How Hydra Affiliate Network Screwed Me Out Of $25,000

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I've never spoken to you directly Steve, but don't try to put yourself in the same boat as Copeac. I was personally screwed out of $1,200 by your network. I never took it public because I figured the amount was not worth it. I was removed from your network afterwards because apparently the quality on the $1200 was so low you believed it to be fraudulent. I had an account with MaxBounty for several years at the time (never ran volume beforehand) and your network just booted me because the advertiser didn't like my traffic. I've been in the industry for 5 years, work with all the major aff networks, and do over 500k in a good month, so it wasn't me, it was your network. Oh, and when I repeatedly emailed your compliance department, my AM, and the higher-ups whose contact information I could find, I got 0 answers. (I definitely still have all those emails to prove it too.)

So... you're no Copeac.
Hello there. Without any way to identify you, I cannot tell what might have happened here. I can assure you and anyone reading this that if you were removed from the network, it was because of fraud. If the quality was so low that it pissed off the merchant, then you were either misleading surfers, offering incentives when you shouldn't, using a bot to autosubmit leads, deceptively iframing, or doing something else that violated the rules of the campaign to the point where the leads had no value.
 
I'm certainly not going to step up to the plate for a fraudulent affiliate, nor am I going to pay them for leads that are fraud. I know this is an exception that rarely happens, but that's what most clauses in contracts are for - to handle the exceptions. And that's why I have a similar clause in my affiliate terms and conditions, and why I'd never remove it. How many times have I exercised this clause in the 5+ years MB's been around? Zero. But I leave it in as a just-in-case.

I can assure you and anyone reading this that if you were removed from the network, it was because of fraud. If the quality was so low that it pissed off the merchant, then you were either misleading surfers, offering incentives when you shouldn't, using a bot to autosubmit leads, deceptively iframing, or doing something else that violated the rules of the campaign to the point where the leads had no value.

I thought the 1st paragraph sounded odd when I read it yesterday ... you've never exercised the clause that deals with fraud?

Would you mind clarifying for me what clause you're talking about that's a fat bastard (read: un-exercised)? I think I missed something.
 
I thought the 1st paragraph sounded odd when I read it yesterday ... you've never exercised the clause that deals with fraud?

Would you mind clarifying for me what clause you're talking about that's a fat bastard (read: un-exercised)? I think I missed something.
The clause I've never exercised is the one that says I won't pay an affiliate if I didn't get paid by a merchant. That is a separate clause from the ones dealing with fraud. Bottom line, my collection issues do not affect my affiliates.
 
Steve,

I have the email conversation between myself and your network. Most of my emails never got answered and the ones that did were really lame responses. I don't incentivize, I've never used bots, don't frame without permission, or anything else you said. My ad was possibly a bit misleading, but you'll be hard-pressed to find many in the industry that aren't. Regardless, after being with your network for 2 years, I was removed and the money was not paid to me. I've done over a million each in the last 4 years with numerous networks, including hydra (who by the way I have never had problems with, although I'll agree the AMs are not very useful). Like I said, the amount was around $1200, so it was not worth it for me to go and make a big public deal out of it. But if I see a post from your network claiming you guys are copeac and stand up for your affiliates, I'll be sure to put in my two cents, which is simply that that was not MY experience.

Hello there. Without any way to identify you, I cannot tell what might have happened here. I can assure you and anyone reading this that if you were removed from the network, it was because of fraud. If the quality was so low that it pissed off the merchant, then you were either misleading surfers, offering incentives when you shouldn't, using a bot to autosubmit leads, deceptively iframing, or doing something else that violated the rules of the campaign to the point where the leads had no value.
 
Just based on Steve's responses in this thread I would probably never sign up for Max-Bounty.
That's doesn't seem fair... I haven't seen anything from him that makes his network seem any worse than any other network out there.

However, he seems to be giving real answers, not PR answers. Which I give a lot of credit for. And anything I've found that I would disagree with (or dislike) that he's written is something that's already the status-quo. A lot of the other networks just won't say it to you.

Oh well. I suppose it's not my business. I just don't see how someone can come into a thread about hydra (who has completely failed to respond) and somehow get a bad opinion of a network actually seems to make an effort to handle their shit.
 
