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Rexanne · **Joined**: 08 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 5

I've been disillusioned with BeFree and all its merchants for a long time. This holiday season (2003) I've just seen some serious problems with their tracking or the merchant's reporting which has validated my belief that they and their merchants are ripping affiliates off in a BIG way.

One merchant I am SURE is ripping me off is Proflowers, through BeFree. I know of three separate flower orders that my links generated that have NOT been credited to my account. These are only the ones I know of because I know the people who ordered. I have high holiday traffic and not ONE order was registered from Proflowers. This has happened before with Proflowers and I have had email and phone discussions with the affiliate manager, Hannah Blum, on numerous occasions about this problem. She has assured me the tracking and links on my site are working perfectly. Not a shock but now I'm so mad I am threatening to hire an attorney to go after both BeFree for possible tracking issues and ALL BeFree merchants for not crediting my sales. Here are my BeFree stats from December:

Proflowers - Impressions sent: 38,036 - Clicks sent: 12 - Sales: 0

Crane Paper Company - Impressions sent: 3,216 (low impressions as I only use the affiliate link for a text link, not the entire banner) - Clicks sent: 1,277 - Sales - 0

Nickelodeon - Impressions sent: 3,488 - Clicks sent: 401 - Sales: 0

MVP.com - Impressions sent: 0 (using only text link) - Clicks sent: 154 - Sales: 1

Overall December 2003 BeFree Stats - Impressions sent: 47,938 - Clicks sent: 2,073 - Sales - 1 - Revenue - $2.40

If anyone has any information or advice, I would surely appreciate it. I have had good sales and commissions this month from Commission Junction merchants, Amazon.com and Performics. Linkshare is STILL as bad as BeFree. Sent them more that 1,500 clicks this month with only 2 sales. Considering CJ has my clicks registered as 8,906, with 56 sales and Amazon.com has my clicks registered as 20,349 with 209 sales, I have to assume BeFree and Linkshare are either not tracking sales properly or their merchants are being less than honest.

Feedback anyone? Any attorneys out there willing to help with this? Smile

Rexanne Mancini
www.rexanne.com
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Debs · **Joined**: 16 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 4296 **Location**: NY

You may want to check your visitors for parasite ware. You are offering merchants that are commonly targeted by or included in the program. And BeFree hasn't done much about it. One of their merchants is eBates ... eBates targets content on other sites and pops up a special tool to divert them from your site to the eBates site. That will steal your clicks, and commissions.

Check this out:

http://doxdesk.com/parasite/

Also search the Amazon affiliate forum for parasites and scumware.

Debs
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Rexanne · **Joined**: 08 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 5

Thank you for your reply and information, Debs.

I know for a fact that the person who placed the three flower orders through my Proflowers link does not have spyware on her computer. She works for a government facility in Switzerland and their internet service is highly secure and not subject to downloads of any kind. And her cookies are "on" and one sale has registered back in March of this year for an order she placed through one of my links. At that same time, she placed three orders, only the one of which registered or was credited to me through Proflowers.

I suspect the problem is greater than spyware with BeFree and its merchants. I'm sure I'm losing some sales to spyware, however, not all and probably not the majority.

Again, thank you so much for responding. I am so angry about this ongoing problem and feel there is nothing I can do. I've been working affiliate programs for more than six years and have been more and more frustrated by the lack of integrity and help available.
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Debs · **Joined**: 16 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 4296 **Location**: NY

She has an order number? Trace it and ask BeFree, not ProFlowers.

If she used a Government secured computer, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't track however, cookies or not. Cookies can be circumvented by high security and you wouldn't ever know it.

Tell you friend not to shop from work, then you might get some credit at least lol

Debs
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AllanGardyne

Rexanne · **Joined**: 08 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 5

I sent Hannah Blum and BeFree email regarding this problem and told them I would be posting to affiliate forums. I will send her an email with this link and allow her the option of replying. Thank you.
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hannahblum · Guest

Although I disagree with Rexanne's reasoning behinding posting this in a public arena (we never go on these and post when affiliates are causing fraud for us, which happens EVERY DAY), I can respect wanting action.

Proflowers runs a fair program. We pay affiliates on time and correctly. Usually when an order(s) has not tracked it is a problem with technology, not the merchant. Proflowers would not have grown such a large and respected (award-winning) program without treating its affiliates fairly.

I will of course pay Rexanne and any affiliate for any and all orders which are theirs. Proflowers is also engaged in a huge (and expensive) project to revamp our relationship and order file with BeFree for better tracking and more accurate reporting. I am happy to answer any questions but out of respect for good merchants please take it offline. I can be reached any time at hblum@proflowers.com

Rexanne · **Joined**: 08 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 5

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this issue in this forum, Hannah. I would have appreciated the same consideration in replying to my email to you prior to my posting on this forum, however. I have yet to hear back from ProFlowers or BeFree from emails I sent about this issue.

