Right… so on what planet does it take 22 days to answer a perfectly reasonable question from an affiliate? And then you wonder why affiliates get so pissed off with your impersonal tattle and shoddy treatment they are forced to resort to poetry to get back at you?
So my CJ balance has had over $4000 locked for several months. Wondering why, I dropped them a line on January 1st. The support thread is below, my first question is at the bottom.
Balance $4000 for Several Months
Discussion Thread
Customer (BlueIndian .) 01/22/2008 01:26 AM
May I please have a response?Customer (BlueIndian .) 01/16/2008 01:44 PM
Hello. I am still awaiting a response on this query please?
Customer (BlueIndian .) 01/09/2008 05:04 AM
OK, I was aware of the wealth of nations situation. However, at the time when the situation arose my balance dropped by the sum in question.Can you confirm that you guys added this balance back on as locked transactions?
Many thanks,
Kirsty
Response (AGorska) 01/09/2008 03:41 AM
Hi Kristy,Thank you for your email. I’ve checked your account and it shows that your locked and unpaid commission is related to Wealth of Nations advertiser who is no longer with CJ.
We certainly understand the inconvenience this may have caused you. We do took steps to contact advertisers about these issues and, in this case we have to deactivate their account.
Unfortunately Commission Junction cannot pay publishers until the necessary funds are deposited and we indicate this specifically in the Publisher Service Agreement that you agreed to when you signed up for your Commission Junction account:
PSA Section 3(e) states: “CJ shall have no obligation to make payment of any Payouts for which CJ has not received payment from the relevant Advertiser of all monies due to CJ (including for all Payouts owed by such Advertiser to all of such Advertiser’s Publishers).”
We’ve tried to retrieve payment from this advertiser (they own us our commission and publishers’ commission) but because the Wealth of Nations became a bankrupt and they went into liquidation we are not able to enforce these charges.
We are really sorry about this situation but we cannot prevent this as it is risk involved in each business.Sincerely,
Commission Junction Client SupportCustomer (BlueIndian .) 01/01/2008 05:56 AM
Hello.I’ve had $4,044.49 sitting in my account balance for several months. Its locked transactions and I can’t see from the reporting what they relate to. Can you please clarify what this is?
Many thanks.
Apart from a few points in that e-mail which me and my affiliate associates would argue about (yes, you could do something about it CJ). I’m merely wanting reassurance they haven’t made any errors with my account. How long should it take? 22 days? I think not!!!!!
I know you have my e-mail CJ, you’ve a support system in place that means you can’t help but have it. So why no response. It’s not hard. It’s also the answer to why I will never promote any new CJ merchants. Ever since that first sorry story I’ve had no faith in your ability to support your affiliate business partners.
And that is why you are the weakest link…
Goodbye!
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
This is terrible behavior form this network, I would like to see the exact date that the advertiser was deactivated and surely you should paid commissions for the period that they were still active.
Typical of CJ’s infelxible, narrow minded behavior in the marketplace.
No wonder they are losing progammes and affiliates hand over fist
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I agree totally. CJ are a pain.
When I joined CJ, I entered my email address incorrectly by mistake. I contacted them several times through their “support” form on their website and NEVER received a reply. So, I joined with another email address. Then I had problems getting their links to track. Also, their website is sloooow and painful to use.
I wonder why they are even in this business when they treat affiliates so poorly?
Tony
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I had a similar problem a while back with CJ it was just to ask a really simple question about my account. It took over 2 weeks to get back to me, which is just madness! Considering other networks have got back to me within the hour.
It doesn’t really fill you with confidence!!!
January 22nd, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I’ve been earning from them for two years now and been to war with them a couple of times before. I’l agree they suck but fortunately for me I guess each situation was resolved and I was paid.
I am sorry to hear about your situation and what is even more disheartening is the fact the program you promoted was “Wealth of Nations”? This sucks big time.
I am liking Linkshare though
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:25 pm
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January 23rd, 2008 at 11:42 am
I have recently started working with them though my job at an agency and beside their site is slow and times out. Many of the account managers I have worked with seems to do the same - being slow and times out, I can some times wait up to 2 weeks for a simple answer, as it is right now I do not recommend them to anyone.
Funny how I was thinking that they would have a top service as they are a big network and I could not have been more wrong!
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Yep, I can relate too. Had a problem with locked commissions a couple of times. Took 6 weeks to get a response. In fact it wasn’t until I posted on the Affiliates4U forum that I got an immediate reply.
Funnily enough, when THEY contacted ME about some dubious traffic I was required to respond within 3 days or risk having my account cancelled. Yet turn it around and what do you get…?
Not to mention their appallingly unreliable product feed API. It seems to break down every couple of days. I’m not entirely sure why I’m still with them.
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I’m with CJ. I spent days trying to work out how to use Smartzones. I finally gave up and emailed CJ for help. They said the fault was at their end! I was just beginning to think that affiliating was not for me when I received the Affilaite4U update. Now I have renewed hope and will keep trying.
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Lucky you still had active commisions in your CJ acoount or they would of banned (Sorry pruned) your account like they have done with thousands of others without paying commisions over the years.
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
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