Catching shavers the easy way. The simple way to find them.

[Paul Markham]

There is a very simple way to find out if your sponsor is shaving, well it works with CCBILL tell us if it works with NATS and others.

Use your affiliate coded link to go to your sponsor, surf through the site like a surfer would, then go to the join page.

Look in the top menu on your browser, >View > Source go >Control F, the Find window pops up, enter into it your affiliate code and you will find this.

<input type=hidden name=ccbill_referer value='1279884'>

This is the code for Rabbit Reviews, one of our affiliates.

It's that simple to find out if you're being shaved. It's that tough to shave and not get caught.

[squishypimp]

cool tip thanks Paul

[Doctor Dre]

Captain obvious.
What do you do with people with their own mearchant accs ? and people could possibly shave sales after they are processed ... before they are enter in the affiliate aera database...

[Snake Doctor]

Paul, stick with the camera, you're in way over your head talking about other stuff

[pocketkangaroo]

The easiest way is to run test joins. If you're sending a substantial amount of traffic, you should be randomly testing joins. Any legitimate sponsor should have no problem with this if you let them know after.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Doctor Dre

Captain obvious.
What do you do with people with their own merchant accs ? and people could possibly shave sales after they are processed ... before they are enter in the affiliate aera database...

So you think after they sign up with CCBILL on CCBILLs site they are getting shaved?

I think CCBILL might take offense with that.

As for having their own merchant account got anything else to contribute?

Originally Posted by Lenny2

Paul, stick with the camera, you're in way over your head talking about other stuff

So educate us or do you just like to sound clever?

Come up with a way to shave traffic after it has hit the credit card processors site. Assuming the processor is honest.

[Doctor Dre]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

So you think after they sign up with CCBILL on CCBILLs site they are getting shaved?

I think CCBILL might take offense with that.

As for having their own merchant account got anything else to contribute?

So educate us or do you just like to sound clever?

Come up with a way to shave traffic after it has hit the credit card processors site. Assuming the processor is honest.

I'm not talking about ccbill there. I'm talking about people using 3rd party scripts mostly and their own mercheant accounts.

Also, the stop rebill feature after X months in CCBILL is invisible with nats ...

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by squishypimp

cool tip thanks Paul

I think a few affiliates will find they actually screwed up their own links. I mailed out to all our affiliates this info in the last newsletter. 5 found they were sending traffic with the wrong codes, their mistake and not mine. They are now converting their traffic.

Problem is people like Lenny only like to knock, not help.

[Snake Doctor]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

So you think after they sign up with CCBILL on CCBILLs site they are getting shaved?

I think CCBILL might take offense with that.

As for having their own merchant account got anything else to contribute?

So educate us or do you just like to sound clever?

Come up with a way to shave traffic after it has hit the credit card processors site. Assuming the processor is honest.

Look genius, you can't shave if you're using ccbill's affiliate software anyways, so nobody is worried about that.

It's people with custom backends and tracking that can shave you, you never see the processor stats with those programs.

If you ever had traffic of your own over all of these years you'd know that and wouldn't run off at the mouth about shaving and how exclusive content isn't better because you would know these things.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Doctor Dre

I'm not talking about ccbill there. I'm talking about people using 3rd party scripts mostly and their own mercheant accounts.

Also, the stop rebill feature after X months in CCBILL is invisible with nats ...

Yes people using their own merchant account might be a problem. We have one with our Czech bank that we only use for the content store, it is not for memberships. But again if the surfer lands on the merchant accounts page is that the page controlled by the bank or the sponsor? Ours is controlled by the bank.

Can an affiliate see when the rebill feature turns off? Very good point.

[pocketkangaroo]

I think Lenny is saying that you're not really describing shaving. You're either talking about setting up links wrong or leaking traffic.

[grumpy]

Thats not the smartest remark you made Paul. Stick to taking pictures.

[Alky]

this thread really needs a timeline here... you aren't really telling anyone anything new....

shaving is a little more advanced then changing a form field on a join page.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Lenny2

Look genius, you can't shave if you're using ccbill's affiliate software anyways, so nobody is worried about that.

It's people with custom backends and tracking that can shave you, you never see the processor stats with those programs.

If you ever had traffic of your own over all of these years you'd know that and wouldn't run off at the mouth about shaving and how exclusive content isn't better because you would know these things.

Lenny we should of talked further about this in Amsterdam, did you go?

Well let's talk about it in Thailand, we will be there.

So can it be done with NATS, can someone follow through the sponsors site and go to the processors page and lose the affiliate code?

I personally think a lot of this shaving talk is bullshit, think about how many threads there are and how many times SOLID proof has been brought up. Yes big gap.

The best way to get and keep affiliates is to pay them LOTS OF MONEY. The easiest way to lose them is to pay them less than the affiliate they are using. So anyone who shaves is killing his own business.

