Commission Junction – A Big, Fat Bully?
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Update: It seems like people want the short-version of the story. 
Here it is:
A few weeks ago Commission Junction sent me an email saying I was in violation of their terms and conditions and that I needed to take down a specific webpage at www.incomemax.com or they would close my Commission Junction account.
The webpage they wanted removed framed a page from the babycenter.com website. I guess there’s a relationship between babycenter.com and Commission Junction. However, the page at Incomemax.com doesn’t use a Commission Junction link and was created back in the year 2000 in response to a request (presumably from babycenter.com). So the page was created before the account that Commission Junction was threatening to close even existed!
When I raised this point with Commission Junction they agreed that I was not in violation of their agreement. They didn’t apologise for being wrong. I think they used unnecessary bullying tactics and should take longer to investigate each incident before threatening to close accounts.
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If you’ve got a few minutes, here’s the movie version…
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(for a much larger version, click here)
I don’t think it’s right that Commission Junction can try to bully me into taking down a webpage when they were 100% absolutely, categorically, in the wrong.
What do you think? Should Commission Junction have done just a little bit of research before firing off a legal email threatening me with account closure? How long would it have taken them to work out that the incident they were complaining about didn’t even use a Commission Junction link?
Am I right to get worked up about this? Is it an important principle to defend, or am I over-reacting?
It usually takes a lot to get me into “rant mode”, but Commission Junction managed it!
November 5th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Gave up listening after 5 minutes without an explanation of what the problem is. I just don’t have any more time to give.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I entitrely agree that CJ are Bullies. In fact I distrust the whole relationship because i have never received the affiliate sales I feel I have passed on through them.
I can’t prove it but I try not to deal with them anymore!
November 5th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I think you need to cut to the chase sometimes
November 5th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I agree… could have been condensed into 5 minutes. But I do agree with why your upset….
November 5th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Neil
Thought you over reacted and your video takes too long to get to the point.
So CJ made a mistake. All it should take is an explanation from you, an apology from them, and that should end the matter.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I am not a big fan of Commission Junction to begin with and actually agree with you 100%.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Fools…
I once received a “Cease and Desist” from a lawyers in Atlanta of all places, insisting that I “remove references to our client’s online property from your web site” – in other words take down a link. So the world and his wife are begging links and these wombats are paying their lawyers to tell people to remove them. Madness!
November 5th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
I have to agree – I too gave up after 5 minutes without ever finding out what the problem was. If you had cut out the first 5 minutes and got to the point people might actually find out what the problem is, if any.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Hi Neil,
I can’t even watch the video as I’m stuck on dial-up.
However, anything bad you say about CJ is probably true.
My first account with them was closed with no notice. They kept my last commissions and never replied to any of my emails.
Bullies? Sure sounds like it to me. TTFAN*
Allen
*time to find another network
November 5th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Wow, Neil – that was indeed a rant – I hope you feel better now!
I think you make the assumption that big companies consider you an individual. They don’t. It’s a feature of all companies that as soon as their client/customer base gets above a certain number then the personal approach completely disappears.
It’s just a case of sucking it up then giving them hell back – fully supported by the facts of course – to make them realise that you are, indeed, “someone with which they do not wish to f***”.
Seems you did everything right on this occasion so pat yourself on the back for that. It won’t be the last time though.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
The big takeaway I get from this incident is that: 1. Big company employees and representatives try to hide behind nameless, faceless terms and titles so that no one is personally accountable for their actions. 2. Legalman wields so much control over these companies that they will increasingly sound more offensive over time. 3. Don’t spend too much time with this stuff. It is energy-sucking and creativity draining. As you said, you don’t do much business with CJ, so don’t worry about them.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Neil, clearly you’ve got too much time on your hands. Just hit reply to the email and tell THEM, not US.
