I have been part of an affiliate program for a month. I was told that I was earning money for referrals – after about a month the site said had earned £2000 commission. When I asked to withdraw it to my back account they said that due to an error on their part the figure was wrong, and I’d only really earned £5.
I’d made financial decisions based on the figure their site gave me before, so now I’m in financial difficulty. I believe that they made a mistake, rather than lied to me, but their mistake is now costing me dearly. Surely they cannot pledge to pay an amount and then retract it? They’ve removed the ‘incorrect’ entries from the site so now it shows as me having only earned £5 from a single referral. After I contacted them all they offered is £40 store credit, which considering I’ve spent a more than twice that promoting my site (and by extension their site) believing I could afford it, is a bit of a joke.
I did try looking at the citizen’s advice bureau, but their site doesn’t help, and they aren’t answering the phone. I could only make an appointment if I took a day off work to walk into their offices and then another day off for the appointment itself.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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What Legal Recourse Do I Have? Problem With Affiliate Program Payment.?
Posted on July 19, 2011.
Whether they owe you anything and how much depends on the contract you have agreed. Obviously you have given no details of that, or even told us who the affiliate site is so we can look ourselves.
However, I would guess that it is almost certain they have terms that state that amounts shown online are for guidance only and that the amount due only becomes “official” when they send you a formal statement. They probably also have terms disclaiming liability for mistakes.
Even without any of this, their liability to you is based on the number of people you actually refer, not the number they say you referred. Surely your own site has logs and stats, so you know how many visitors you have had and how many clicks? So it must have been fairly obvious that £2000 of referals was unlikely.
This is very odd as usually legit affiliate programs pay their affiliates when they reach the threshold. The fact that you happened to have a “problem.” when it was time to be paid sort of tells me that they are jerking you around and have no interest or intention of actually paying you.
Affiliate marketing in general sort of sucks as you are similar to an employee the vender can choice to terminate you or their affiliate program at any time for any reason and can also come up with lame excuses to not pay you even if they are the ones who screwed up. Legal action will probably result in them paying up or shutting/being shut down.
Read and re-read affiliate contracts and terms of service etc and hold the companies to their end of the bargain. If they aren’t living up to it don’t let them get away with not fulfilling their obligations.