"Real" answers... that are actually dodgy (get my network out there) Lets refute Jon's offer by talking about why I can't change a clause because fraud liabilities.

Nobody is talking about fraud- If you think a single person on this board expects you to pay out fraudulent affiliates, you're retarded.

Because it puts too much protection on the side of the affiliate, and that's dangerous.
You think you'd make a lot of money without publishers? Cause I'll be very honest, I would NEVER sign up for a network that makes an absurd comment like this.

Why not create contracts with the Advertiser that protects yourself? Ever think along those lines? Surely this will create an umbrella that will get the networks paid, as well as the publishers who devote time, energy, and money to promote these offers. Stop being a bunch of pussies letting these advertisers skip on paying it forward.
 
Just based on Steve's responses in this thread I would probably never sign up for Max-Bounty.

I think you guys should respect anyone who owns an ad network and has the balls to respond to you guys every time there is an issue. Many networks are afraid of responding on this forum, The network this thread is about doesnt even bother to address you guys, or the OP at the very least, so all your showing is that silence is best and opening your mouth will cost you.

Steve has never failed to help the board. If you dont like his response, that's your prerogative but as a network owner i understand Steve's position. We deal with more fraud issues than you can imagine. I actually have to shut my checking accounts down every 6 months (if you failed to cash one of our checks in time youve experienced this in the form of a stop pay on the check), i also send my bank a record of check numbers and amounts, because i have nigerian scammers who make copies of my checks and mail them to people to cash for them and western union the money back to Nigeria. Add to that the affiliates who use bots to fill out offers or fire ghost leads and advertisers who 2 months later tell you about it and dont want to pay. Or the rings of stolen credit card affiliates who complete CPA offers with stolen credit card's to collect the CPA bounty or affiliates who know they are scamming an advertiser that get kicked off then move to another network to continue the scam (like the other post i responded to on here) and what you end up with is networks who have difficulty with who to trust and believe. If someone on my team has never met you or talked to you, and you do small under the radar amounts of traffic i might not beleive you were real and side with the advertiser. If you contact me, show me proof your traffic was legit i will side with you. In fact if you spam and tell me I might not hold the spam against you, if i know the advertiser doesnt care or recieved good leads. Just dont lie to me, if youre honest youll find out that most networks will do right by you

Advertisers get the same treatment. If you lie and try to scam we will stop working with you and pursue money owed to the affiliates or us since we pay out regardless. If an advertiser tells me over and over the traffic is good and to push and get more, then they say its not good and they dont want to pay, we force the advertiser to pay, even if we felt it wasnt good to begin with, simply because the direction given was to "blow it up", also advertisers who tell us its fraud and when pushed we find out fraud meant they couldnt convert it are also forced to pay, or get kicked off our network for good (We maintain a blacklist with over 100 companies on it). Because your sales team sucks or your model is no good isnt our fault or the affiliates fault, not everyone can run a business and if you fail you must pay your debts, not try to run from them.

I cant speak for others but we all run a similar operation from a legal standpoint our agreements protect everyone in a fair and balanced manner.
 
Mike,
I understand your stance on this issue. However...
Payment for Commissions is dependent upon Clients providing such funds to COPEAC, and therefore, you agree that COPEAC shall only be liable to you for Commissions to the extent that COPEAC has received such funds from the Clients. You hereby release COPEAC from any claim for Commissions if COPEAC has not received such funds from the Clients.
This statement is way too broad.

I know this is getting more and more off topic, and in depth into fraud, BUT
What are your procedures when an advertiser cries wolf? Is the network or the advertiser responsible for investigating the claim and providing the "PROOF" fraud occurred?

If an advertiser finds 20,000 leads for offer x are fraudulent (from say 3 publishers), and decide not to pay, does that affect the 200 other affiliates who pushed legit leads? If the other 200 affiliates get paid, how do you go about making sure these affiliates were in fact pushing legit traffic (so you're not paying out on additional fraud unseen by the network?) Especially from some of the people who would never let you take a look at their LP's and KWs.

