Selfishness in Affiliate Marketing
So last night I was up all night with my allergies, didn’t get to sleep until 7:30am. In that time period I got up and took a shower, and started to really think about my life, and affiliate marketing. I started thinking about something I had completely avoided thinking about, because I knew it would change my perspective on the industry, and knew it would also severely negatively affect my income.
Whether we like to admit the fact or not, A LOT of business in affiliate marketing completely scams and screws people over; and we’re the guys in the background making a profit from it. I started thinking about the most popular niches out there and the effect it had on the hundreds of thousands of people signing up for these offers. I myself have promoted these offers, and even was currently promoting them, until now. We completely take for granted all the money we make online, and the lengths we’ll go to to make that money sometimes. Let’s just look at a few of the popular niches out there today…
Payday Loans
Payday loans are one of the biggest verticals in the financial sector. I personally know affiliates making over $30k/day on payday loans, and I myself have gotten into them quite a bit. What is a payday loan? Simply put, a person in desperate need (here comes the first moral issue, targeting people who are desperate for money) signs up for a loan. When he doesn’t pay the loan back, he’s charged 400% in interest and ends up being in debt for years. Rather then rambling on about it, I’ll just quote some real testimonials I searched and found last night.
Small Loans, a predatory lender owned by Money Tree, Inc, gave a $200 “payday loan” to a disabled, elderly, illiterate man and thereafter took in his benefits check for him and paid him a small “allowance” out of it, less the money they deducted as “repayment” on the loan. All told, they took thousands from the man over a period of years, bleeding him so badly that he ended up homeless, begging for power to run the machine that treated his chronic lung infection.
Mr. Milford is chronically broke because each month, in what he calls “my ritual,” he travels 30 miles to Gallup [New Mexico] and visits 16 storefront money-lending shops. Mr. Milford, who is 59 and receives a civil service pension and veteran’s disability benefits, doles out some $1,500 monthly to the lenders just to cover the interest on what he had intended several years ago to be short-term “payday loans.”
Sure most of these people are stupid, but can we use that as a legitimate excuse to ruin their lives? Hell no. Payday loans completely screw people over, and for this argument’s sake we’re going to disregard idiots using it for gambling debt or something like that, because either way we’re still harming thousands of good people.
Green Tea/Acai Berry Diet Pills
The green tea/acai phenomenon is huge right now in affiliate marketing. There’s ads all over Facebook urging overweight people that they can really lose weight for free with the help of green tea. The fact alone that we’re leading these people to believe that drinking green tea is going to make them lose fat is bullshit. The sites are filled with fake testimonials and people even pose as fat chicks to get conversions. It gets worse though, they think they’re paying $3.95 to get a free trial bottle, but in the fine print they opt-in to be sent a bottle a month if they don’t cancel within 7 days. These assholes charge $90 for a 1 month supply bottle and just rebill the persons credit card every month. Most people don’t realize it until they’ve been hit a couple times and paid $200 bucks and gotten crappy pills that didn’t help anyways. What makes it worse is that these places don’t pick up their customer support number, don’t respond to emails, and don’t try to every provide ANY help to the poor suckers that were charged. I’ve bought this stuff to examine it myself, and it’s a crappy little bottle in a small plastic wrap that gets mailed to you. Do you know how much it costs the advertiser to produce a bottle of this shit? UNDER $1.00. Trust me, in the past I looked into doing it myself. They charge people $90 for something that cost them a buck, and then upsell them on 10 other crappy products that don’t work.
I took the week’s supply…felt no different…and said “oh well…I’ve done worse things with $3.99.”
I know you’re waiting for the other show to hit the ground and duck…here it comes!
I get a package in the mail with a bottle of 60 pills. I go on line and look at my credit card and they have charged my card an additional $74.99!!!!!!
First I called the c/c company and am disputing the charge but I know I will lose. I contacted Performance Products USA at acai.performanceproductsusa.com and was refered to their webpage buried among millions with a click on accept terms which has a negative marketing plan and they will continue to hit my card for $74.99 until I opt out of the program.
I used the sample GreenTeaLLC sent for 4.99 they claim I signed a contract to take 84.90 a month for their Product I did not! It does not work it is a scam.