Sheesh.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Neil, you are right to be pissed. I would be too, and I also have an account with them. Hope I am not met with the same bully tactics in the near future. I had an Adsense account a short time back that was terminated due to the same IP address clicking on the links. I found that at my work place coworkers liked my site and were exploring the areas with Adsense links. I also deducted that since everyone was on an office network behind a firewall (supplied by the town I was employed with), the reporting IP would always be the same, nomatter which computer accessed it. I explained this in an email to Google, but it fell on deft ears or blind eyes (whichever), and repeated email requests to reactivate have gone unheeded. So I have had a similar experience with the 1200 pound gorilla and being ignored. Glad to hear yours was cleared up.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
A bit long winded and not worth worrying about! Thought you were a busy man!
November 5th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
No question, CJ’s initial contact rates pretty low on the diplomacy scale. One could certainly choose to be offended by it, but it’s obviously a boilerplate email sent by a minion who thinks they’ve discovered a violation. You were able to prove your case quickly and their response, while again not perfect, was prompt, friendlier and most important, the problem was resolved.
In these cases the burden of proof generally rests with the accused. CJ could certainly have made the accusation in a more reasonable fashion, but you’d have had the same tasks to perform in either case.
I listened to the frankly overlong account because I have a CJ account and I’m always interested in what these outfits consider violations of their terms so that I can avoid them, if possible. It’s also helpful to know for future reference how they get resolved.
Rather than going off on a rant about it, I might have put together an informative little ebook detailing the situation and the resolution and offered it as a cautionary tale to my customer list, or as a bonus or giveaway or come combination thereof. I recall another marketer doing that with a PayPal situation they had a year or so ago. I thought that was a constructive approach to the situation.
In any case, thanks for the information. I found it helpful.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I was really hoping there would be something positive to come from this by the end of the video but sorry to say I just wasted nearly 20 minutes that I can never get back.
Put it behind you and move on and please stop wasting other people’s time. I am now going back to the email you sent me to unsubscribe from your list.
I feel you have abused the respect you have earned in the past and stolen my time. I’d like a refund of the 20 minutes I wasted but that’s something you cannot give unfortunately.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Dear Neil,
Good manners cost nothing. You are right. I had a Sh**** email from google. I wrote back politely calling them liars. Then likeyou I got the nice as pie email.
I wonder if they spider sites and auto generate emails. Either way they should learn some good manners or maybe they will get sued.
Dont stress out Neil sh*t happens. Try to chill hopefully talking about has helped and maybe CJ and the other big guns will realise they are dealing with people this will make them more money in the end, and better customer relationships.
Have a nice bonfire night
November 5th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Yes they are. They cancel your account if you don’t have a sale in 6 months, and they don’t let you join again with the ythe same email address.
But what the heck are you talking about? Can’t you just put it in two sentences, or two minutes?????
November 5th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I hardly use CJ – there are such easier things to sell out there with private affiliate programs.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Hi Neil,
Agree with you totally, when Baby Centre said jump, CJ asked How High? But CJ need to remember they need affiliates, some us are small time, but just as important to their success. I have an offline Biz so I dont do a lot of affiliate sales, CJ have closed my account twice since 2001 (presumably low activity) keeping the balance of commissions both times….so my activity with them will remain low, because I will use all the other networks available first!..Brian
November 5th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Neil,
CJ is heavy handed, earnings are low, and they are fickled.
It took me a while to rise above a “newbie” in IM and in the meantime, after taking a lot of time to set up a couple dozen quality product review websites with CJ merchant links throughout, had them close my account during my “learning curve” for low sales production.
Wasted a lot of my time and effort of which they care nothing about.
For what it’s worth I don’t recommend CJ but I will once and a while use some ads to add “color” to my sites.
Your rant has value for those who are new and don’t know that they have other choices available.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Hi Neil, they closed my account, due to inactivity. Why? TradeDoubler is still accessible six years later (I was curious)! I thought about it at the time; “If I’d actually got anywhere with this [fast2net] I’d have lost money, just because I didn’t log in for X days.” I hate Clickbank too; similar tactics – don’t get me started on paying 17.5% more online just for physically living here in the UK – I usually back out.
Vote with your wallet and the wallets of your buyers.
