Family Safe Media
www.familysafemedia.com
affiliate@familysafemedia.com

On October 7, 2011 I wrote to them regarding a product they just sent out to their list. I wanted to promote it, but it wasn’t in their backend for affiliates. I’m on their list because I’m a customer of their’s as well, but not any longer.

I was told by Mike 3 days later, that his boss was on vacation, but he’d send him my e-mail because he reads his e-mails. I said thank you & saw that someone else read my e-mail on the 11th.

I never received a response, so I wrote on the 21st sarcastically thanking them for getting back to me. I was ignored.

I don’t chase people, I gave them a chance & they blew it, so I’ve removed them from my site. I don’t even know if I’m getting commissions because some people have gone to their site from my site, but somehow there’s been no sales, plus what happens if the person calls & buys? I lose out?

So I would not recommend this affiliate program to anyone.

Michelle

Living Social Affiliate Program
livingsocial.com

I signed up for Living Social’s affiliate program several months ago & being busy, didn’t remember what happened with the account. At first I didn’t think I had signed up, but when I tried again, it said my e-mail address was already in the system, so I knew I had.

I also found their affiliate program to be hard to find/access via their site.

Anyway, I e-mailed them to find out what was going on, why wasn’t I an affiiliate.

Someone by the name of Jessica Harvey – jessica.harvey@hungrymachine.com got back to me after I e-mailed affiliates@livingsocial.com

She asked me for my website, I gave her 3 different ones, then she approved me saying…

“Hi Michelle,

Dating Factory
www.datingfactory.com

So I inquired about this dating site software that I found out about back in September of 2011.

I signed up & then e-mailed them & asked them if they could call me. In fact the subject line of my contact to them was “Please Call Me”, but in the end they didn’t.

Inside my account it said I was assigned an account manager that I thought was really cool, but it said Nick, my account manager, was away on vacation until August 15, 2011. Clearly it was well past that date.

Someone other than Nick contacted me. Her name was Keira. She did respond to my first e-mail, but then I saw something else that made me think this may not work, they are in the UK & I need to bill out in USD, so I asked about currency.

She never responded.

I was busy with my company, so it took me until October to get back to this company. They were sending me list e-mails which jogged my memory.

Since Keira hadn’t responded to my e-mails, I tried to find the contact page. I found it, but all it had were a list of tutorials (very strange), no actual form to fill out… https://admin.datingfactory.com/contact

There were links that didn’t work on their site either, so I found this all very confusing & I had no idea what was going on with this company. SO, I found their forum which seemed to be kind of dead. I was in a rush, looked & saw the last time someone posted was a month ago, figured they are out of business or soon to be, but in one last ditch effort to see if there was someone alive out there, I posted citing what had happened & asked if they have in fact gone out of business.

I activated my profile to let me know if there were any responses to my post & there were non. (another problem I later on realized)

Then a few days later I came across that e-mail that jogged my memory, decided to see if anyone had responded to my thread & amazingly there was a response.

From a VERY disrespectful blank who is co-founder of Dating Factory.

Her name is Lisa & here is what she wrote…

“Dear Michelle,

Thank you for your enquiry, but I am afraid I will have to prove you wrong and provide some facts:

1) https://admin.datingfactory.com/contact/form – here is the contact support form that many partners are using every day

2) Your account manager details are in your admin with the direct phone number and Skype contacts, and Nick is online most of the time except sleeping hours of course.

Nick Dovgopolyy
n.dovgopolyy@datingfactory.com
skype: nick_datingfactory
phone: +44(0)20 3239 3504
Please call from 7.00AM to 7.00PM GMT

3) I have looked at your communication with Keira, and she did answer you back, and you even replied back, I have a copy of YOUR reply to her message on Sept, 7, so please let’s be honest, nobody has ignored you. To prove that I can publish the communication here, if you like for everyone to see.

4) Nick is back from holidays ages ago, and is available, so I am not sure why you decided to post this on the forum when the company is fully functional, has thousands of successful partners, sponsors all the major internet industry events, and publishes news regularly.

5) On our site you have a direct number to call, on the front page – I don’t suppose you have tried calling this number?