Unless you are accusing affiliates of being to dim to see the drop in revenue. I think affiliates are clever enough to notice less money coming from a sponsor.

But if you thought like a businessman you would understand that.

Show me your paysite and I will tell you if your exclusive contnet is better or not than non exclusive and I will tell you why. Do you have a paysite?

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by grumpy

Thats not the smartest remark you made Paul. Stick to taking pictures.

Why there is a lot more money in running a paysite even for an idiot like me.

OK so there other ways to shave. Maybe the geniuses in this thread would like to tell us how it is done so the others can be warned.

Custom affiliates scripts. Would this include NATS and MP3 type programs?

Merchant accounts the sponsor controls. I'm assuming the ones the bank controls are safe enough.

Yes cutting off the rebills on CCBILL is possible if you're a NATS affiliate, so how do you find out if it's being done?

[circlekhabib]

Assuming the processor is honest.

assuming anyone is honest in this business is your first mistake.
assuming you know anything about webmastering is your second.

[Gambit]

[Lazonby]

A way to detect shaving - if a sponsor is offering $100 per sign up and other crap like that, then the way they can afford this is to shave you at another time.

[Doctor Dre]

Paul you should get out of this thread man ... You shoot great content but god damn I wouldn't want to promote your site after seeing comments like this.

Why do people shave ? Because they offer higher payouts then they can pay... period.

If you are rev share you have no reason to cheat...

The major reason why not many people get busted is that you cannot base your allegations on one or two test joins... you'd have to do tons of them.

And when you catch a sponsor and have zillions of links up, it's hard to switch everything and you rather not loose that icome sometimes. Not everybody handle their dirty laundry publicly...



But hey guys... in ccbill you can stop your affiliates from getting credited for the rebills... think dudes using NATS + Revshare can shave that way ?

[Shaze]

[QUOTE=Paul Markham]
Merchant accounts the sponsor controls. I'm assuming the ones the bank controls are safe enough.

QUOTE]

If they have a merchant account the bank doesn't report and pay affiliates. It pays the full amount to the sponsors and then the sponsors using their third party or custom made scripts do the reporting and the account to pay out affiliates. They can easily stop some of the signups from appearing in the affiliate report/database.

The bank can care less whether the affiliates get paid for each and every sale. They don't even see this portion of the transactions.

[DarkJedi]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

There is a very simple way to find out if your sponsor is shaving, well it works with CCBILL tell us if it works with NATS and others.

Use your affiliate coded link to go to your sponsor, surf through the site like a surfer would, then go to the join page.

Look in the top menu on your browser, >View > Source go >Control F, the Find window pops up, enter into it your affiliate code and you will find this.

<input type=hidden name=ccbill_referer value='1279884'>

This is the code for Rabbit Reviews, one of our affiliates.

It's that simple to find out if you're being shaved. It's that tough to shave and not get caught.

[Shaze]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Why there is a lot more money in running a paysite even for an idiot like me.

OK so there other ways to shave. Maybe the geniuses in this thread would like to tell us how it is done so the others can be warned.

Custom affiliates scripts. Would this include NATS and MP3 type programs?

Merchant accounts the sponsor controls. I'm assuming the ones the bank controls are safe enough.

Yes cutting off the rebills on CCBILL is possible if you're a NATS affiliate, so how do you find out if it's being done?

when it comes down to it the only 100% way to know your not being shaved is to do some transactions on the sponsor and see if they show up as commissions on your affiliate report. For affiliates that make a decent amount of income spending about $100 dollars each and every month to test sponsors really isn't that much.

That being said, I don't know how NATS or MPA work so I don't know if shaving is or isn't possible with them. It would be good if they incorporate some sort of reliability control/mechanism in their scripts so modifying the database or changing reports isn't possible by sponsors....

[BV]

Look people, shaving is possible with ANY affiliate script and always will be.

All that a sponsor has to do is put a processor up on his join page that is not tied into his affiliate script.

Very simple.

Paul's test would catch this.

[Lazonby]

Start your own paysite. You'll know if you are shaving or not.

[Paul Markham]

I TRIED TO HELP A FEW WHO ARE NOT AS BRAINY AS THE KNOCKERS AND ALL I GOT WAS THE CLEVER ASSES, not arses asses was right as in the plural of ass, COME AND FLAME ME.

Most of whom are being paid to sig whore I suspect.

Or is the oversized banner in your signature your own and you are paying GFY to advertise it?

OK I did not get it 100% right. But a few got helped I'm sure.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Lazonby

Start your own paysite. You'll know if you are shaving or not.

Not such a bad idea. If a fool like me can do it and make it work what is stopping all the bright boys?

