95 New Posts Today

[sam_park]

Originally Posted by Snowman

LS Moderator will comment when she's authorized to do so. Haven't you noticed that?

Oh so sorry, I asked. Should I apologize to you Snowman.

[cozy]

Originally Posted by Haiko de Poel, Jr.

If you don't want to call or write the AM send me the name I'll call or write and make sure they are fully cognizant of what is exactly transpiring and will try to make them act accordingly. This isn't a drive by software crap head this is your trusted third party ... stealing from merchants and affiliates alike ... passivity only fuels their control, reach and bravado !!!

It's your money! ---- $211 MILLION ---- SCREAM!!!!!

Just had a spooky thought. I was at GoldenCan deleting all LS merchants ( may not be their ( merchants) fault but no help to LS here) and thought about how easy it was to do this. Then I wondered just how much of this money belongs to Asif. 25% of the clicks to many merchants belong to him for services provided to how many people? Ouch!

[openrsm]

Haiko,

Have you put together a "info package" of any type.. that distills what is known so far? i.e. a two or three paragraph "what's going on" followed by the pile of video links?

I'm sure some people here know how to get a blog post distributed....

[flamingoworld]

Originally Posted by Haiko de Poel, Jr.

*Note, I see suppression of the auto redirect on some aff sites (major affiliates, not the everday affiliate).

I thought I was major and they redirect on me.

[Snowman]

cozy, Haiko and I have both commented on removing Linkshare merchants. The same thing happens on CJ merchant links so if you are set on punishing Linkshare, you may as well remove your CJ links too. This is a Linkshare issue, not a merchant issue, regardless of network.

[cozy]

Originally Posted by Snowman

This is a Linkshare issue, not a merchant issue, regardless of network.

Lost me there Mate.
I understand the "not a merchant issue" and "This is a Linkshare issue" part and this is why no CJ links were removed in response to the LS issue.
I don't get why I should not respond this way. Is there a reason to allow stuff to continue passing through a company with such disregard? Sure they will still get a cut if they intercept CJ links but ... I'm trying.

[jrb16915]

If onecause has 600,000 users (as it says on the CJ description) and has paid 211 million in commissions that works out to roughly $3,500 per onecause member. If each sale a onecause member engages in generates a 5% commission for the charity, that implies that each onecause user has generated 3,500/.05 = $70,000 of sales. Who are these shoppers. Are they bankers getting bailouts? Or is there something misleading about the one cause charity payments made or number of customers?

[Julian]

Originally Posted by jrb16915

If onecause has 600,000 users (as it says on the CJ description) and has paid 211 million in commissions that works out to roughly $3,500 per onecause member. If each sale a onecause member engages in generates a 5% commission for the charity, that implies that each onecause user has generated 3,500/.05 = $70,000 of sales. Who are these shoppers. Are they bankers getting bailouts? Or is there something misleading about the one cause charity payments made or number of customers?

$210,000,000 divided by 600,000 is equal to $350, not $3,500

[sam_park]

$350/.05 = $7000. That's still high.

[Boom or Bust]

Originally Posted by jrb16915

If onecause has 600,000 users (as it says on the CJ description) and has paid 211 million in commissions that works out to roughly $3,500 per onecause member. If each sale a onecause member engages in generates a 5% commission for the charity, that implies that each onecause user has generated 3,500/.05 = $70,000 of sales. Who are these shoppers. Are they bankers getting bailouts? Or is there something misleading about the one cause charity payments made or number of customers?

Affiliate commissions isn't their only game, and this is spread out over a ten year period.

[jrb16915]

I understand that, but I doubt they started with 600k members 10 years ago, and I don't personally know anybody who has bought $70k of items via the interenet in total during the last 10 years, let alone that as an average for 600k people. If you assume they started with 0 customers and added them evenly over time, that actually doubles the per customer amount of commissionable sales. Something doesn't make sense.


Just saw somebody correct the math to $352 per customer. That is more reasonable, but still hard to imagine as an average.

[Snowman]

Because this is such a long thread, people understandably aren't reading the full thread, but by doing so, you are asking questions whose answers have already been addressed earlier.

Cozy, the majority of the money is going to OneCause for any merchant they are affiliated with, that includes CJ.

The hypocrisy which you are punishing is Linkshare because they are allowing a rules violation by a sister company of theirs, no less, but the end result is exactly the same for clicks on Linkshare merchants as it is on CJ merchants. That's why Haiko has posted videos of OneCause hijacking links of both Linkshare as well as CJ merchants.

http://forum.abestweb.com/showpost.p...&postcount=159

The $211 million figure has also been addressed. It's not just coming from affiliate commissions, but nonetheless, I don't believe it. I know others do but there is no proof. Anyone can post anything on their website.

[simcat]

I dont really believe their numbers either, but even if its only 1/10th or 1/100th what they say, its still a dirty deal to pull on their affiliates, and merchants too.

[Bob Lawrence]

Notice that they say supporters;

Thats probably counting each affiliate at cj ans ls.

