Another sponsor dumping affiliates?

[lassiter]

It appears that Topbucks cancelled my affiliate account after several years. No idea why, as they won't respond to emails or icq, but I guess non-productivity might be a reason. I haven't made a sale from 'em in over a year. Still, they're one of those long-timers where I have so many obscure links all over the place that pulling 'em will be like laser hair removal - one link at a time...

Between sponsors going under, some staying "alive" but ending member-side or affiliate updates, and some outright cancelling affiliate accounts (the bandwidth on those FHGs must really be a major cost) - it's not been a good year so far. Anyone else having to redo a lot of old-time sponsor links?

[kenny]

Topbucks is a solid company. They have been around forever and I don't think they're in the business of alienating affilates. There is probably a sound reason or prehaps a misunderstanding.


You shouldn't have a problem contacting them via ICQ. Anyway I'm sure they'll find this thread.

[plateman]

I know they are raising there min payouts way up, 200.00 min for epass and 100 for checks

i take that as they want full time promoters and higher traffic webmasters

[Useless]

Originally Posted by sleeper

Topbucks is a solid company. They have been around forever and I don't think they're in the business of alienating affilates. There is probably a sound reason or prehaps a misunderstanding.

If Lassiter was a newbie webmaster, your response would be appropriate. But he's not. And as plateman stated, TopBucks is definitely making changes.

[Maj. Stress]

Looks like my account got closed too. Not that I really care. I have some links up that I will pull if and when I find them. I quit activley promoting them a few years ago.

[plateman]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

If Lassiter was a newbie webmaster, your response would be appropriate. But he's not. And as plateman stated, TopBucks is definitely making changes.

they been for a time been making changes IMO

[Mr Spock]

Strange , my account still seems active and I don't actively send them traffic anymore

[kenny]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

If Lassiter was a newbie webmaster, your response would be appropriate. But he's not. And as plateman stated, TopBucks is definitely making changes.

I don't know Lassiter and I did not mean to sound inappropriate..

I based my answer upon what I do know.

1) I've been with Topbucks since 2001.

2) I have two accounts with one not being very active.

3) I have never encountered a situation in all these years where Topbucks didn't go out of their way for affilates.


Yes, I have noticed the minimum payout increases and I do not believe that is a signal of serious change in the direction of deleting of affilates.


I could be wrong. I could wake up tomorrow and have an account(s) closed.

With that said, I hope you guys get your issues resolved.

[Cleo]

Strange, my login doesn't work but the password retrieval sends me my login info.

I don't think I have any current links to them anyplace anyway so it really doesn't matter.

[dunc]

Originally Posted by Cleo

Strange, my login doesn't work but the password retrieval sends me my login info.

Same here... wierd, ah well |smurf|

[tickler]

Works for me and I haven't really pushed them for years.

Actually had a little email chat with the rep lately about why I wasn't sending much traffic anymore. Gave her 4 reasons, and she couldn't give me any good answers.

Nothing in their forum about dropping affiliates.
Shit, $100 in pre-checked X-sales below the submit button.

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by tickler

Nothing in their forum about dropping affiliates.

Anyone dropped wouldn't be able to get into the forum to mention it.

Shit, $100 in pre-checked X-sales below the submit button.

Well, that might partially explain the drop in sales.

[Greenguy]

I just sent Nadya an ICQ about this thread, so I'm sure she can come over & explain things for us.

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by sleeper

I don't know Lassiter and I did not mean to sound inappropriate.

No offense taken.

But...

They have been around forever and I don't think they're in the business of alienating affilates.

Not until now, anyway.

You shouldn't have a problem contacting them via ICQ.

You're right, I shouldn't. And yet, I do.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by lassiter

...You're right, I shouldn't. And yet, I do.

Nayda/Lilit's ICQ is 400-525-519

She replied a minute after I sent her the message about this thread, so I assume we'll here from her shortly.

[TopBucks Lilit]

Hello Guys!

We performed database clean up and inactive accounts with e-mails bouncing back were deactivated. There was a problem with our system sorting out active and inactive accounts and many active accounts got flagged as inactive. This was the only possible way to actually filter out which accouts are in use and permanently move them to the active group assuming that the webmasters whose accounts were deactivated would contact us and ask to reactivate the accounts.

We apologize for any inconveniences it might cause.

Feell free to hit me or other TopBucks reps up to have your accounts reactivated.

Thanks,

[TopBucks Lilit]

Now my comment on the raised minimum payouts:

The reason for raising minimum payouts was increasing amount of fraud in our program. We need to secure ourselves and the raised minimum payouts will allow us more time to identify fraudulent accounts.