And, er, yes, you waffled so much I couldn’t bring myself to sit through it. The blog gave me the gist of it. You should identify the key points and come up with a >short
November 5th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I’ve never really cared for cj either, even though I use them, too many stupid rules, inactivating accounts for lack of sales, lol, like we’re not trying…
November 5th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Neil…I agree with you. CJ is a bully. I also hate that they make you jump through hoops to get signed up again to promote another produt if your account has been terminated due to lack of activity.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Thanks for the positive comments, guys, I really appreciate them.
As for the movie being too long… you could well be right. I guess I need to be more careful when ranting. As I said, I don’t usually do it… perhaps I over-did it.
I’ll go back to the usual, brief, helpful movies of under five minutes.
Neil.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
It seems like someone had it out for you. I hope it never happens to me.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Neil,
I understand why you’re ranting. The implications of CJ threatening to close an affiliate account and confiscate pending revenue based upon the content of a page -a page that has nothing to do with them are enormous.
It’s scary to imagine all the things a big network might not like. They probably don’t like to see affiliate links for one of their competitors. Imagine if an exec at CJ decides that they should send out mass “Get rid of competitive links or we’ll get rid of you!” emails? But I’m letting my imagination run away with me, that hasn’t happened yet…
So if I understand correctly, it seems you were sent an automated form letter, legal-eze kind of email, that evidently wasn’t initially investigated by a live human being. Then when you submitted your reply with the data to back up your page, an actual person took a look at it and sent you an ‘all is well” email. (No apology)
If you don’t expect too much by way of forethought, attention to detail or customer service, then you won’t be disappointed. Just because CJ is big, doesn’t mean that they have actual live human beings that personally check through issues before they send out the form letters.
Your rant is justified. But your expectation that you are dealing with actual people is off. I think you just got caught up in the machine…Hope that helps!
Sabrina
November 5th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I agree with everything you say about the tone of that email. It’s the “guilty and no hope of proving otherwise” mentality that seems to pervade sites such as CJ, ebay and Paypal.
It’s probably born of the myriad of scammers these companies have had to deal with, such that well meaning businesses get tarred with the same brush.
What makes it worse is that its next to impossible to speak to human being to discuss a resolution or even get an explanation.
This is proof that you should never ever put all your eggs in one basket when dealing with affiliate firms. Thats hard to do, I know, but you cant risk your whole income on one little mixup that results in a computer generated throat cutting email like this one
Hope you get it resolved
Chin up mate!
November 5th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
After 10 minutes listening for about 20 seconds of fact, I gave up.
You need a good sub-editor
November 5th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Based on what you displayed, it looks like they didn’t do any due diligence before they sent you the letter. Or as they say in “lexis land” discovery! hey have a pint for me and have great day!
November 5th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Hi Neil,
these big companies piss me off at times too and I can see your point but maybe you have allowed your anger to get the better of you.
You see when you bitch and complain about a big company or any company for that matter there will always be those people who feel you have over reacted or done wrong. Yet were they in your shoes it would be a different matter all together.
I have made such a public staement before myself and it did more harm than good because there were those who just didn’t get the point behind the argument. It seems you to are in this position.
All the best Andrew
November 5th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I agree that CJ can sometimes be a bully…
I have had them request that I take pages down a few times. They have never threatened to close my account though, and so far, they had valid reasons to make such requests.
They may be a big fat bully, but they do send out a big fat check each month… so I can’t complain to much. (Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?)
November 5th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
C’mon Neil,
CJ cocked up – you explained – they corrected the mistake.
Get over it!
Best Wishes,
Stan
November 5th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Neil,
If you could condense this video, that would be great. I want to know what happened, but this is way to long for me to watch.
November 6th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Hey Neil,
What irritates me most about emails like this is the fact that it wastes precious time. Had they done their job to begin with and investigated the problem themselves, an email would have never been needed to be sent by them and caused you to have to not only go through the frustration, but spend all that time investigating what their bitch was all about.
I’ve recently had a similar problem with another BIG Name online and so I completely understand your pain and frustration.