Lisa
Co-founder, Dating Factory”

I will show you a screenshot just in case she lies & says I made everything up…

Now because of Lisa’s condescending ignorant response, not only did she lose me as an affiliate for TWO dating sites (I had plans for two), she now got her company a negative review.

Keep up the great work Lisa.

Points I’d like to make about Lisa’s response on the forum for Dating Factory:

1. I guess Lisa isn’t smart enough to know that e-mails get lost. If she hadn’t been so quick to try & put me down & try to make fun of me to the entire forum, maybe she would have stopped to ask me (or her brain)… maybe Michelle sent an e-mail after her first one, & Keira never received it.Fancy that.
2. See how Lisa avoids my comment about how links aren’t clickable on the footer nav & trust me, I tried several times to click on them, they WEREN’T working.
3. See how Lisa avoids my point about my account saying that Nick is away on vacation until August 15th, 2011. I believe, but don’t want to say for sure because I can’t remember, that it still said that a week ago.I just checked & they’ve changed it.Amazing, but she probably won’t admit to that. Lisa to me doesn’t seem like the type who tells the truth. But that’s just my opinion.Why in the world would I call an account manager who’s still on vacation??? I don’t care if it says he’s back after a certain date, I don’t know that.Oops, imagine that, I have a screenshot of what my account said because I sent it to Keisha at the time inquiring as to whether it was a mistake on their part.

• Next… Why should I have to pay overseas long distance charges to The Dating Factory? Why can’t they call me? And no, I didn’t try to call them because I prefer to use e-mail first. Then if I feel there’s a long conversation brewing, then I’ll call, but again. I’ve had companies from the UK call before. Why can’t they call me?
• Why did Lisa have to make such a big deal of me posting in the forum?I e-mailed, received no response, tried to find the contact page & couldn’t. Re: the URL Lisa posted…I don’t know how I’m supposed to assume that’s the URL to the contact page when it’s I don’t see anything like that on the contact page I showed you. I guess Lisa expects me to read her mind.So that’s why I posted on the forum.A mature person would have laughed it off, admitted to their mistakes, said it’s just another one of those “Internet” glitches, said “We’d be MORE than happy to talk to you Michelle” & gotten past all of this. But then one has to be mature & a real business person to manage that.
• Lisa comes this close to REALLY wanting to publish my personal communication with Keira. LOL, Wow, go for it Lisa, it doesn’t prove a thing. I never said she NEVER returned my e-mails, I said she ignored an important question of mine & granted, I could have used a different word that wasn’t soooo strong, but I think at the time I was pissed because I had tried so hard to talk to them & couldn’t find a way.
• Why does Lisa have to insinuate that I’m lying?I don’t lie Lisa, but as they say, a liar will ALWAYS assume another person lies.

In the end, www.datingfactory.com appears to be professional & all glossy on the outside, but then when I started dealing with them, there was nothing but problems & rudeness beyond comprehension. Keira was nice though, aside from not getting back to me. I wonder if they ever check their spam folder.

I am glad I found this out now.

Michelle

Condomania

http://secure.condomania.com/

So I signed up for Condomania’s affiliate program back in December of 2007.

I put their banner on my site & wondered why I didn’t get any sales.

When I went to go look recently in October of 2009, the site told me the affiliate URL was incorrect.

When I called or e-mailed the affiliate company, I was told that they had shut down that affiliate program for Condomania a while ago.

I was NEVER notified & wasn’t too happy about this.

Then I went to call Condomania & whoever answered the phone didn’t even know what an affiliate program was.

I was directed to Adam Glickman, he didn’t answer, so I left a message.

Never received a phone call back.

I called again, no one picked up at all, so I left a message on their general mailbox for Adam Glickman, AGAIN no return phone call.

He wasn’t even listed in their directory.

So I guess I promoted Condomania, probably got sales, and not only did I NOT get any money from their affiliate program, their support is terrible.

Michelle

www.leadingedgecash.com
www.lecash.com
affiliate program

(250) 383-0893

100 – 645 Tyee Road
Victoria, British Columbia
V9A 6X5
Canada

So I joined Leading Edge Cash because I wanted to market an all natural penis enhancement.

