How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#231

Post by harrisonjackson » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

I don't know why the author didn't reach out to the actual affiliate tracking company. As an engineer, as soon as I got push back from the retailer that is the first thing I would have done. That or start polling my readers to see if anyone had purchased through them. You already disclose you are an affiliate so asking your loyal audience if they made purchase (which if they clicked through they are knowingly supporting you) should have gotten some response.

I worked at rewardstyle (a fashion affiliate technology company) for nearly three years when it first launched and built out their instagram affiliate tool LikeToKnow.it as a side project with one other developer and a designer. We faced A LOT of mistrust and doubt from affiliates about earnings - sometimes valid and sometimes not.

There are so so so many ways that different retailers would invalidate earnings, break the tracking, the buyer would delete their cookies, buyer would get redirected from a us store to au or eu or other intl and have it not track, we'd miscalculate a payout somehow, ship some bugs, etc.

But we knew that we were in an industry that was looked at as pretty scummy so we did our best to always make things right and error on the side of generosity.

There were times where a retailer would break the commission tracking on their checkout page and we would know there were 1000 sales but wouldn't be able to attribute them directly to a specific affiliate. We had to just do our best to extrapolate their earnings and add a "sorry something broke" bonus.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#232

Post by omgwtfbyobbq » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

leovander wrote: post #21

> If they failed to pay, my plan was to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and reach out to other affiliates suggesting they do the same. Where do people get their info from to just go with a "time to contact the FTC"? If feels like the equivalent of people threatening they will contact the BBB. Depending on the amount (that was $88 per the screenshot?), that is something you take to small claims cour…

Small claims court is usually more time consuming and expensive than opening a complaint with an appropriate regulatory agency.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#233

Post by NOGDP » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 7:19 PM UTC

thewebcount wrote: post #230

I've had this happen and did something very similar. I purchased a Kardia EKG device for my spouse's smart watch (before smart watches had them built in). The web page clearly stated that you could use the product without having an account. (My spouse and I are pretty vehement about not using any device that requires an account for no reason. Getting data from a device I own to my own watch should not require an acco…

A few years ago I got an unsolicited sales call from godaddy, offering me all sorts of bullshit that I didn't need (I did have some domains with godaddy then). I promptly told them no and thought that was that. A few days later I notice an $800 charge to my credit card I had on file with them. I call them and ask about the charge, they say I agreed to the purchase in the sales call. When I refuted this they said they had a recording of the call, and verified that I agreed. I asked them to play the call back and they refused. I called them a few times again asking for a refund or to hear the call that supposedly proved I agreed to the purchase. Anyway, a few weeks of bullshit later, I sent and email to HQ@godaddy.com, laying out what happened and telling them that in 24 hours I would be filing a complaint with consumer protection Ontario[1]. I got a full refund and an apology within a few hours. Needless to say I transferred all of my domains out of godaddy.

[1] https://www.ontario.ca/page/consumer-protection-ontario

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#234

Post by ohashi » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

Alec Fucking Mwali again?

Guessing it's the same affiliate manager I documented here:

https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2016/04/22/dirty-slimy-shady-s...

Trying to get me to publish fake reviews about companies he represents. He also likes using fake 'Re: BS subject that you never sent' tactic and claims it was a keyboard error.

Not surprising he's continuing to work with shady companies.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#235

Post by ohashi » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

coupdejarnac wrote: post #18

I appreciate you actually naming the scumbags. It's tiresome how people are overly diplomatic these days.

Alec Mwali is a shady affiliate manager who has tried to get me to post fake reviews for companies he represented in the past. Not surprised to see his name show up in a post about shady affiliate business. (Documented my experience with him here: https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2016/04/22/dirty-slimy-shady-s...)

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#236

Post by jldugger » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

raviolo wrote: post #170

Respect and courtesy are nice but I think the reason this style is so effective is different. It makes the counterparty believe that you are collecting the paper trail to file a lawsuit. And behaving like you are preparing to file a lawsuit is much more effective than just claiming you will be filing a lawsuits. I imagine that when presented with a choice of $88 payment or having to deal with a lawsuit, 100% of decis…

> It makes the counterparty believe that you are collecting the paper trail to file a lawsuit.

Thats because you are.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#237

Post by jldugger » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

locallost wrote: post #76

hydrogenbonds wrote: post #56

Given how much time you've wasted with this, my feeling is that overall you still lost. They owe you money for the time spent as well. Good on you for publishing this, but you should have mentioned their company name in the title, so that hopefully it show up in search engine results and this alerts others to not collaborate with them.

Passive income gets mentioned a lot here. He's collected over $100 for previous conversions and about $60 after that, and he'll keep collecting as long as the affiliate program runs. It's not a lot of money in general, but you don't start a keto blog with dreams of billions either.

> he'll keep collecting as long as the affiliate program runs

As mentioned in the post, he has cut the affiliate program off. And given that he is naming & shaming them in the blog, and even after getting posted to HN, I think that relationship has soured.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#238

Post by jldugger » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #97

Author here. Happy to answer any questions or take any feedback about this post. I wrote it a few months ago and submitted it at the time[0], but it didn't seem like it was a match for HN. I was quite surprised when I woke up to find a tweet from a friend letting me know it was on the front page. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24144103

Pardon my ignorance on the keto lifestyle, but do you think that 10 bucks per loaf of bread is a reasonable price? Even the reviews on their website indicate a lot of people think it's expensive.

Obviously your keto site has a lot of products, but given the energy in this particular affiliate writeup, have you seen their product in retail anywhere?

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#239

Post by Retric » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 8:09 PM UTC

wolco2 wrote: post #203

0xfaded wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a good way to contact an online business directly and say "It seems you pay a 20% affiliate fee. I would like a 20% discount?" Amazon kinda does this with smile and donations, even though I don't use amazon anymore. I go out of my way, with link strippers, cookie removers, adblockers, to the point of often manually copy and pasting links into a private window if necessary, to avoid affiliate links. When I do…

20% is rarely 20%. Most affilates have to reach a minimum and 90% never do. The small % who do are worth the 20%. You trying to cut them out. I don't think it's in the sites best interest to offer people like you (cookie killers),a discount. If the affilates find out and they feel cheated they will move on. Remember the affilate never gives one person at 20% (if they do they never hit their minimum) they give dozen/h…

That’s often what’s said, but the reality is different. It’s vastly easier for someone to get in between a future customer and a sale than it is to generate a new customer. Which is why affiliate programs are so frequently canceled without ill effect.

EX: Grubhub chnaginging Yelp phone numbers to get an affiliate commission on people looking up a restaurants phone number.

Re: How I Collected a Debt from an Unscrupulous Merchant

#240

Post by jskajakzkjx » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #223

true_religion wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The affiliate fee is a payment for someone who did the work of marketing the product and finding new clients that would otherwise be inaccessible. You didn’t do any of that. You are just a customer at best and don’t provide any additional value on top of the money you pay for the product. Charging less then is just the company shorting itself for a single customer.

The only thing the merchant cares about is CAC. If a customer walks in on their own, and they can acquire their business for less than the affiliate fee, then why not?

If some affiliate is actually doing the work of obtaining the customer to earn the fee, but then the customer has an economic incentive to strip the affiliate attribution to get the fee for themselves, then the affiliate isn’t getting paid. Maybe they’ll recommend another product instead, which doesn’t incentivize users to break the affiliate link.