What I’ve decided to do about it is to move on to companies that treat me like a human being, and if they cross the line of sending irrelevant or time wasting emails, or are completely inconsiderate, I ditch em.
In this case, there are plenty of other Affiliate networks to work with and so I would just drop the CJ account and find another network. There are some really good ones out there as I’m sure you know.
At any rate, thanks for sharing.
Michael
November 6th, 2008 at 12:56 am
The bad news is that it doesn’t matter what
any of us think. They rule so they make the
rules and do what ever they want.
And for every publisher that walks away
there are 10 more opening an account.
Life goes on.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:32 am
I also am an affiliate with CJ. Signed up a few years ago (pre-RoboForm) but missplaced my signin info. Clicked on the link for “Contact us” and was taken to a page requesting my signup info (duh), e,g, could not send them a message. They also don’t list any contact info, i.e. phone number, so I am subsequently locked out of my account. Guess they really think they are bigger than God. He, at least, is accessable anywhere.
November 6th, 2008 at 3:28 am
I had no idea CJ was acting like that. It seems as the economy worsens large companies become stupid. They begin to attack the very people that are responsible for their success – their customers! PayPal has done it, the banks have been doing it and now it looks like the insurance companies can’t run their business.
Right in the middle of the banking crises, my bank informed that all automatic payments would be removed before automatic deposits were credited and any fees due to insufficient funds would be enforced. Wow, how convenient for the bank. It’s almost beyond belief. It sounds like CJ is at risk of falling into the same self destructive posture as banks. The difference is that no government on the planet will offer a bailout for the likes of Commission Junction. They’re far to insignificant and they should be a little more humble. If a large number of marketers boycotted Commission Junction they would fold like wet toilet paper. That’s right, I said it. I can’t help myself
November 6th, 2008 at 3:54 am
Hello Neil,
I think that CJ should have been more polite in their dealings with you. They shouldn’t have demanded that you removed your site first before investigating properly.
But having failed that, they should have informed and asked you in a polite way concerning the status of the site you mentioned above.
I believe that the unpleasant situation could have been avoided.
It’s a good lesson for us doing business online to be courteous to our clients.
Cheers,
Ricardo
November 6th, 2008 at 5:01 am
Good customer service is an art. Mistakes can be expected. For me the main thing is how the follow-up is handled. An apology costs nothing and creates goodwill.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:12 am
I couldn’t agree with you more Neil. CJ is totally suck.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Hi, Neil,
I hope you feel better after that!
You have fallen foul of that most infamous of all labour saving devices – AUTOMATION!!
Commission Junction are probably totally unaware of the anxiety they caused you because the whole system seems to have swung into action as the result of a complaint by Baby Center Store.
CJ probably have an automated initial response programme that reacts to the conjunction of certain words (in much the same way as spam filters) and sends out ‘warnings’.
Their secondary response system seems to be automated as well since the email you received did not acknowledge the problem – only that it had been resolved.
Maybe the people you should be ranting about are Baby Center Store who appear to have started the whole process. How dare they complain to e third party because somebody is advertising them? Wouldn’t any reasonable company first contact the owner of the web site that carries their ad?
Hopefully, if they see your rant, CJ will review their systems and find out what went wrong in this case and adjust the parameters for sending out that particular email threat.
Meanwhile, move on. No damage has been caused since CJ can defend themselves, you can defend yourself and Baby Center Store can go to the devil.
November 6th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Hey Neil,
What ever happened to a polite question of compliance? What happened to human service or a human on the other end of the phone? Customer service should always mean a human being writing or talking to the cutomer. It doesn’t make any difference how big the company is to me, if they are wrong or impolite I’ll call them on it as you did. You did explain very well what happened, what you had, what was suppossed to be wrong and your reply. All of this was well done. I have to admit you’re a lot nicer than I probably would have been in that situation. Oh, you did not over react. You cared otherwise you would not have produced the video, as a lesson to others to be awhare of. Thanks for sharing.
Have a great day,
Steve
November 6th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Hi,
I have never had any problem what so ever with CJ.
