Commission Junction - not paying

[BOF]

Has anyone else had trouble getting payments from CJ? I have had a 'payable' balance for some time now but am still awaiting payment. E-mails to CJ go unanswered - even unacknowledged.

[JWM]

I know it can take 2-3 months for them to make payment, depending on the timing of when the money was credited vs when reports are run.

Also, you should double check to make sure you have set the minimum payment amount low enough to trigger payment. I think the default is $100, but you can set it as low as $25.

jim

[BOF]

Thanks, Jim. My balance has exceeded the minimum for some time but no payment has been forthcoming. It's also very annoying that they don't respond to e-mail contact. This draws me towards wondering about their integrity - hence my query.

CJ must have quite a bit of money sitting around quietly drawing interest while they procrastinate!

[Elek]

Exact same problem here. I exceeded the limit about two months ago... I double-checked their help pages, and according to that, I should have received payment about a month ago :(

[Edit: I'd like to make it clear that I'm not complaining as a FutureQuest affiliate at CJ; they (FQ) don't owe me anything. Sorry if I was not clear the first time.]

Elek

[Brian]

Sorry to hear about the trouble you are having. After looking at your affiliate account with CJ, I see your first sale was in towards the end of October. The sale would have been verified and approved by us in December and thus you should be getting the payment around this time I would assume.

On our end it says paid for this transaction, however that is all the information we get. I would advise calling them at 1-805-560-0777 if they do not respond via email and inquire into the situation. This time of year with the holidays I can only assume that they might be short staffed. Once you hear what they say please let me know, so if a follow up is needed by me, I can do so.

Sorry for the confusion.

-Brian

[BOF]

Thanks for the help, Brian.

I'm not sure if you're addressing me or Elek - if me, then there's an error somewhere, as my first 'sale' was a considerable time ago (quite a few months).

Awkward to 'phone from here - any further help you could offer would be much appreciated.

Thanks again - as with Elek, let me reiterate that it's not FQuest at fault here.

[Brian]

That was the first transaction I saw from plainwebdesign.com with FutureQuest, however I ran them manually and could have overlooked one. Is this the case or do you mean a transaction through cj with another affiliate?

-Brian

[BOF]

There have been others, both with FQ and another affiliate. I have over $100 outstanding in total, not a vast sum but it would be handy to have! My original minimum stood at $75, but is now set at $100. Either way, payment is (over)due.

Thanks again for the help and support.

[JWM]

Chris,

<<Thanks, Jim. My balance has exceeded the minimum for some time

Oh well, I tried. I know a couple of people who didn't bother to change their level and were upset about not getting a check till they figured it out, so I figured I'd try the obvious.

For what it's worth, I can't recall hearing there being a problem with CJ paying, at least not a widespread one, but obviously there are a few issues there.

Hope you get your check.
(Hope I get mine, I should be due one in January)

jim

[Brian]

Not knowing the situation, I do now that different partners work differently with CJ. For example if you have a sale in December through company x that you are an affiliate for, and they offer 60 days return, they might hold approval for that time period. After this CJ probably takes several weeks to send the payment. As you can see this could cause a time gap from sale to payment. Again this is just a fictitious example, without knowing the circumstances it’s hard to really tell.

For those whom are having problems or have a question regarding a payment or sale from FutureQuest’s affiliate program with CJ, feel free to contact us via email at Service@FutureQuest.net including ALL pertinent information. I will be happy to look into any questions brought up, as I handle the affiliate program.

For those having problems or questions with sales other then through FutureQuest, I would advise calling CJ, or contacting the affiliate partner.

-Brian

[rickuk]

I would suggest everyone approach commission junction with extreme caution... I have a personal website. I have links to legal adult sites on my site. I stated this in the site profile on commission junction and they approved my site and allowed me to promote magazines and other stores for months until the week before they were due to pay me my first cheque.

BTW one of the magazines that commission junction offers buttons and banners for is an adult gay mag called 'Unzipped' and this is one that I was promoting via MagazineCity.net.

Days before my first commission cheque was due I then received an e-mail from commission junction stating that I was linking to 'obscene' sites and I should remove these links.

It took a week and five e-mails from me before I got a reply from them. They then changed their story and said it was the content of my own site.

They have twice told me payment would be sent out and twice it has failed to arrive when they said it would. They owe me $97. I could only find their postal address by searching on Google and on some other company's site.

I just wonder exactly what kind of website they imagine is going to promote 'Unzipped' magazine? It is total hypocrisy.

I am going take commission junction to the Small Claims Court if they don't pay me what I have earned.

[Matt]

Once FQ moved their affiliate program in-house, my company kept its commission junction account active. This is despite the fact that someone else (forgetting who it was now) here in the forums mentioned CJ was going to start charging accounts that didn't have a certain number of transactions within a certain time interval and the fact that FQ was generating the most leads. My company complied with CJ's demand for further billing information, yet some months later, I find that CJ has de-activated this account due to inactivity. AFAIK no warning of impending de-activation was sent. Luckily my company can create a NEW account with the same username and RE-APPLY to programs which it has already been approved for under the de-activated account. :rolleye:

According to a CJ representative: In order to prevent deactivation in the future, your account must generate a lead or sale within 6 consecutive months.

I better get on the ball, re-apply, and start generating those sales leads through whatever method possible-- pop-ups, banner ads, newsletters, "opt-in lists," etc. to keep the new account from being de-activated. I'll simply have to re-prioritize CJ advertisers above traditional revenue streams. That should save my account from de-activation in the future. Or, just maybe it's easier not to worry about re-applying at all. With in-house affiliate programs becoming increasingly common, it shouldn't be necessary for advertisers to sign up with Commission Junction either. Does this sound like a bad move on CJ's part to anyone else?

-Matt

[dank]

In a nutshell, Complete and Utter Stupidity.

Dan

[rickuk]

In the end, and despite having promised to send me the 'full balance', Commission Junction only paid me $70.12 of the $97.68 they owed me. As the UK bank fee for a Dollar cheque is £6.50 ($11) there is no point me pursuing the rest. I think it is stupid because a disgruntled webmaster costs them much more in negative publicity.

As for accounts being closed, I had a similar experience with blackstar.co.uk (videos and DVDs). They closed my account, didn't tell me, and I didn't find out for a couple of months, during which time the ads were still up and they had more than 2000 clicks. Nor did Blackstar send me a cheque for what I was owed until I asked them, as the amount was less than the minimum. When they did send the cheque, they made out they were doing me a special favour.

They said my site had 'insufficient links' to them and that one banner would be enough. In fact I had 22 links up on two sites, including on one of the most popular pages. Their other reason was that my site didn't generate 'high sales volumes'. Though they had more than £300 of sales through my sites (that I know of).

Pretty short-sighted of them I think. The Guardian newspaper site promotes them and Blackstar has a 'lifetime' cookie, which is one reason why they convert so badly for everyone else (so many people have already been to The Guardian site). However, as we all know, putting all your eggs in one basket is stupid and one day The Guardian may drop them.

I can't see how it costs anything to keep an affiliate account open. It's all automatic and no cheque is sent until the minimum amount is reached. So why close accounts?

I will say this too... I also promote adult sponsors and there is none of this crap with them. In six years I have never been cheated or gone unpaid by an adult sponsor. One that behaved in the way CJ and Blackstar did would be out of business in a week. In the end you begin to wonder who are the real 'legit' companies.