Money? It cost $25,000 in content, the design, hosting and a program was not expensive. The content could be cut in half to say $12,500. I reckon it could even be got lower.

The secret is the updates, keep giving the surfer new non exclusive content and they will keep joining, staying and rejoining. 5 sign ups a day will quickly become 10, then 20, then .............

It cascades.

[Lazonby]

1. Stop giving away so much motherfucking free content. Are you stupid or what?

2. Stop blind redirects from TGPs. Are you stupid or what?

3. Stop all the shit with the scumware. Are you stupid or what?

4. Freeze out the scammers. Are you stupid or what?

5. Do some other stuff which you can work out for yourselves. Are you stupid or what?

The sit back and watch as ratios and retentions improve - less need for programs to shave.

[Theo]

paul's tip here is applicable. I found in the past a very known teen aff.program that was altering my ccbill id through a php linking code. Unfortunately I wasnt fast enough to duplicate it on time to provide evidences of it, but i'll keep an eye in the future.

[Doctor Dre]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

I TRIED TO HELP A FEW WHO ARE NOT AS BRAINY AS THE KNOCKERS AND ALL I GOT WAS THE CLEVER ASSES, not arses asses was right as in the plural of ass, COME AND FLAME ME.

Most of whom are being paid to sig whore I suspect.

Or is the oversized banner in your signature your own and you are paying GFY to advertise it?

OK I did not get it 100% right. But a few got helped I'm sure.

The way you said it was very stupid... you made it sound like shaving was not possible... it just makes you look stupid and shows the fact that you know very little about programming. Stick to making great posts about shooting content dude...

Oh I sure as hell get paid good money for my big oversized sig bud... I don't need my sig for personal use... You sure sound condecending toward people who sell their sigs don't you ?

I have zero use for my signature on my own...

But hey, if you don't like people who sell their sigs I can tell the program who's buying sets from you on my behalf this week to get it elsewhere.

You should inform yourself about what people are doing and what sites they are running before beeing condecending toward them. The only thing I told you is that you made a stupid statement... wich is still true.

It IS a good tip but the only way to know is to run massive test signups and rebills tests too if you are on revshare. There is nothing else to it.

[Doctor Dre]

Originally Posted by Soul_Rebel

paul's tip here is applicable. I found in the past a very known teen aff.program that was altering my ccbill id through a php linking code. Unfortunately I wasnt fast enough to duplicate it on time to provide evidences of it, but i'll keep an eye in the future.

I have some test signups who haven't been credited at a big program before... It would probably be defamation if I'd go forward on the boards with it so I'm shutting the fuck up as I have no proof except 1 of the test signusp not beeing tracked.

But yeah shaving is there... I've been shaved by the ccbill rebills things for hundreads of rebills before I fear. I sent a shitload of traffic to a program and it just didn't rebill.

Lesson learned, do your tests.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Doctor Dre

The way you said it was very stupid... you made it sound like shaving was not possible... it just makes you look stupid and shows the fact that you know very little about programming. Stick to making great posts about shooting content dude...

Oh I sure as hell get paid good money for my big oversized sig bud... I don't need my sig for personal use... You sure sound condecending toward people who sell their sigs don't you ?

I have zero use for my signature on my own...

But hey, if you don't like people who sell their sigs I can tell the program who's buying sets from you on my behalf this week to get it elsewhere.

You should inform yourself about what people are doing and what sites they are running before beeing condecending toward them. The only thing I told you is that you made a stupid statement... wich is still true.

It IS a good tip but the only way to know is to run massive test signups and rebills tests too if you are on revshare. There is nothing else to it.

Good point I know very little about programming, in fact nothing I employ three guys who do though, and should of said it will help you track those with CCBILL affiliate programs to see they are getting credited. Excuse me for being a drama queen.

As for signature remark it stands. I get flamed by people who need to sell their signatures because they need the money or have nothing of their own to promote. Running a paysite is so hard a fool like me can do it and make a lot of money.

Why don't others?

Maybe I should start a thread asking people.

[Damian_Maxcash]

I like the old fashioned way..... Get some friends to sign up and see if the credits show...

Make sure they sign for full acounts and not trials - make sure they dont use the account either - so that nobody can lose any money - if the sponsor has any objections to that move on to another program - there is no valid excuse for a sponsor objecting.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Doctor Dre

I have some test signups who haven't been credited at a big program before... It would probably be defamation if I'd go forward on the boards with it so I'm shutting the fuck up as I have no proof except 1 of the test signusp not beeing tracked.

But yeah shaving is there... I've been shaved by the ccbill rebills things for hundreads of rebills before I fear. I sent a shitload of traffic to a program and it just didn't rebill.

Lesson learned, do your tests.

And you would not send me traffic because of what I said.

