Man, that would suck if you invested 5k - 30k in ppc.. CJ should not allow a company to participate with inadequate funds. Isn’t that considered negligence on their part regardless of any agreement that is signed..

I haven’t read the TOS or any of the contracts from CJ. Do they have it in their contracts somewhere that it says that they’re not responsible if an affiliate decides to abandon their responsibility? What’s to keep them from abusing this? It seems like they have many times in the past and it definitely seems like they’re doing it now. What is stopping members from suing CJ in a class action law suit?

CJ doesn’t want to accept any liability, but they’ll pay for this one way or another.

That is interesting that you bring up a class action lawsuit. I was talking with a CJ representative the other day and he was really cocky when I asked him if they ever thought people would get together for a class auction lawsuit.

His answer was - “look at google and who made out in there class action lawsuit it was all lawyers”.

I’m very angry on this situation. A bad experience for me.

From CJ service agreement:

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). If CJ elects, in its own discretion, not to make payment to You for amounts not received from an Advertiser, those amounts shall not be included in the Minimum Balance Amount. Your recourse for any earned Payouts not paid to You shall be to make a claim against the relevant Advertiser(s), and CJ disclaims any and all liability for such payment. You may elect to receive payment in any of the currencies that CJ supports (as may be amended by CJ). The conversion rate shall be determined in accordance with CJ’s operating standards using the rates prevailing upon the date that payment is made to You, or upon the basis of historical conversion rates if rates are unavailable. The number or amount of Transactions, credits for Payouts, and debits for Charge-backs, as calculated by CJ, shall be final and binding on You.

Alex-

Thanks for posting that. I think almost every company has a out clause like that. I just have never seen a company use it like CJ does routinely.

A $29 report from Dunn & Bradstreet would have probably alerted people to Flycell’s financial picture. If you are going to be risking more than $5K/month in capital on a company you should check out their financials. You can get a subscription from D&B for about $150/month. Food for thought..

It seems the only way this will affect CJ is if affiliate marketers get together as a whole and quit using CJ (or limit it) until CJ changes their policy.

I agree… I think that is the answer really is almost to contact merchants and tell them until cj changes its ways we will no longer be doing programs through them. But it will take a industry wide initiative

definently good call

I can understand people being pissed, I would be (if I got hosed by FlyCell). But, the agreement is really between the affiliate and the merchant…CJ provides the software to track everything and facilitates payment. I don’t think that I ever thought CJ was guaranteeing payment to affiliates if the merchant goes MIA or BK. It is a nice thought, just not a rational one.

Thats a nice thought, but couldn’t be farther from reality.

Your agreement lies with CJ, not with a merchant. At no point do you even enter any sort of agreement with a merchant. The only exception would be merchants with special terms of service.

In any case, you are agreeing to promote a merchants products, to be paid by CJ who is paid by a merchant. The fact that CJ has an out clause in their ToS doesn’t make it acceptable. CJ and the Advertiser win, affiliates lose. Advertiser gets free advertising, CJ probably gets their costs covered (by the deposits requried etc) and CJ loses nothing.

Until people start refusing terms that don’t protect them, this will continue.

Just wanted to chip in with - this is a great idea.

Does anyone know if Azoogle Ads is still paying out Flycell leads? I knew they were offering top dollar a month ago through Azoogle, but I don’t know their status as of now.

Jeeezzzz. Affiliate marketing is getting risky these days. First Spybot starts removing good, valid cookies and now this.

last time I looked at azoogleads flycell was not there. I always thought they converted like crap anyway TBO

If you’re going to accept a cut of the proceeds from being a middleman, you better be accepting the responsibility that comes with it. CJ needs to change its business practice or due diligence or something otherwise things are going to get worse.

They really are backing down from their responsibility. How much $$$ do they owe CJ?

The only recourse against CJ is to dump them. If enough of you high-dollar affiliates told them to go F themselves and left for other affiliate networks that showed some balance in their loyalties, CJ would either get the message and change their ways (ie payout or require more merchants to have deposits on hand). Or they’d have a bunch of under-performing affiliates.

Pipe dream for sure. But all the bitching in the world has not changed CJ to date.

You can also get the financials for free by going directly to FlyCell’s parent company, Acotel.com and reading their financial reports:

The geographical revenue breakdown confirms the importance of the US market which accounted for 56.1% of the total revenues in the first nine months of 2006, compared with 2.5% in the same period of 2005), thanks to the activities of the subsidiary, Flycell Inc.

Results for Q3 2006 (1 July - 30 September) The Acotel Group saw strong growth in revenue (up 150%) in the third quarter of 2006, with total revenue amounting to €19.1 million (€7.6 million in the same period of 2005). This was primarily due to the above-mentioned activities of the subsidiary, Flycell Inc., in the USA.

I was getting mad conversions with Flycell through CPAE for a while. Then they dropped them or changed the landing, cant remember. Back to Azoogle now.

Well if what you say is true, then a civil action by an affiliate would easily get the money from CJ on any commissions due.

CJ’s terms of service, so called responsibility, etc, are irrelevent! What really matters — can another affiliate company do a better job? My answer: hell yes.

There is no reason for me to work hard, and risk everything, for CJ when I can work hard and minimize my risks with another company. The market works itself out; every day that CJ doesn’t get its act together their reputation gets just a little worse. The longer you have a bad reputation the harder and farther you have to go to regain it.

The absolute first thing that companies do to retain cash is delay payments. They often take it as far as they can before they get denied the goods and services they’re buying. Then they get caught up.

In this case, because cj is a middleman, it doesn’t just affect one company. It affects a lot of people and companies and easily turns a common business practice into a PR nightmare.

That’s pretty shady of CJ, in my opinion, regardless of their clause. And for any rep to act cocky and mention Google and how they faired in ANOTHER trial is pretty lame and risky in itself.

I believe CJ should try to make up for this SOMEHOW.

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Hey shoe, your blog post did something good apparently, now I see all flycell commissions ready to be paid. Yeah finally! Thanks!

Just to set the record straight about flycell in 2006 we Generated over 250,000 Subscribers or pixel fires or submits or sales whatever you wanna call it,on the flycell offer and it has been hands down the best & highest converting mobile offer on the net, with the highest epc on Email,Search and even banners converting at 4-5% of clicks..So you all know, Im a Pro in the mobile space. Shoe who? Flycell paid us weekly and has never “NEVER” missed a payment..Im talkin 6 Figure weekly payments..Commission Junction needs to just pay its publishers Period..Want some great advise from the king of mobile offers..Get some links for Flycell in Jan when the Beast is Back for everyones subscribers…All these other mobile advertisers are just cherry pickin your invintory hence lower conversions and lots of Free Sales on the backs of all you baby’s (ie Pros)…Hey Shoe tell these guys about the cherry pickin these advertisers do..common share some real shit with these clowns man!..BTW FUA

[...] Blog Entry About Update To The Flycell Commission Junction Stuff … Commission Junction To Start Reversing Paid Out Commissions On Yahoo … All… [...]

wow..this post..basicaly closed the deal for me to stay away from CJ untill im a pro at this…I can’t image being a newbie and getting screwed this bad.