The fact you are searching for a way to avoid these scams is a good sign. It shows you are self-aware enough to know what you are getting into. With that in mind, be aware that affiliate marketing scams are some of the most sophisticated online scams on the planet. They are so good that they program people to actively promote something that is actively scamming them. They employ the same nefarious methods that Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison used to scam people out of millions using their FTX scam. Even they had celebrity after celebrity promoting their scam because the scam was that good. Affiliate marketing scams utilize similar sophisticated methods for deluding and abusing people, often wasting the time of the interested parties, and often scamming them out of earnings they would and should have earned.
Use Scam Detection Tools
When affiliate programs draw more and more attention, they tend to draw more and more scrutiny from scam trackers. Services like Web Paranoid are always on alert for affiliate advertising scams. Use scam tracking tools as your first defense against scams.
Which Flavor Of Scam?
There are many angles from which scammers may harm people. For example, some affiliate services pretend they will pay you big money and then don’t. Some have you spend money on affiliate services, only to have your clicks bought out by bots. Some affiliate programs allow nefarious malware to steal your sales, and others do not report when you have made sales so you do not get paid.
In this article, we will discuss affiliate marketing services that are rotten from the core. Here are a few tips on how to avoid affiliate companies that are pretending to be real and legitimate.
The Small Print on Payments
One of the tenants of devil worship is that it is morally okay to do something evil to another person if you tell them what you are doing and they still allow it. Thereupon was born the idea of “Small print.” You will be surprised how many scam companies make it difficult to sue or prosecute them because they spell out their nefarious methods in their terms and conditions.
For example, they may tell you how the minimum withdrawal limit is $50 and also tell you that if you do not earn $50 in a month, then the limit resets and you lose your earnings. Another piece of small print may make it clear that you have to earn $250 in order to withdraw, but if you want to withdraw below that, then you need to pay an 80% fee. Even worse are the companies that allow you to accumulate your $250, but then cancel your account without warning, all while quoting their terms and conditions and how they may cancel your account at any time without warning.
Skimming From Your Codes
Outside of a cryptosystem, it is very difficult to figure out if your link clicks and sales are being registered. The only way to go is to trust the company or have a few random people make a few purchases from time to time. That is why you must do your best to pick a good company.
Another method works like this. Jenny signs up for a few popular affiliate services, ones with name recognition. She then sets up a website offering affiliate sales. It allows you to sign up and pick from a variety of codes to put on your website, and you receive money when each of them makes a sale. However, little do you know that you are putting her codes onto your website, and she is taking a portion of each of your sales and giving you the remainder.
The big selling point of this scam is that the barriers to entry are so low. You don’t need to prove you get 10K visits per year or prove that you already earn X amount per year. Ergo, a sign that an affiliate program may be a scam is if they easily allow you to join and sign up to big-name affiliates.
Secondly, try to research how much affiliate programs offer in real life. It is tricky for websites like Amazon because their pricing tiers vary so wildly. However, if you are selling washing machines through affiliate links on your website, the pricing structure from each brand is often very set and determined (a 3% cut of the purchase price for example). Take a look at what you are getting paid per brand sale and try to find out what you should be getting paid. As a side note, if the affiliate program makes you earn your higher commission, such as if you get 1% for the first 30 sales and 2% for ongoing sales, then that too is a potential sign that your sales are being skimmed by a third party.