They have this Vigrx product & my assistant said it was ok, so I went ahead & marketed it.

From the moment I started with them in April of 2008, I had problems with this company.

1. I never received my password once I joined. When I e-mailed them, the excuse was that they were in meetings for days & were behind on their e-mails.Umm, then HIRE new people to answer your e-mails.A few days later I get this response from this Michael who was an affiliate manager…”We have been very busy. We can’t always get back to you immediately so I
   appreciate your patience. With tens of thousands of affiliates immediate
   responses are more rare than common.”

   While I can appreciate a person being busy, if I don’t take care of setting up the page to market their product, chances are I never will, since I’m very busy & I’m not a full time affiliate.

2. Then I had to repeat my question to him because Mike mike@lecash.com didn’t answer me the first time around. Also I was just trying to get an URL with my affiliate ID in it so I could place it on my blog & it seemed to take forever for me to understand him or vice versa.One thing I hate when it comes to affiliate programs, is when they can’t just offer an affiliate URL, it ALWAYS has to be a banner, or a text ad or something. Why do they always make it soooo hard for affiliates.
3. 4 months later again I e-mailed this Mike & never received a response. I finally received one from Bruce after I submitted a ticket, but I thought they had gone out of business.
4. Fast forward to a year & one month after I had set up the page on a blog that gets sales on another product, & I go to look & nothing. No sales, nadda, so clearly their site isn’t producing sales.I decided to call Mike & talk to him live & on the phone.When I called, he was rude, curt & I was shocked. He thought I wasn’t there, but I was soooo stunned at how I was being treated, that I had nothing to say.Finally I spoke up & said I deal with people who are nice & so I don’t know what to say & you know what he did???

   He hung up on me.

5. I decided to get my assistant to now research the company Leading Edge Cash since we had only researched the product before.This time he found references to spam & unethical black hat practices online.

Your choice if you wish to become an affiliate of this company.

I have since taken down the page & will find another product that will replace the penis enhancement, plus where they treat their affiliates with respect & aren’t just using them to make money.

Michelle

Alibi Network
www.alibinetwork.com

So I joined their affiliate program because I needed to market their services to a specific group of potential clients. I told someone else about the service, & she was interested in joining too.

I e-mailed Alibi Network to ask if their affiliate program had a 2nd tier in place. They didn’t return my e-mail.

I then called them & left a message with some guy (sounded black). I told him I didn’t receive a response back to my e-mail. He said he would pass along the message.

Again, next day, maybe even 2 days later, still no return phone call.

This time I called again, but during the day.

When I was passed through to another person from reception (also sounded black, & no I’m not being racist, I just can’t remember his name & I want to be clear), I told him that no one was returning my e-mails or phone calls.

Instead of him apologizing & trying to get to the bottom of this very very poor customer service, he made some comment that basically told me he doesn’t care.

I said I thought so & hung up. There is NO WAY I would recommend this Alibi Network to anyone. My reputation is on the line & I ONLY sell quality products & services from companies that care about their clients & affiliates..

Their website is poorly coded (look at it in Firefox as of April 1, 2009), but I thought their product would still sell.

This guy didn’t know if I was a potential client, or an existing client or who I was, so he didn’t act this way just because I was an affiliate.

I took down my webpage marketing their service & deleted the e-mail to the list I was marketing to.

Michelle

http://www.masteryoursexlife.com

Zara
Zara@masteryoursexlife.com

So I signed up for the Master Your Sex Life affiliate program because I really need a good product to promote to teach men how to be great lovers. I read who the author was, his expertise, etc.  & felt his products would be great.

From the minute I signed up for their affiliate program, Zara was e-mailing me almost every day asking me how she could help me start. She was the affiliate manager.

I told her I needed to get things ready which meant me setting up a page, writing the copy, etc.

I finally did that & since I was going to promote this product to different audiences, I told her I needed different landing pages because based on the landing pages she was showing me, they didn’t have one I felt comfortable with for mainstream men.

