Affiliate Payouts During Epass Drama - Opinions?
 

I'd like to gauge the opinion of both webmasters and program owners here...

A program sends a wire to Epassporte to do their normal early September payouts a couple days before the drama came out. They have not done their payouts yet, and once the visa cards are shut off they put in a request to Epassporte immediately to return those funds.

Is it right the program to choose not to pay affiliates for that period until that money is returned? The payments were never transferred to the affiliates accounts, but what if they choose not to pay for that period even after the affiliate changes his payment method? (pending of course the funds being returned from epass?).

affils didnt get paid money you owed them, do the math.

You have to have a lot of trust in that program to get paid. They could just say they never got the funds back.

(if i am reading this right... been sick and on NyQuil for 3 days, feeling trippy now weeee)

I'm the affiliate in this situation. Ignore my sig.

webmaster checks scenario was the same. honest programs just paid out the payments out of their pockets and you didn't know a difference.

some broke programs could not do that.

other programs used it as an excuse to play funny with your money.

everyone in this thread rep me

The program owes you the money regardless of what happened and if they ever see it again. You lived up to your end of the agreement by sending traffic and generating sales.

I know what program you're talking about and I'm dissapointed by their response. Of more than 20 affiliate programs, they're the only one I'm missing that period's payout for still. They basically said we won't get it until they get it back from Epass and that's the risk we take for using Epass.

I say they'd have a valid argument if they had actually transfered the money to our wallets and we were stuck not getting the money out. That would be the affiliate's problem. That's not what happened though. If they had have paid us to the wallet, we would have had access more or less for almost a month to do ACH/Wire/CC withdrawls. As it stands now, we never had access to the funds at all so as far as I'm concerned the program owes me a payout.

I'm a little shocked about which program it is too.

what program is it? i am missing some payments.

This discussion is pointless, because funds will not returned by Epassporte. :2 cents:

Exactly... we had some epass payments and all webmasters were emailed and asked how they would like their funds, even though we still have money tied up with Epass.

Let's see if this thread gets noticed among all the "omfgz I too got to withdraw my $300 today!@$#@" threads...

If the payments were never sent to the affiliate via epass, the payment is still due. however I bet there are more than a few programs who could not afford to eat their loss to epassporte and that is causing the delay.

I know our programs sent an email to affiliates asking to make alternate payment arrangements with us. Those who did, have been paid;-)

i know of three large programs that did not get their money back that was funded to the programs wallets. i doubt they will let Mallick off the hook for it. they all covered their affiliates and ate the shit cake until and if they can get their money back.

edit: for those making it a program vs. affilaite thing yet again, 99% of the programs did the right thing. if anyone has an issue with one, they should out that program.

We just paid out of our own pocket.
We did it many times already because of WMC, Ibill, 365billing, paymonde....

I am also shocked at who it is.

To make it worst, I hadn't reached my minimum $500, was just under, they made the payment to my wallet anyway :1orglaugh

If you received a payment to your wallet then you are talking about a different program.

Affiliates must be paid no matter what.

The affiliate program MUST pay anyway. If the program have not money enough to pay affiliates because all its founds are somewhere in the financial system, well, there is nothing they can do, but they can´t skip their duty, their should pay you as soon as they get money!

Im trying to get payments from a few programs, they are using the epass problem as excuse!
Im waiting a payment from about $1000 from a sponsor. It was supposed to be sent soon, if I dont get it after the next payment date I will post all proof on GFY.

A good program would take care of business. The affiliates should be paid by a different method as soon as possible. If its a small program give them a little breathing room, they just lost a load of cash and may need a little time.

We did the same thing; paid all affiliates from our own pocket.

But, this brings up an interesting point, that I'd like to get your opinion on. Since I don't trust *any* third payment processor, I was thinking of adding something like the following to our terms and conditions;

"We strongly encourage the use of our direct payment options (check, money order, draft, wire). If you choose to use a third party payment processor (eg. Payoneer, Paypal, Paxum), our responsibility to you ends once we fund our account at the third party processor. We are not responsible for the solvency of the third party processor."

Or, is that too harsh?? Your thoughts?

The program still owes you the money.

Think of it like this, if you had a deal with someone, they supplied a product and you were sending a caravan to transport them their gold and it got jacked along the road by a merry band of thieves; you are still responsible for getting payment through to them.

Just out them.

IMO people who see that would take it as you creating an out to play with their money and not like it at all.

ie. you can "say" wallet was funded when you actually didn't and that's why they don't get paid, etc...

If the affiliate does not get their money in their account then they have not been paid (how would the affiliate know you really transferred the money to the processor at all until it actually gets put into their account?). If on the other hand you transfer it to the affiliate's account (and the affiliate's payout preference is currently set to do this) and the affiliate's account at the payment processor gets frozen then you did pay the affiliate and the affiliate needs to take it up with the payment processor. If you don't trust the payment processor you should not use them at all. :2 cents:

As a courtesy I would give a maximum of 30 days from when payment was first due and then out the program and pull all links. It's their responsibility to pay you which they have not. As soon as they did this I would stop all new promotion until paid.

the answer is obvious so this thread is useless without naming the program in question

Ok, both making good points.

Frankly, I don't trust *any* third party processors; I have seen dozens of them fail in the last 14 years of doing business. The only reason I'd use them is the demand from affiliates to be paid by various third party companies. I do it, but I hold my nose the whole time, and do what ever I can to minimize my exposure.

That's a strange comment coming from a program that put a hold on my Epass payout and won't even answer something like 15+ emails about sending me a check instead.

My view on this topic:

1) If the program is large and by that I mean the amount of signups they transact in a year is over $5,000,000 then they should have a reserve for this type of thing and pay you out regardlessly just to keep the trust factor.

2) If the program is small, but had their funds in their wallet, they should have paid you out via the wallet feature when they had an entire month to do so and put the hot potato into your hands. I DID get payments via ePassporte during this debacle via the wallet. I actually had to plead for this to happen and now those programs are thanking me since the ACH stopped.

3) If the program was small and had their money in the VV I think they should tell you the payout will come once they get their cash back. If they are small they don't have enough of a reserve to handle something of this magnitude. They should, however, be keeping you informed of the situation openly and completely.