I called the told them to cancel any further orders.
They have charged me for three orders 2 i didnot
receive.I was told they will only refund 60 dollars.
THey were supposed to stop taking the money from
my Acct. But Haven’t. I received my bank statement
and they taken another 84.90 out I am very angry
what can I Do ?
Ringtones/Crush/Mobile
I don’t even really have to go into ringtones and mobile stuff because everybody knows they’re deceptive. Again these people are idiots for reading the text that says $9.99/month or $2.99/day, but either way we’re taking advantage of them because they just read the PIN and confirm it. I did ringtones for a long time, who hasn’t tried them? Sure they’re the least harmful of any of the other offers I’ve mentioned, but it’s still the principle of ripping people off. Crush offers advertise “You have (2) new crushes!”, so you sign up to find out and just get a retarded horoscope subscription service.
Flycell, a NY company, billed me $20 a month on my cell phone bill for four months (total $80). By the time I tracked down who was billing me, I contacted them and told them I never asked for or received any service from them (I don’t even know what they do) and asked for a refund. They refused.
The sources above took me literally 10 minutes to find, and there’s hundreds of other stories out there. Now sure you’re going to have pissed off people in any niche or any place; there’s always people who aren’t satisfied with what they bought into. But the point is at least they knew they were buying into it. People taking out payday loans are unaware to the fact that if they don’t pay the loan back, they’re going to end up in debt for years. There’s a reason payday loans are completely BANNED in several states. Fat people signing up for the next hot thing in acai don’t realize they’re going to be billed $90 for a horrible product; they just want to try it for a week and see that it does nothing and only a healthy diet and exercise will help them achieve what they want. Teenagers with cellphones don’t really care what’s on the bill, most of the time their parents are paying it so the parents end up being the ones screwed and pissed off.
I’m certainly not saying that now we should just all stay away from every niche out there, because there are consumers out there who do want to buy products. Even if the product doesn’t work out for them how they wanted it to, they still were aware of the fact that they had to pay for it. I believe in karma and that’s what got me thinking on the subject, and I’m done promoting these things that either completely ruin peoples lives, or scam them for a quick buck. Is it worth making a lot of money for yourself when you know that you had to screw literally thousands of people to do it? Just think about the kind of negative effect you’re having on all these peoples lives.
I’m going to lose A LOT of profit but I’ve already paused my campaigns and sent emails out to the networks/direct advertisers that I was working with giving them my reasons for cutting the campaigns. There’s plenty of legitimate money to be made online and I do have a few of them running so I’ll be fine. I already have enough money and doing these things to thousands of people just isn’t worth it and I feel better already now that I’ve stopped. Sure just because my ad drops off means someone elses ad will take it’s place, and this stuff will always be promoted, but that’s not the point.
If you do want to promote in these shady/deceptive niches, head over to my page for shady affiliates who want to do shady things and let me know what you’re interested in and I’ll see what I can do.
Bring it.
i am incredibly impressed. good for you.
I glad you had the balls to write this. I respect you for this post, most people would look the other way. It hard to be honest with yourwelf when you are making soo much cash from it.
respect!
Best post yet. Way to come to your senses.
And this is coming from the guy that was charging $300 a month for his shitty forum. Nice try dude but you are hypocrite. You can say this about every single product or service on the net. I don’t feel sry for people that buy stuff online. There is fine print and you SHOULD read it. Nobody held a gun to there head and said buy GREEN TEA now. Im guessing using credit cards are immoral too. You know that you have to pay the stuff back.
Cut is right. Stop trying to save the world.
I can’t tell if this is a whole bunch of bullshit or not. Affiliate marketing is not for the faint at heart, we all know it’s sketchy, spammy, and not sustainable.
Paul – I agree with you 100% on this post, probably your best post. So I don’t make 5K per day, but at least everything I promote I feel good about. Karma will come back and get you, it always does..
I’m not forcing anyone to sign up for these offers. They can make their own poor decisions if they want.