[Boom or Bust]

Originally Posted by Snowman

This is a Linkshare issue, not a merchant issue, regardless of network.

I don't understand your comment. The primary reason Linkshare has been singled out is that they are part of the same conglomerate as One Cause. Linkshare must be aware of One Cause' modus operandi and if so has looked away, allowing blatant disregard of their own T&Cs by their sister company. It appears that other networks are either sympathetic with One Cause or ignorant of their operation, as they have allowed membership in their networks also.

I don't believe that jumping ship on your merchants is the answer to the problem. Affiliates and merchants alike are injured parties. The ideal solution would be for the various networks to remove One Cause from their programs or at least force them to adhere to their TOS. As much as I would hope, I don't think that will happen. So the next best strategy would be to bring attention to One Cause's TOS infractions and convince your merchants of the losses they're taking by allowing One Cause to operate in their programs, and ask them to have One Cause removed.

To me this has the makings of a communication and media blitz to "market" the hazards of allowing One Cause to continue their deception.

Another avenue would be legal action (class action suit).

[cozy]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Because this is such a long thread, people understandably aren't reading the full thread, but by doing so, you are asking questions whose answers have already been addressed earlier.

Cozy, the majority of the money is going to OneCause for any merchant they are affiliated with, that includes CJ.

The hypocrisy which you are punishing is Linkshare because they are allowing a rules violation by a sister company of theirs, no less, but the end result is exactly the same for clicks on Linkshare merchants as it is on CJ merchants. That's why Haiko has posted videos of OneCause hijacking links of both Linkshare as well as CJ merchants.

http://forum.abestweb.com/showpost.p...&postcount=159

The $211 million figure has also been addressed. It's not just coming from affiliate commissions, but nonetheless, I don't believe it. I know others do but there is no proof. Anyone can post anything on their website.

Sister company, parent company, subsidiary, division ... it all, eventually ( apparently from reading through the entire thread), hits the same coffers and the responsibility lands in the same laps ... and is just as dirty be it double the reported value per assumed percentages or 1 10th.
The hypocrisy, to my own personal convictions, would be to assist it. This is but my choice and my views.
Snowman, I sincerely appreciate your experience as well as the time that you have taken to address this. I truly mean no disrespect and apologize fervently for my opposing views that may seem to contradict this respect.

CJ, by my understanding, is vulnerable and allowing this but not blatantly being a part of the creation. I do not see how this is asking questions that have been answered and myself being too incompetent to have gotten it. Seems pretty simplistic to me.

[Snowman]

Ed, if you don't understand my comment, maybe you've taken it out of context. I explained what I meant which coincides with what you've just posted. I also made similar comments earlier in this thread.

By the way, I didn't ask any merchant to remove OneCause. I asked them to take appropriate action. The action or inaction they take will let us know how they feel about this issue.

[Boom or Bust]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Ed, if you don't understand my comment, maybe you've taken it out of context. I explained what I meant which coincides with what you've just posted. I also made similar comments earlier in this thread.

Someone mentioned that this thread is getting long... yep!

[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

Yes, a long thread with real evidence and only three merchants acting but still not a peep from Linkshare nor Rakuten, just more lost revenues for affiliates, erased margins for merchants and $211 Million to onecause. So they better have a resolution to this and soon - it's only 10 days to "Black Friday!"

[flamingoworld]

Haiko I talked to a few merchants today that are taking action but they aren't posting here for whatever reason. So just because people aren't posting don't assume they aren't doing something.

[Rhia7]

Originally Posted by flamingoworld

So just because people aren't posting don't assume they aren't doing something.

It would be nice if it were possible to write some sort of summary.

[Angela - Orbitz]

I removed them from Orbitz and Cheaptickets this morning before 10AM.

[Packy]

Originally Posted by Haiko de Poel, Jr.

Cabelas -> http://www.abestweb.com/cam/cabelas/cabelas.html

It's funny how OneCause can be approved but all honest affiliates from New York won't be. Curious if they have a nexus in New York that New York State may be interested in hearing about

I am totally disgusted with what I have read so far and I'm only about halfway through this thread. This is freaking pitiful and to be honest I'm totally pissed off that Linkshare hasn't handled this yet. Unless they have and I just haven't gotten to that post yet.

Haikster, great job watching over us per the norm. You gave Linkshare all they need and OneCause should of been booted by the time I finished page 2 of this thread. That said how does anyone think that Linkshare can/will boot the owner of them or am I missing something. Back to reading

[sam_park]

Originally Posted by Angela - Orbitz

I removed them from Orbitz and Cheaptickets this morning before 10AM.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I wish more and more AMs came forward and posted.

[Packy]

Originally Posted by Haiko de Poel, Jr.

Even ebay on aff link -> http://www.abestweb.com/cam/ebay/ebay.html

Haiko, How about overwriting ebay going straight to the site or through a search engine with ebay on top such as http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2003-46,GGLD:en&q=ebay ?

Angela