Kink.com and BondageBank guys, we love you long time but something has gotten screwed up recently and your affiliates aren't getting the notice they need to protect themselves.
TLDR version: If you ever promoted SadisticRope via BondageBank as managed by Kinkydollars, it appears you are no longer getting credited for sales via those links, and you may have lost any rebills you had coming. Neither program is answering questions about these problems in a satisfactory way.
Here's the long version, in order, starting with ancient history:
1) Sometime in 2008/2009 the Twisted Factory / Bondage Bank family of sites (most prominently, Fucked And Bound) went moribund, with no new updates and auto-rotation of old content. However, such sales and rebills as remained always got paid promptly.
2) In October 2012
XBIZ reported that Kink.com was taking over affiliate management of the BondageBank affiliate program, under the direction of Kink.com's then new affiliate manager, Robert Levy. That same month I started corresponding with Robert at his BondageBank/TwistedFactory email as he sorted some minor issues for me. He is very pro. I have seen
assertions here on GFY that Kink.com actually owns TwistedFactory now, but Robert's emails to me characterized the transaction as a management deal only.
3) In March of 2013, TwistedFactory
announced the launch of the Sadistic Rope site under the BondageBank affiliate program. That same month Robert (via his TwistedFactory email) was urging me to promote it, which I did (lightly).
4) As I only just recently discovered, in May of 2013, Robert Levy
moved on to Really Useful Cash. If Kink.com or BondageBank have replaced him, I haven't been able to find any press about it.
5) On June 17 of 2013, I got a KinkyDollars affiliate newsletter: "Sadistic Rope has moved to Kinkydollars. Sadistic Rope has moved over to Kink.com. Now you can promote the site just as easily as you can the rest of the Kink family of sites." There were no details and no information about functionality of old links, protection of rebills, et cetera.
6) On June 19 I wrote back to affiliates@kinkydollars and to
[email protected] (not knowing he'd moved on) with questions about these things. Other than the KinkyDollars autoresponder, I got no response.
7) Simultaneously, I noticed that there were no longer any stats visible in the BondageBank NATS for Sadistic Rope. So, no record of whatever sales I made for them, and no way to tell how many active rebills I might have had. (In reality, I think I only had a few sales - on light promotion - and I have no idea whether any rebills were due me.)
8) On July 3rd, having gotten no response from either program after two weeks, I wrote back to both email addresses.
9) On July 5th I finally got a vague response email from "Al" at Kinkydollars saying "You will have to get link codes from Kinky Dollars and you should not be losing anything you gained in BondageBank." This was the first time I twigged to the fact that Robert had moved on and that (apparently) nobody is checking his old email (advertised as the primary affiliate support for BondageBank) at BondageBank.
10) I immediately wrote back to Al asking when the BondageBank link codes stopped working and what had happened to the traffic and sales since then (considering that the link codes are still forwarding surfers to Sadistic Rope). So far all I've gotten from him (on Monday, July 8) is a "I will do my best to answer any concerns you may have" response. Nothing in regard to my specific questions. I replied saying I was still waiting for the answers to my questions but there's been no response.
11) Also on Monday, I logged into BondageBank and asked my questions in detail via the support web form there (as no support email is listed any more). I didn't get any response, not even via autoresponder.
It "feels" like the deal between KinkyDollars and BondageBank may have collapsed, perhaps at the same time as whatever caused Robert Levy to move on. Kink.com has apparently picked up its marbles (the Sadistic Rope site that was supposed to reinvigorate Twisted/BB) and gone home. Does BondageBank still exist as a going concern? That's unclear. But I feel that both programs (which means KinkyDollars, until and unless they make a public statement that they aren't responsible for BondageBank affiliates any longer, if that's indeed the case) have a responsibility to provide good notice to affiliates regarding the need to change links and the availability of stats and rebills. Because right now, as far as public statements go, BondageBank affiliates with problems have no reason to think they aren't still relying on the KinkyDollars affiliate management team as was announced with great fanfare last October.
Currently:
1) The installed base of BondageBank affiliate links to Sadistic Rope are still taking surfers to Sadistic Rope at Kink.com. The KinkyDollars affiliate stats are not showing any hits for this traffic.
2) The Sadistic Rope stats at BondageBank are GONE. There's no record of Sadistic Rope available to affiliates in the BondageBank stats. That raises the question of whether rebills were interrupted and (if they were not) whether BondageBank has access to them and/or intends to pay them to the appropriate affiliates.
3) Bondage Bank has sent ZERO communications to affiliates about this. So far as the world knows, these communications were a KinkyDollars responsibility because (until we hear different) KinkyDollars has advertised that it is managing the BondageBank affiliate program.
My actual potential losses here are very slight, but I consider it a really important obligation for trustworthy programs to provide notice when they break affiliate links and put rebills in question. I have tried diligently to get useful responses out of both of these programs and I finally decided that some public disclosure was necessary, in case there are other people out there with BondageBank SadisticRope links who might otherwise not learn about the problem.
Sorry this was so long, but I wanted to be precise. I've got a long history with both of these programs and I value our business relationships. Unfortunately, the only thing that will fully protect affiliates is public disclosure about the nature and effect of the recent changes, and that doesn't seem to be forthcoming from either program. Given that their business relationships seem to be in disarray and Kink.com recently lost its affiliate manager, I of course assume that this is all a matter of oversight and lack of planning rather than anything deliberate. But it still needs to be fixed in a clear and public way.