program but it was understandable because they completely stopped that business model. They stopped selling online courses and therefore there was no affiliate program anymore. Completely understandable, right?

Then I remember being shut down from affiliate programs where I wasn't actively making any sales nor bringing referrals. Again, completely understable.

But I never experiencing exactly the same what I'm experiecing with this company right now.

They're basically stealing money from all the affiliates who brought in thousands of referrals with the promise of getting paid a percentage as a commission.

Why wouldn't have they for example kept on paying for the old referrals but changed the commission model only for the NEW referrals?

That would have been completely understable and many people like myself would've probably kept on promoting them.

Instead of doing that, they broke the trust of their most loyal customers and affiliates.

Good News

I see this as a positive experience too. It's a learning experience. The company is relatively new (2-3 years old) and the leaders are quite young too. I think there were a few signs why I was a bit suspicious if such changes might happen.

In the future, I will be more careful with such a young company and focus my efforts mainly on companies that have been operating longer.

In any case, nobody has lost any money (other than affiliates like me who lost a lot of expected earnings).

There are many competitors in the industry that people can go to.

I will publish a video explaining why I don't support that company anymore and I will advise my audience to stop using their services.

If they are ready to do such nasty things towards their affiliates, who knows what are they going to do towards their customers in the future? The trust has been broken!

I will remove all my affiliate links pointing towards that company and re-direct them to more reliable competitors.

There are many other companies in the industry that have paid their affiliates for YEARS in a reliable manner without changing the rules.

What Is Your Opinion?

Has anything similar ever happened to you?

Do you think the company did right by cutting the commissions and pissing off its most loyal users and affiliates who were bringing them thousands of referrals?

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!


PS.

This is another reason why Wealthy Affiliate stands out as a reliable company.

There are so many companies online that do all kinds of "tricks" towards their affiliates that reliable ones such as Wealthy Affiliate shine bright for always doing the right thing.

As far as I know, Wealthy Affiliate has paid their affiliates 15+ years in a reliable pay without EVER missing a commision payment.

I wish all the other companies would do the same.

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Recent Comments

46

That's an interesting situation for sure. I can't judge whether it's ethical or not without knowing the company or the reason why they chose to do this but based on their response to your query and everything you described here, it tells me that this is likely financial issues, greed and/or they think they can cut you out and do it better.

I think it's strange that they are cutting you and their other affiliates out when it costs them little for you to generate leads on their behalf, leads they wouldn't have had otherwise and didn't have to put time into acquiring themselves. They can write off those commissions as a business expense.

A commission is a small price to pay for saving a company time and effort, which they can use to focus on other essential aspects of growing their business. Unfortunately, their decision seems remarkably short-sighted on their part.

Yeah, I'm in the same mindset as you Roope.

I believe if they're going to change the way they compensate affiliates, it should only change for any new referrals and they should continue to pay the commission rate that was stated for the older referrals.

Definitely a bad business practice IMHO!

P.S. Do you know when are you going to do the post or do the video about this company? I would love to know the name of the company., so I can steer clear of them.

Thanks :)

Zach "The Prosperous View"

Probably in the weekend or next week I'll publish a video about it

Thanks for letting me know Roope, but just one thing, where will the video be uploaded to and what is the web address?

I certainly understand why you are extremely frustrated. Especially with the loss of the recurring commissions. I think that was a bad business decision on their part.

When companies decide to reduce the amount they will pay in affiliate commissions it means one of two things: 1) The company is having financial issues and must cut in order to survive. OR 2) They do not value the marketers that are driving business to them.

That is why I try to avoid using Amazon as much as possible. They have a long history of cutting their affiliate commissions. Yet, they still charge Amazon sellers enough to offset any affiliate commissions being paid.

I sincerely hope that this setback is going to lead to even better opportunities for you in the near future.

Good morning Roope,

Thank you for your blog post.

Unfortunately, I believe that there are quite a few companies who don't always behave in the best way. I think you are doing the right thing by removing your links and putting the business somewhere else.

Although I don't really use the Amazon affiliate program, I thought it was very poor of them to reduce commissions two years ago. My guess is that their profits have gone up hugely in the past two years and yet they didn't really care about their affiliates!

I guess this is why it's important that we don't have all our eggs in one basket!

I experienced something a few years ago where I was promoting some products and the company didn't payout. I think it was about £450, not clever and not ethical!

Have a great day.

Roy

I'm sorry you lost money like that. It's a shame these companies do that. But in the end, they only hurt themselves. No one will do business with them.

It's too bad there isn't some sort of master list of affiliate networks to stay away from. If there was a list, these companies would be a lot more careful about keeping their promises. Without affiliate promotion, most of these companies won't stay afloat.

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