While I can respect that ProFlowers is an award winning company, the fact remains that my orders are NOT being tracked and/or credited through BeFree and I have obviously lost revenue. While I can sympathize with ProFlowers wish to treat their affiliates fairly, the fact remains that I, and I'm sure many other "minor" publishers, are giving away space on our sites without compensation. It is a well-known fact among affiliates that this has been happening for years, with little or nothing we "little guys" can do about it, short of posting to forums such as this one and venting our frustration at the lack of options.

Out of respect to affiliate partners, whom this forum is intended to assist and help, I cannot see how removing this post is fair.

Sincerely,

Rexanne Mancini
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Debs · **Joined**: 16 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 4296 **Location**: NY

Rexanne,
Have you set up coding on your site to test your visitors for parasites? As I mentioned before, they are much more common when it comes to diverting customers, and hence commissions, than finding dishonest merchants.

It isn't that parasites aren't the merchant's problem, I feel they are, but keeping an open mind in finding out why you are losing commissions will go a long way in helping you to get the resolution you seek.

Just my 2 cents,
Debs
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Rexanne · **Joined**: 08 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 5

Thank you for offering help, Debs. While I do understand the parasite ware issues, I feel adding yet another pop-up to my site is more of a distraction and annoyance to my visitors. I know the code you are referring to. Most people tend to click out of the pop up with the parasite ware warning, as it appears to be just another irratating pop up. And a lot of visitors simply couldn't care less WHO is gaining a commission from their sale, as long as they can get it done simply and quickly.

The merchants and affiliate programs are the ones that need to take action on this matter. When some programs did institute policy last year (CJ, ClubMom, Performics) it actually helped increase my revenue when they took action. However, this is a much bigger issue for the small affiliate partners who don't have the same voice as the larger sites.

Thanks again for your support and help.

Rexanne Mancini
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"Parenting, Holidays, Humor, Family, Fun!"
http://www.rexanne.com/index.html

Rexanne's Web Review
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http://www.rexanne.com/rwr-archives.html

Debs · **Joined**: 16 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 4296 **Location**: NY

I wasn't referring to any popup, I would agree on that issue. But there are other ways to test, even without your visitor's knowledge.

A simple javascript from doxdesk.com or other source, could be modified (or may already be available) to "count" infected visitors. You could insert it in the head of your pages, and after a week or so, check the numbers vs. page views to see what percentage are infected.

I am now looking for that kind of a script myself for testing. I can let you know about it, if I should find it.

Any scripters here who would be interested in coding this on behalf of affiliates everywhere?

Debs
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Gil · Guest

Good morning Rexanne,

First, Happy Holidays, I am sorry that you have generalized and included all merchants within the Be Free Network as basically being dishonest.

I am an Affiliate Manager and my company does belong to the Be Free Network, but I can assure you that we have bent backwards to make sure our affiliates get their commissions. We went through a period of time when we were not "charging back" cancelled orders from our affiliates' commissions as a show of good faith in our part - of course, we now have begun to deduct any cancellations or returns from affiliate commissions when this does happen.

Having my own personal web sites (besides being an AM), I can understand the concerns with Parasite ware and am sure that I have personally lost some income to these programs.

I have spoken with several persons at Be Free about the Parasite ware issue and basically the response has been that there is a difference between what is legal and what is ethical. Using these programs (Parasite ware) may not be illegal - but is it ethical? The companies that do utilize the software have always claimed that it is the customer who decides whether to download the software or not, and whether to use it or not.

In our affiliate program we have some of these companies, but I have noticed that the amount of commissions earned by them is lesser than many other affiliates in our program.

In any case, I do hope that you can resolve the problems you been having with the merchant in question to both of your satisfaction.

Once again I would like to wish everyone a very Happy and Healthy New Year.

Gil

blakekr · **Joined**: 17 Dec 2003 **Posts**: 265

This issue of parasitism is totally new to me and I hope it will be discussed a little further.

Who knows, maybe even I might be able to cobble together the appropriate tracking javascript if I learned a little more about what types of spyware were at fault. They can be detected through the browser?
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Debs · **Joined**: 16 Aug 2003 **Posts**: 4296 **Location**: NY

Blake,

Check out these sites for information on parasites:

http://cexx.org/problem.htm

http://celtic-one-design.com/amazon_associate_scripts.htm

http://www.ciac.org/ciac/techbull/CIACTech02-004.shtml

and last, but by no means least, the online authority:

http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/

Doxdesk has offered his script for revisions to anyone who wants to use it to help detect parasites. So it could be used to create a tracking script that would only count the infected visitors ... here is a draft of what I thought it would need (I posted this at Rentacoder):

guest · Guest

For lots more info about parasites, and to discuss with fellow affiliate marketers, I recommend http:/Abestweb.com. There is so much info, it makes me dizzy Shocked