What is sad and funny at the same time is the fact that this kid probably thought that he is a real bad-ass and one of the cool kids, leet and not one of those lamers.

It’s not even worth talking about, but see, I also “wasted” some time on it by writing this comment. Well, there will always be the inexperienced rookies who have not seen much of the stuff people come up with. It’s a reminded that makes sure that the old scam remains just that, an old scam that does not do you any good if you use it.

I doubt you will ever have a listed of dodge Affiliates all Networks can share, in the UK it would be illegal to hold such as list about individuals based in the UK and share it with others, however not illegal to do the same for a company or people outside of the European Union. Bizarrely the people committing crimes are better protected than the ones affected by it, nuts!

Incentives have been around for as long as sales people have been around. There will always be a way to scam but for the most part the incentives do what they are meant to do, bring in leads.

Think about the “let me clean your carpet FREE!” incentive. Those people will come in and clean your carpet. And then try to sell you the vacuum cleaner. They also will PAY you for leads to their friends. Can you scam these guys? Yes and they know it. They know that a certain percentage will not give a rip about the vacuum and just want the rug cleaned PLUS they will give the guy like 30 names that may have been pulled out of the phone book.

But they still get leads and they got the foot in the door.

All affiliates should know the power of incentives. GOOD affiliates should know how to use them properly. IE how NOT to lose your shirt and weed out the scammers.

Merchants (and affiliate managers) need to do some homework and realize there is an entire sub-culture out there (that’s growing by leaps) that teaches how to make money off of ‘getting paid to try’ – revolves around taking the money (incentive) and running. Never mind all the China and India gangs that ummmm, live in the U.S. and therefore qualify for the incentive .

Total agreeance with Jon (bolding mine):

They are the worst type out there, and the levels of fraud that go unseen are just crazy.

Incentivized traffic? Not the smartest move IMO.

Wow. Lucky you were around to prevent that guy from paying for his college tuition! Your mom and dad must be proud to have their very own narc!

Chris -

It was lucky for the company where I worked that I was around to keep them from throwing away a substantial amount of money.

I really do find it amazing that you think I’m the bad guy for catching a thief.

To add a story..

A friend of mine invested over $3M in creating a physical product, I think it was a skin cream of some sort, was sold on the whole “free ipod” campaign with Gratis when they first started to launch the whole incentive craze online a few years ago. Well, at first the orders came in like a madhouse, and my friend was in the black in no time. Well, that all came to a very scary end just a few months later, because all of those incentive orders, well, not all, but I think it was 85% of them charged back and/or refunded. So instead of just losing nearly $3M in product investments, he ended up losing nearly $5M total from the cash they paid out to Gratis/networks for the CPA, not to mention chargeback and shipping fees were at higher levels than I’d ever heard of before. Because of this story, and because I actually know the guy, I will NEVER ever use incentive traffic for any sites as a form of generating leads or sales.

With that being said, while I don’t agree with what you did to that college kid Shawn, I’m not going to get mad at you for it, because I would do the same thing to spammers/scammers (and have done it) when they come to WickedFire trying to scam/spam stuff. So I’d be a hipocrite if I went down that road.

But I also agree with Shawn that this Blastyourass kid is one of the few members on WickedFire that are into shady things. He does not, by any means represent ALL of WickedFire. In fact, he represents maybe 1%, if even that much. The only reason he has not been banned yet is because he hasn’t broken any of our rules yet, but I know a few of the mods and members have been watching him closely waiting for him to screw up so they can catch him.

At WickedFire, we try to stay neutral with all levels of traffic, advice, monetization, etc. Even if it’s considered illegal or super black/gray hat. The point is because we want people to make decisions on their own, and if it’s the wrong one, we don’t take any responsibility for it. It’s their decision to do something shady and I think it’s the best way to make someone learn for themselves that greed can be a great thing if handled correctly, or it could be your biggest nightmare. By telling people “oh this is wrong, don’t do it” that only makes some of them even more curious, and the only way I know how to break that mold of someone like that is to learn by trial and error. So if this kid wants to go and do that content and password thing, and rip off networks, then he will learn the hard way that there is a reason why not many people do this or even get away with it.

To those bashing Shawn about this, he’s a good friend of mine, and while we sometimes disagree on things, that doesn’t make us enemies or hate one another. Shawn has been around for a lot longer than most of you put together, so the guy knows his shite, inside and out. And as the owner of WickedFire, and a personal friend of Shawn’s, I value his opinions, however different or crazy I may think they are.. plus he’s a Jersey boy and a fellow Yankees fan, so how can I ever dislike him??

Jon

Awesome dude. Self-righteousness rules!

What we are watching unfold are the companies ultimately paying out, owning the tools to pinpoint where the bad data or negative traffic originated. The old-fashioned, word-of-mouth “Don’t work with that affiliate, they are trouble” is as relevant today as the reputation discussed so much for Sending IPs and Practices. Only today there is plenty of data to backup hunches about worst practices and outright fraud.

Affiliate marketing could be the largest growth story in the history of marketing if we can just weed out the numskulls that keep so many large budget brands out of the space. We are asked everyday to recommend compliant marketers across the acquisition spectrum.

The good guys are in demand.

And get over the whole black hat thing ghoti. Blackhat isn’t necessarily malicious. Its (in a lot of cases) a legitimate way to generate traffic and links. When Google owns the US government I’ll have an issue with it. Until then who gives a f@*$