Affiliate Programs Beware

There are hundreds if not thousands of companies on the internet that offer all sorts of affiliate programs, some good, some not so good, and others that are bordering on the brink of scams. Don't think just because you are fairly well versed in the ways of the internet that you are immune to it happening to you.

I recently signed up to an affiliate program with GDI; the offer was a very good one to start with. They promised that if I did not make $100 in ten days they would pay me $25 and I would get 7 days free trial and they would not take payment from my credit card until the 7 days were up. Also it would not cost me anything to get going.

I signed up there and then, completely forgetting the old adage of "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is "As soon as my credit card was entered I was taken to step 2 which had 4 actions I could take. 2 of them were completely free and the next 2 I had to pay for.


Also the last 2 I had to complete so I could get my website set up and built for me, it did not matter that I already have 2 domain names and a great hosting company (hostgator.com), I had to use their hosting company because their websites could not be built using any other hosting company ????? This is when I started to have serious doubts regarding this offer. The total cost of the last 2 steps $70+. I then realised that this was not turning out to be what it claimed to be, and I was not even properly involved in the program yet.

The help desk that I was told to contact was part of GDI, so I contacted the help desk just to ask then to terminate my account and remove my credit card details from their system, and that's where the fun began. They informed me that they do not get involved with any receipt of payments and that I would have to get in touch with the affiliate that signed me up. I went back to the page I followed the initial link from and the promises were part of GDI and the link so I could make my payment to was, yes you have guessed it, part of GDI.

It took another 6 emails before I got it all sorted out. That was only after I pointed out the obvious, that everything pointed to GDI making my refund promises and that it was GDI that accepted my credit card details. You would think that in the modern world of the internet and online affiliate programs such as GDI runs, that to remove my credit card details would just take an email to sort out. Not for GDI it is not, I now have to phone a company in USA to ask then something I could have asked them via email. This is fine if you are in USA but when you are on another continent it does mean that companies such as GDI are not that contactable.

Don't get me wrong, when they finally realised I was not going away that easily, they actually offered to give me the $25 for not being in a position to do what they had claimed. I have also seen that GDI have had some good reviews on this site as well.

My point is, that all this could have been avoided if they had told everyone before they started that it would cost a certain amount to get up and running, and their credibility would have remained intact. I was very pleased at the way they resolved most of it for me, so it is a shame that it has taken this negative process to find out that GDI are probably trustworthy.

The warning is that you have to go in to any affiliate program with both eyes open and there are certain steps I would advise you to do before committing to any affiliate program.

1 Make sure you find out if there are any additional costs incurred after signing up.

2 Make sure that they are easily contactable by email if they are based in another country to yourself.

3 search via Google for any reports regarding the affiliate program. You can Google using terms such as "Joe blogs affiliate program review" obviously replace Joe blogs with the name of the affiliate program you are trying to find information about.


There is also a warning here for anyone running affiliate programs to make sure their sales pages are not misleading in anyway, and that all costs are upfront, where they should be.

The individuals and companies running affiliate programs have to be aware that in the affiliate world, bad word of mouth can now pass from continent to continent in the click of a few buttons, and one bad experience from just one person can easily end up on the front page of Google via article sites like this one.

The internet may be growing day by day at high speed, but because of this, the individual user can now shout very loudly from their keyboard, and be heard in distant countries and be heard by millions. May be the time is fast approaching when all affiliate programs will have no choice but to be 100% genuine, just for them to survive into the next generation of internet marketers.


Garry has been making money online for a number of years and continues to share his techniques for free at Home Easy Earn