I was upselling a sponsor and its FHG's 404 to a diff sponsor
 

There is a sponsor I really expected to sell for me, but they converted at 1:3,778 out of 18,891 hits. This can just happen, so I didn't think much of it and just did not focus on promoting them. I recently noticed, however, that a gallery we put up a link to some time ago has photos which all 404 to a different program. This makes me think that it was not their tour which surprisingly didn't convert, but maybe surfers were not actually hitting their tours. What would you think if you promoted a program and its FHG's 404'ed to a diff sponsor?

Why would a program put a 404 to some other program on an FHG? Is misdirecting traffic the only possible explanation? I want to think there is some honest reason this could have been done.

No suprise.. there's a few programs out there that fuck people like this

It may not necessarily be deliberate, could just be that their 404 solution - which usually only catches people hunting for extra pics/gals - happens to send somewhere else.

I think in the long run you're probably best off keeping it clean, if you send 404 to a monetized page and your FHG system stuffs up then your affiliates are not going to be happy.

I am certainly one bummed-out affiliate. It might have nothing to do with their terrible conversion ratios, but now I have to wonder.

What did the sponsor say when you asked him or her?