Why am I responsible (provided I am pushing legit traffic) if you can't collect payment from your counterparts? I have no pre-existing relationship with them, no contact information, etc. I do what is expected of me (provide a real person, who fills out 9 fields including their credit card number, etc)

Maybe a network could post a copy of their advertiser agreement/contract?
If that is too much to ask, I understand, but it would give publishers a better idea of where their (sometimes useless) networks stand.
 
This is why I spend most of my resources on selling leads directly (advertiser pays upfront, period) and promoting....gasp...cost-per-sale offers (not $5 sales but real sales). I have never had an issue.

Anytime you give the advertiser the ability to define, in their own terms, what "quality" traffic is....it's over for the affiliate. Been there and it sucks. They don't understand what a "lead" is. It is not a sale. You get the lead and you have to convert the sale. If it were a sale, I would want a helluva lot more than $2-4 :)

BTW, it is also total bullshit that an advertiser may need "weeks" to determine if the traffic is good. If they put forth the effort it would be days and, again, if it isn't fraud they need to cut you off but PAY.
 
After reading this thead I get the feeling like it's an us against them sort of thing. I'm not sure how hydra handles their business but I really feel this needs to change. We specifically don't deal with leads that much for a reason. There is always, always quality issues on the backend. But when we deal with anything whether is be leads, sales, free trials or whatever if we're doing over 10-15k a day in traffic to them I'm usually on aim or the phone with them at least 1 or 2 times a day asking about quality. Making sure the rebills are backing out, making sure the lead quality is good. Then communicating that to both our AM's and Affiliates. Talk to the anyone that does volume with us we're constantly communicating quality praise or issues with their traffic.

There's been a few verticals in the past I wouldn't even pickup because I knew it was going to blow up and the quality was bad and the affiliates were going to jump network to network. The auto insurance drop down was a perfect example. Everyone was running it on facebook.

It all comes down to communication and long term thinking. Yeah you can run stuff that makes you money and fucks the advertiser but man that's just going to end up in problems for everyone involved a lot of the time. If someone is winning and someone is losing that's a bad thing. Everyone needs to win. I sat with the head of a major media company yesterday and we really talked about when things are working right an everyone wins stuff goes through the roof. The publishers, media companies, affiliates, networks and advertisers all make money. When everyone wins you can do massive numbers. But again that comes down to open communication from all parties and being proactive about making sure affilliates know the quality of the traffic isn't good. Then the affiliate has a choice. You can "A" decide that someone is losing at the expense of your winning, "B" communicate with the network or advertiser to see if there's a price point that might work for the advertiser or if some of the traffic is ok, or "C" drop it all together. I've always chose B or C. Because that's long term thinking if you want everyone to win then everyone wants to help you grow as well. ( sorry side track tangent )

Open communication and care for all parties involved is what's important here and most situations won't come to non-payment.

I've had 1 bad experience so far where someone stiffed us for 70k on that guarana blast offer. At the end of the day I worked out with most of the affiliates what their click cost was and ate that. We came together and decided that would be the best for all parties involved. So the affiliates didn't take a loss I covered their cost and we didn't take as big of a hit. The other thing is if you here people don't pay there bills from anyone DON'T RUN THEIR SHIT!!!! Look at this thread there's all kinds of people talking about this advertiser not paying. Maybe we can get more proactive and create some sort of a medium where advertisers can be outted for not paying their bills. Then if you as an affiliate decide to keep running it you know what you're dealing with.

Jon - I appreciate your hard lined view and I totally understand where you're coming from as I have an affiliate mindset first and a network owner mindset second. But at the end of the day I don't think it's that black and white. I would say I'd signup for your challenge but honestly I couldn't take a few million dollar hit and blindly say I was just going to payout everyone 100%. I just couldn't afford it, however I'd definately cover click costs to the affiliates involved and the affiliates that work with us know that. We've discussed it numerous times. I have 700k outstanding on a bizopp offer right now that's being with held and am paying all the affiliates that work with us just like normal. As I'm hoping we can resolve the issue. Again it's about working together so that everyone wins, but you know me man I don't need to tell you that :)
 
BTW, it is also total bullshit that an advertiser may need "weeks" to determine if the traffic is good. If they put forth the effort it would be days and, again, if it isn't fraud they need to cut you off but PAY.