So has anyone tried clicking on that link? I click on it thinking wow I wonder if he’s serious I should ask him what he really means. When in fact my computer is over run but some stupid music that made my browser dance around the screen! That was sooooo uncalled for! hahah
On one hand I thought, this guy is scamming all the affiliates who are following him so they can feel bad and drop their campaigns, then on the other hand I was thinking perhaps he is telling the truth.
I really don’t know at this point..but I do know I won’t be doing payday loans…that sounds depressing.
It’s very sustainable and can be very legit as well.
The Green Tea offer (well, at least the one I promote) clearly labels the terms next to the credit card form–so, I don’t see a problem with that. It seems to vary from advertiser to advertiser, though.
That’s not the point, they’re stupid for making the decision but it’s not always their fault and either way they’re ending up in a shitty situation because of you.
Not sure if you read the beginning of the post saying I had come to a lot of these realizations last night. Probably not because you were obviously too stupid to read that I never charged $300 a month for the forum.
I’m not asking anybody to do anything to their campaigns, just expressing how I feel.
I had to call up a direct advertiser and have them cancel my flight and hotel they booked for me to fly and meet/hang out with them because it would be pointless now that I’m not running the niche anymore.
Not my problem. I sleep fine at night. Good for you though.
Congrats on finally realising that the majority are scams
Agreed. I have always talked about how some things are more important than earning a quick buck. That’s why I personally choose to avoid the scammy niches you mentioned. Yes people ultimately choose to click on these things, but they are also deceptive and crappy offers. What goes around comes around in life, and its just as easy to make money in a niche you feel isn’t scamming or tricking people.
Why people who respond to the posts and writing BS never leave their web site? :-)
Just asking :-). And on the side note to the post this sounded like they are legal usurers. hehehe.
But it’s nice to know everything is not about the money all the time. yes we need to make cash to freakin survive but like you said there are other ways to do it.
Yup every affiliate needs to draw the line somewhere with what they promote.. for each person it’s different as each persons moral outlooks are different.
Yup, different offers have different moral levels..
Buyer beware
Nice one … Ive had long talks with my wife over this. For those starting out I’ve always suggested promoting something you’ve used or enjoy. Much easier to market and you feel good about helping others … you can also write an honest & solid review as well :)
The shady side of affiliate marketing is not just with the offers but can also be how the affiliate promotes it.
Kudos for posting this …
This is a great post Paul, very controversial. It’s up to each affiliate to decide how they want to sleep at night.
You are hypocritical though. After you stop charging for your ubercamp you still charged me another $99 anyway and didn’t reply to the 2 emails I sent you.
Are you gay paul? This is not april fool idiot! lol LMAO
Promoting shady shit is bad for all marketers in the long run. More and more people will stop buying stuff online because of all these fucking semi-scam offers.
Very funny…keep up doing the good work but how do you think people will believe you when you put up that shitting gay video fucking them asses like hell through the link of a good post are u insanely out of your mind?
But why you are saying or realizing this facts is just cos you have made some money already with them? You have money now so you can say any shit you like. I know thats why. Its a free world anyway so who the fuck cares?
Goober, i am actually going to have to agree with you.
While the line is very vague between what is right and what is wrong, some offers are just down right deceptive. The companies promoting them are shady as shit … don’t answer phone calls emails etc. (Many i’ve seen though, clearly state that the customer would be rebilled so tough luck really)
I guess its a good way to make a quick mill for the one running it … Find worthless product > put offer on affiliate networks > snag CC infos > rebill.
If there were more legitimate offers on the networks, run by legitimate companies, i’d personally feel a lot better promoting them. Unfortunately, for some reason, they aren’t many. For example there are diet pills that actually work, like BioTest products, but who the fuck wants to promote a $45 sale for a $3 commission? Imagine all the big aff networks finding good offers for great products … things would be a little different
How about pushing leads to colleges? A lot of students won’t graduate and will be left with a mountain of debt following them the rest of their life which can’t be thrown off during bankruptcy. Other students will graduate, and end up with debt that doesn’t come close to matching the income they earn.
I know the forum is free now. But no one ever paid you any money to be part of the forum. Am I missing somethin…..