Regards,
Tommy
Swingmedia
November 6th, 2008 at 9:11 am
NOVEMBER 6,2008
HI NEIL
I PERSONALLY NEVER TRUSTED THEM IN THEIR APPROACH.
I FEEL THEY SHOULD APOLOGIZE WITH A FREE PROGRAM THAT THEY GET FREE COPIES OF.
GERRY DENES
tulipboysails@yahoo.com
November 6th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Hi Neil,
You are right to be pissed off, and…YES they are – CORPORATE BULLIES – the worst kind of bully. Worse than school-boy bullies.
Colin
November 6th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
My CJ is good to me,I dont have any big problems with him…I do not know about you guys but all attack poor CJ
November 7th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
CJ are bullies in my opinion -they’ll even close you down if they think you’re a poor performer. Ok that may have some weight behind it but hey, all those affiliates just starting out need the benefit of the doubt.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Yeah, I heard that there was a lot of problem with comission junction. I was going to use them one time, but then I realized I didn’t like the way they operated things. You have to TRUSt that your advertiser will pay you your affiliate fee! At least Clickbank automatically give you your affiliate fee. Why would I trust a stranger to pay me?
November 8th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
I had a similar experience with a huge well known mega site 2 years ago. I had to work hard to stand up and try to defend myself from something that I too thought was ridiculous in order to get my membership back. After about 3 months they let me back in. I think that bad business practices will catch up to anyone regardless of how big they are and people should never forget where they came from and which direction they are headed.
Thanks for sharing your experience Neil
November 9th, 2008 at 3:15 am
now, i have confused..
before read this post, i wanna join and make account there. but now i consider to pending my decission…
November 9th, 2008 at 3:52 am
The sad fact is that they probably try this with lots of websites and 99.9% of the time the site’s owner will just do what they say rather than risk losing their account.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
First time I have come across your blog, Neil, and I will be adding it to my favourites. As for CJ it is not worth fighting them over trivial matters on a matter of principle as you can’t win and the stress is not worth it.
I know it’s frustrating but the big guys usually win.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Hello Neal,
I agree. I think you should have done just what you did and call Commission Junction on their idiotic blunder.
You are right when you say they should investigate before the start with the threats.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the trend of many businesses now, not just Commission Junction.
A lot of businesses anymore have forgotten that the customer is always right. They continually bite the hand that feeds them (the customers), and then they wonder why their business is all but bankrupt, and a lot of times it gets to that.
It seems that large coorporations just don’t even use any common sense anymore, and the CEOs and the board members have forgotten everything they learned in business 101, and… don’t even get me started on eBay.
For about the last 5 years, every rule they have come up with has been very hostile to their members, who are the very people who have gotten eBay where it is today. People are now leaving in droves, including eBay veterans who have been there a decade or more.
To explain all of the nasty stunts ebay has pulled in the last five years would fill a small encyclopedia, but let’s just say that from all of the hatred of eBay that I am seeing both on eBay and on the rest of cyberspace as well, it is once again obvious that is it not very smart to bite the hand that feeds you.
So yeah, I agree. From everything you have said about the whole Commission Junction experiance you had, you had every right to take them to task like you did.
Misato K.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
that’s true CJ is truly, a big bully it earns a lot and gives profit peanut size.
November 11th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I really never had any luck with CJ anyway so I moved over to Amazon and it actually does much better. People know the Amazon name and do not think twice about buying from them.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
They should really do some research and not just see the surface of things.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Nothing upsets me (I’d like to use stronger language but I won’t) more than mindless bureaucracy and mindless legal departments.
No, you didn’t over-react.
Neil, I say good for you for keeping CJ on their toes.
Joel Smith
Casa Preciosa Ajijic
November 14th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I used to think that Commission Junction was a more respectable network, but they’re using tactics like this? Well I’ve never used them myself, so I don’t care personally, but they shouldn’t do that.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Tried using CJ years back and never had much conflicts with them. This problem might just be the lack of training for their staff over at CJ. Big corporation lacks proper customer service training nowadays.
Rif Chia