No actually it isn't bullshit. When you look at lots of offers these days, the rebills don't hit for like two weeks - then you'll be able to see how well your doing. Not just that but you also have to account for charge-backs, and those can occur up to 60 days later I think. So actually it isn't quite as cut and dry.
 
I know its a completely different world in terms of NETWORK and PUBLISHER

But why is it so fucking hard to collect on these advertisers?
 
I've never spoken to you directly Steve, but don't try to put yourself in the same boat as Copeac. I was personally screwed out of $1,200 by your network. I never took it public because I figured the amount was not worth it. I was removed from your network afterwards because apparently the quality on the $1200 was so low you believed it to be fraudulent. I had an account with MaxBounty for several years at the time (never ran volume beforehand) and your network just booted me because the advertiser didn't like my traffic. I've been in the industry for 5 years, work with all the major aff networks, and do over 500k in a good month, so it wasn't me, it was your network. Oh, and when I repeatedly emailed your compliance department, my AM, and the higher-ups whose contact information I could find, I got 0 answers. (I definitely still have all those emails to prove it too.)

So... you're no Copeac.

Just based on Steve's responses in this thread I would probably never sign up for Max-Bounty.

Don't know why your starting to pick on MaxBounty or Steve, I know everyone has different experiences with different affiliate companies, but by far MaxBounty is one of the most trustworthy companies I've ever dealt with.

I too had a similar issue with the advertiser complaining about bad traffic but it was only for $600, what happened? Well my AM was literally on the phone and left me a message inside of an hour letting me know to stop running the offer cause the traffic was not converting for the end advertiser.

And yes Max paid out just fine, was it my fault for sending traffic that wasen't converting, the answer is no because all I can tell is that it was converting for me, once its past the conversion goal I have zero knowledge that the traffic continues to do what the advertiser wants it to do.

At this point I feel like we really need additional tracking to help everyone out, as smaxor has said no one should be loosing in this industry, its a win-win game when you think of it for both the advertisers, networks, and affilaites.

I personally think that if we could track the traffic right through then it could really improve all of our relationships.

For instance lets take a fictionary dating offer where you get paid out after a 1 form sign up, this offer is lead based, now in order for the advertiser to remain happy lets say they need at least 20% of those leads to continue onto the paid signup form.

We could track as we do now show us the reports when our (Affiliate) conversion is met, then continue to track that user for the advertiser, so now the tracking can tell the networks directly that 10% of the affiliate conversions led to 1% paid signup (Or End Goal) conversion for the advertiser.

You can even get more in-depth by giving another form for us affilaites to look at, it can show us our conversions then it can show how many of our conversions led to the desired goal of the advertiser.

That way if our conversions are high but the desired goal of the advertiser is low we can choose to keep running our traffic and be dropped by the unhappy advertiser who is now loosing money or we can choose to try to improve things a little better so we don't get dropped, the advertiser is still meeting there desired goals and everyone is now in a win-win situation once that is reached there are no issues everyone is happy and is making money.

There are lots of things we can still do to cut down on unhappy advertisers and on fraud but we really gotta stop bitching and start working.

P.S. Sorry this post kind of wen't hay wire and all over the place haha.
 
But why is it so fucking hard to collect on these advertisers?

Honestly its bad business and having a hard time collecting with any company to company transaction regaurdless of industry type has been an issue, a small company trying to collect from a large company is a hassle, a large company trying to collect from a small company is a hassle.

Its an age old issue for a lot of companies, they have a mindset that when payment is required on Day 5 they will try to push it to Month 10 before they pay.

Honestly I hate that with a passion when running a company just like anything else when your bills are due you pay them to avoid any issues unfortunately a lot of companies just don't seem to think that way.
 
Yeah great post Aq. That would be an interesting thing to implement and I'm sure if we came up with the concept of how it would work we could probably get hitpath to implement it. As well as some advertisers to test it. Would need to be some sort of postback system for the advertisers when the desired outcome occured for them. Definately an interesting idea that I'd be willing to work with anyone on.
 
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