I have been considering the same things Paul. One thing though I went to your link for the contact page to let you know you made a mistake on saying if people want to do this stuff contact you, so I had to restart the computer. I thought you meant to say if you want to learn more about morally doing aff marketing, contact you. Will you be teaching better aff marketing in your forum?
I’ve had enough of your shitty little comments. Your obviously a Nigerian, undedicated cunt sitting in a baron internet cafe, on 128k internet — Making shitty social networks and commenting with illegible comments.
Basically, FUCK OFF NIGGA!
Not $300.
wtf?
I didn’t charge you anything, I told every member to cancel their subscription as the forums would be free. Email me again I probably missed it or IM me.
nice link bait btw.
Yeah, no doubt man. it is great to read posts like this. If only more people gave up profit for goodwill!! Proud of ya man!
Ah, I get it, “private,” as in genitals, and “contact” as in, well, contact. Do I win a prize?
Anyway, I’ve had this discussion with friends many times – is taking advantage of trusting, naive, or stupid people an acceptable business plan? I don’t mean this as a slight but rather an observation – people who have more to fall back on are more likely to do the right thing when it results in a monetary hit. More or less human nature I guess. You see it in business with ethical cases (think Enron, Worldcom, etc), and I’ll probably do the same myself one day.
You are just trying to scare people away from these niches with guilt, so you have less competition in the SERPs/paid results.
Morals do tend to be an inconvenience in AM. I absolutely refuse to push pay day loan offers, and I’m still iffy on credit cards.
ezz there nigga this guy is being honest in the post
you are either linkbaiting or immature. Such decisions are not made after one night of allergy. Not by people capable of earning super affiliate money. Either way – good for you. Ignorance is a bliss.
Can’t wait to see nickycakes linkbait ok this account as well. Nice entertainment.
Good post Paul. I just got a lot of respect back for you. It takes real character to turn down (especially to pause existing moneymakers) money and take a reduction in your existing income to “do the right thing”. I have wrestled with this decision myself and I’m not going to say I am a saint and only promote the cleanest legitimate offers only but I try to stay clear of the really scammy deceptive ones out there that are only geared at dooping people out of their cash because they didn’t read the fine print on a “too good to be true” offer. There are way too many legitimate ways to make money out there.
Paul, you’re a good man.
Easy there e-ToughGuy! You’re getting all worked up and this isn’t even your blog. You’re making an even bigger ass of yourself than he is. If idiots like that can get you this worked up, you must be living a pretty miserable/frustrated life. Relax.
dude,
WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THE GAY VIDEO LINK???
and that link doesn’t close either!!!!
Forcing me to restart my entire computer!!! and lose all my open tabs!!! (since I couldn’t restore previous sessions and have that open window running again and refusing to close)
it makes this post totally crap!
Do as I say, Not as I do.
My feelings exactly. I’ve pretty much started promoting useful physical products or very legit services, though I do have a freebies/zip site that I leave up, since I always just figured it would be a good easy lesson for people to learn about trust online without taking any real damage. Then again, I might take that down, since I realize the path that they get put on will try to get them to sign up for some of the scammier offers.
At any rate, I always feel that providing real value rather than gaming a system and playing off stupidity will be more sustainable in the long run, though I won’t deny that there are profits to be made in these niches.
Paul I can say I agree with you, even promoting porn is more ethical than most of the mainstream CPA offers.
It took me over 5 years to start promoting loans. Mainly because I thought it was morally wrong to push people into debt. In that way the adult niche is much more legit IMO.
However, what changed my ways is that I tried to build up an ecommerce store for 2 years and it’s not easy. First of all you need to know the market, and that takes years to learn. To buy the right products you need experience, and storing the inventory can get expensive if the products won’t sell. Especially outside the US where markets are way way smaller. At least we can cover our costs and take out a small salary but I can’t say it’s a luxurious lifestyle…
Having all the knowledge about internet marketing I got into the loan affiliate niche and made more the first three months, than we made total in a year with the ecommerce store… It may be easier to let things go when you actually have the money already but when you need it, you push everything you can to pay the bills.
Nobody got rich because they were legit and did everything morally correct, all of these people have fucked someone over in a way or another.
At least I stay out of the really scammy shit out there that are borderline fraud. That’s where I draw my line.