I also asked her if they could tweak banners because they had some cheap looking illustration at the top of most of them & I didn’t want this to hinder sales.

Anyway, I never heard back from Zara which I found odd, so I e-mailed her again.

Still never heard back from her.

So, after she was e-mailing me day after day trying to get me to promote the Master Your Sex Life products, now she is ignoring me.

Good thing I figured this out before doing all this work, & giving them all the sales I would have given them, as they probably don’t even pay their affiliates.

http://seekingarrangement.com/

http://www.seekingfantasy.com

http://www.seekingmillionaire.com

www.infostreamgroup.com

Brandon Wade
lead@infostreamgroup.com

I signed up for Brandon’s affiliate program back on 02-14-08 & I feel I was scammed.

I know that females & maybe males, have signed up for his site, I even spoke to one who did, but they have no reporting program, & I’ve been hearing excuse after excuse since 02-16-08.

Brandon even e-mailed me personally on 08-25-08 saying he would personally let me know what my stats were within a week, & I never heard back from him.

Brandon Wade claims it is growing pains & I say DON’T launch an affiliate program if you can’t handle servicing your affiliates. I see he has NO problem marketing himself to news channels & other sites,

but when it comes to giving affiliates their money, that clearly takes a back seat to him making money.

For 7 months I marketed his site to a market that 9/10 out of would sign up to his site, not to mention who signed up just from search engines, & I’ve received nothing for my work.

I have taken them down from my site & am letting other affiliates know what you are up against, because I see he has other sites that also have affiliate programs.

Michelle

http://www.NicheWidget.com

David Perdew
Maximize Communications, Inc.
256.318.5202 cell
256.796.8698 home

http://www.MaximizeCommunications.com

http://www.MyResellRightsGoldmine.com

http://www.WorldWantingPeace.com

http://www.Bad-Dad.com

http://www.TurnYourKnowledgeIntoCashOnline.com

Ok, my complaint is with Niche Widgets. I know nothing about any of the other sites David owns.

We signed up for their affiliate program, & within a few weeks, noticed that they didn’t have a proper tracking system for impressions, clicks, sales, etc.

I can’t work with an affiliate program who doesn’t have that, so I contacted David. It sounds like he doesn’t have a handle as to what is going on there, he was trying to figure out the software himself & wasn’t really responding back to my e-mails in a timely manner.

David, just a word of advice if you wish to take it, even if you are waiting on someone else in your company, you should always respond back to the client to let them know if will be a few days before you get back to them. Letting them think you don’t care isn’t the answer, & when someone doesn’t return my e-mail within 48 hours or longer, that to me means the person doesn’t care.

Anyway, I also remember now there were huge problems when I submitted a ticket. His ticket system wouldn’t take it, or it was breaking my message, or something like that. I can’t remember now, it’s been over 2 months since I had the issue.

Anyway, I sent David the URLs of where his widgets were on my blogs, & I never heard back from him, so after months of him probably generating traffic from 3 blogs, I finally had my assistant take them down.

People, if you don’t have a proper affiliate program in place, you shouldn’t launch it.

It looks bad on you if your affiliates don’t even have the proper tools to make money for you & themselves.

David is a nice guy, I just don’t feel he’s cut out to run the Niche Widget program. Once again, I can’t respond on his other businesses, as I don’t know them.

Thanks

Michelle

Tom Davidson
Nisim International
204 Wilkinson Rd
Brampton, Ontario
L6T 4M4

905 451 7772
800 656 4746

tom@nisim.com

I had signed up for Nisim’s affiliate program after my assistant found them via the net.

I put the links on my blog article, along with another one of their competitors.

For the next several months, I was getting sales from their competitor, but nothing from Nisim.

Because this blog isn’t part of my day to day business operations, I was too busy to take note of what was going on, & I just thought that the readers liked the other product’s site better.

After this went on for almost a year where I was getting NO sales from Nisim International (I didn’t even remember they existed), I had my assistant go into the affiliate program’s backend, & see how many clicks I was getting.

Well guess what, not ONLY were there NO clicks, there weren’t even any impressions.

Something was seriously wrong, & I was pissed.