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by TopBucks Lilit

This was the only possible way to actually filter out which accouts are in use and permanently move them to the active group assuming that the webmasters whose accounts were deactivated would contact us and ask to reactivate the accounts.

Very clever, I guess. At any rate, I emailed my "Account Representative," Nadya, on Monday, and followed up to "support at topbucks.com" and an ICQ to 168289515 (still showing active as "TopBucks Support") on Tuesday, but my account remains unaccessible as of this writing.

This, IMO, is silly, unprofessional and unnecessary game-playing. My email address with you remains valid and does not bounce (else I would not have received the automated email informing me of my user number and password, which of course had already been inactivated in spite of still being in the auto-reply database).

Thanks for coming on here at least, and letting us know which of us is not wanted/needed as an affiliate. Good luck.

[TopBucks Lilit]

Originally Posted by lassiter

Very clever, I guess. At any rate, I emailed my "Account Representative," Nadya, on Monday, and followed up to "support at topbucks.com" and an ICQ to 168289515 (still showing active as "TopBucks Support") on Tuesday, but my account remains unaccessible as of this writing.

This, IMO, is silly, unprofessional and unnecessary game-playing. My email address with you remains valid and does not bounce (else I would not have received the automated email informing me of my user number and password, which of course had already been inactivated in spite of still being in the auto-reply database).

Thanks for coming on here at least, and letting us know which of us is not wanted/needed as an affiliate. Good luck.

Lassiter, I am Nadya, and I'm your account manager.
I don't have any unresponded e-mails from Monday. I've just checked our ticket system and there were no tickets regarding the issue on Tuesday, August 26 which means your e-mails simply don't get through our spam filters and we need to white list them.

We are not letting you know that we don't need you, as you see we're open and willing to fix this.

[TopBucks Lilit]

Originally Posted by lassiter

Very clever, I guess. At any rate, I emailed my "Account Representative," Nadya, on Monday, and followed up to "support at topbucks.com" and an ICQ to 168289515 (still showing active as "TopBucks Support") on Tuesday, but my account remains unaccessible as of this writing.

This, IMO, is silly, unprofessional and unnecessary game-playing. My email address with you remains valid and does not bounce (else I would not have received the automated email informing me of my user number and password, which of course had already been inactivated in spite of still being in the auto-reply database).

Thanks for coming on here at least, and letting us know which of us is not wanted/needed as an affiliate. Good luck.

Lassiter, I'm hitting you up on ICQ now.

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by TopBucks Lilit

I don't have any unresponded e-mails from Monday. I've just checked our ticket system and there were no tickets regarding the issue on Tuesday, August 26 which means your e-mails simply don't get through our spam filters and we need to white list them.

But you said...

This was the only possible way to actually filter out which accouts are in use and permanently move them to the active group assuming that the webmasters whose accounts were deactivated would contact us and ask to reactivate the accounts.

So let me make sure I understand this. You deactivated a slew of potentially "inactive" accounts (even ones who were still sending a steady, if small, stream of traffic, such as my own), assuming that anyone who actually cared or noticed would contact you to complain. And yet your active affiliates email addresses of record were not white-listed to begin with and so there would be no way for an affected affilate to notify you. Except for coming on a public board and making a stink.

Really, if you can't see the obvious flaw in the logic here, I need to be applying for a job over there to help y'all straighten it out.

[lassiter]

OK, I just spent an hour hashing out all the issues with Nadya and we're friends again and things are ok. So thanks very much, Nadya. (She's actually a very nice person ).

But speaking in general, since this has come up with other sponsors before, and quite recently (Hi Terry!) I think sponsors need to deal with issues like having support emails from their affiliates (to publically posted support addresses) going into the black hole of spam filters. I have all my sponsor addresses white-listed as a matter of necessity, and it would be nice (and cause fewer support headaches and less board drama) if all sponsors reciprocated in kind.

And if a sponsor posts an ICQ address for "support" - I think someone should be assigned to check it daily even if the regular person is on vacation or out of the office.

It's a two-way street, and we need each other.

[wolfie]

Sad to hear that lassiter.

I have no problem with TB. All thing are sliding as smooth as before.
Conversion ratios are been bad lately for me, tho (0:2967) for this month and over 600 to join page with no joins.

[Bill]

Does this affect only inactive accounts, or should all of us be 'checking our account' to see if we've been shut off?

I'm not making as many sales with topbucks as I used too, but still get a check every period - is the only way I would know my account is shut off would be if I tried to login and was blocked?

Could my account be shut off now, and I don't know it, but am still sending traffic?

[Licker4U]

Originally Posted by Bill

Does this affect only inactive accounts, or should all of us be 'checking our account' to see if we've been shut off?

Try to log in and see what happens. I couldn't log in after I saw this thread since I haven't been promoting TP for several years.