Who knows how many sales I lost.

I wrote to Tom & told him the situation & Tom always seemed like a nice guy, but when he told me to sign up with Commission Junction, I didn’t want to.

I hate Commission Junction, their site SUCKS big time.

They have been around for years, & every time I go in there, it’s a maze of confusion, I have to log in once, then twice going around in circles, & everything seems terribly designed.

Their UI SUCKS!!!!!!!

The last time I was in there, I couldn’t even click on links, & they don’t care about validated code telling me I have to use Internet Explorer when THEY should be the ones catering to their affiliates & publishers, not them catering to Commission Junction.

Even when I used IE I still couldn’t click on links.

I know Commission Junction is one of the leaders in the industry, but I don’t care. That’s ALL the more reason for them to spend some money fixing their site, but I guess greediness is more important than quality of service.

Now I’m on FireFox 3.0, & see what I have to go through. Oh, & I just checked it on IE 7 & same thing.

I’ll repeat again since I’m sooo pissed, Commission Junction SUCKS.

These companies who start an affiliate program clearly don’t know what they are doing when it comes to affiliate programs, & they don’t seem to care about the affiliates & their needs. Nisim isn’t the only company that doesn’t care, I had one other who pissed me off.

As an affiliate, I want things to be easy for me, not difficult.

Anyway, because I wanted to get this Nisim International issue resolved, I grudgingly signed up for Commission Junction.

Tom said he would see what he could do as far as giving me something for all the lost credit of sales & that made me happy enough to want to stick with them, so I left the old links on my blog until I could get the new Commission Junction links.

Well guess what happened next.

Right, more problems with Comission Junction.

They supply you with banners, & text ads that have 2 links embedded in the code, but nowhere in there could my assitant find me just one affilliate link that I could place underneath my own text.

I didn’t even know what my affiliate ID was for christ sakes, so I told Tom about the problem, all the while getting more frustrated, especially when he had the nerve to tell me they have thousands of affiliates, & no issues at all with Commission Junction.

I said fine, if you are calling me a liar, then I don’t have to be your affiliate, it’s clear you don’t care about whether I can get signed up or not. In fact, that’s another issue with commission junction, I was never notified when they approved my request for membership with the 2 companies I was signing up for.

I finally got the e-mail notice about a week or two later, so the entire time I had no idea Tom had approved me because I had asked him to e-mail me & he never did.

The only thing that would block the notification e-mail, would be if commission junction was on the grey list or some spam list, so it took that long to filter through.

I don’t generally have this problem with other sites I sign up with, & I sign up with tons every month. Message boards take a while, but by the next day I almost always get the confirmation e-mail.

So Tom tells me he’s out of town, & he’s passing me on to his partner, Sid Samel – affiliate@nisim.com who looks to be his affiliate manager.

Sid was very nice wanting to help me & he confirmed that many affiliates can’t stand Commission Junction either. Maybe those 2 should speak to each other once in a while & get their story straight.

I told Sid what the problem was, unfortunately Sid didn’t seem to understand what I was saying at first, so it took a few e-mails for me to clarify what I was saying.

He kept telling me there were text links there (not text ad links), I kept saying there aren’t, tell me where exactly & I’ll go get them.

Once he understood what I was saying, I finally said, fine, you call my assistant & walk him through it. It should take what, 5 minutes tops to point Andy in the right direction?

I gave him Andy’s number & told him to call him after 2 pm EDT, & waited.

The next day he calls my assistant Andy, not after 2 pm, but at 1-1:30 pm, so of course Andy didn’t pick up. Sid didn’t leave a number, & we were back to square one.

Sid finally e-mails me the next day, & says he’ll call Andy again tomorrow. I am pissed because it’s been 17 days now since I found out that their links weren’t giving me any credit for sales & it seemed like this was taking forever & wasting a ton of my precious time.

I just told him I was going to remove their links from my blog, this is too complicated, & I’ve lost too much money.

I never got a response back from him. See, proof they didn’t care.

If you are an affiliate, you be the judge of whether you want to sign up with Nisim International OR, Commission Junction.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…