I would bust me balls to make sure an affiliate gets paid what he/she sent, I increased the payouts to reward affiliates for the rejoins. Members they sent in the first place who left and came back for the updates. I would increase them even more if I did not suspect people think the only way I can afford it is to shave.

The truth of the matter is any sponsor with half a brain cell knows the more he pays affiliates the more he will get them to send him traffic, the more he fucks with them the less they will send him.

How bad is a site that can't get rejoins, how bad is content that does not get good quality type in traffic? How many surfers simply bookmark a site and come back in a month or two to join, and in between then and joining they wipe the cookies?

My problem is not shaving, it's rewarding affiliates for the work they do without getting accused of shaving. I do not suspect I'm in the minority I think there are 100s of sites who think exactly the same. Raise the level to what they can afford and affiliates will say they are shaving.

Maybe I should get my own program to track affiliates that is going to work better than CCBILLS.

Whoops there I go again with more stupid ideas.

That would get me accused of spamming.

[Doctor Dre]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Good point I know very little about programming, in fact nothing I employ three guys who do though, and should of said it will help you track those with CCBILL affiliate programs to see they are getting credited. Excuse me for being a drama queen.

As for signature remark it stands. I get flamed by people who need to sell their signatures because they need the money or have nothing of their own to promote. Running a paysite is so hard a fool like me can do it and make a lot of money.

Why don't others?

Maybe I should start a thread asking people.

So everybody should run a paysite ??? You should have no affiliates sending you traffic then ?

The affiliate I send to partnership programs (according too your 57 000 alexa rank) is probably higher then the traffic you get on your paysite. I'm not trying to diss you but there are many different ways to make money in this business and yours isn't necesarry the best one.

And the comment about not sending you traffic was more about the paysite running / automation part of things taht makes one paysite convertions slightly better then another.


And the reason why shaving is in place is because :
1 - 5-10 % of affiliate sales aren't necessary a big deal for affiliates, but are for the sponsor
2 - The sponsors started offering so much to the affiliate that the competition is really hard to stand. You are directly competing with compagnies such as bangbros/ox who have TONS of qualiy exclusive content and offer access to 25 sites for the price of one and can afford to pay high payouts.
3 - TONS of people are in this business for the quick overnight money.

Why do sponsor do cross sales ? You have to agree with me that it's like scamming the surfers...

It's the same way of thinking with the webmasters.

I'd say that most programs don't shave, but lots do.

[jrap]

Speaking of shaving, it would be cool if programs let your add your own (approved) HTML to the sign-up confirmation page. Then you could embed an invisible image, similiar to how Google Adwords and Overture track conversions. Every time that image is accessed, you know you have yourself a sale. Compare that # with the reported # of sign-ups, and you can tell if the program is shaving or not.

[Doctor Dre]

Originally Posted by jrap

Speaking of shaving, it would be cool if programs let your add your own (approved) HTML to the sign-up confirmation page. Then you could embed an invisible image, similiar to how Google Adwords and Overture track conversions. Every time that image is accessed, you know you have yourself a sale. Compare that # with the reported # of sign-ups, and you can tell if the program is shaving or not.

The programs could simply remove the image on 1/10 of the signups or something ... it wouldn't be hard.

[Damian_Maxcash]

Originally Posted by jrap

Speaking of shaving, it would be cool if programs let your add your own (approved) HTML to the sign-up confirmation page. Then you could embed an invisible image, similiar to how Google Adwords and Overture track conversions. Every time that image is accessed, you know you have yourself a sale. Compare that # with the reported # of sign-ups, and you can tell if the program is shaving or not.

Thats a fucking good idea - the only problem is that CCBill/Paycom etc do make mistakes.... The first time it happened the program would be all over the boards with "proof" they are shaving.

[Damian_Maxcash]

Originally Posted by Doctor Dre

The programs could simply remove the image on 1/10 of the signups or something ... it wouldn't be hard.

That as well.....

[fallenmuffin]

Uh, we all knew about that...

Originally Posted by jrap

Speaking of shaving, it would be cool if programs let your add your own (approved) HTML to the sign-up confirmation page. Then you could embed an invisible image, similiar to how Google Adwords and Overture track conversions. Every time that image is accessed, you know you have yourself a sale. Compare that # with the reported # of sign-ups, and you can tell if the program is shaving or not.

Yup, thats a good one. Simple and sleek...

[pussyluver]

Talking about shaving is a dangerous thing around here. It can get people banned. Anyway, Dr Dre called it. The best way is to test and to do multiple tests. Problem is with TOS of the sponsor. If a sponsor has a trial and you get say $32.94 on a $2 trail, that is not exactly fair to the sponsor. In fact that would be fraud. Of course you can advise the sponsor of your test and they can cancel credit for the sale. That makes it hard to do multiple tests. Next you could buy full memberships, that could be expensive for the little guy plus you should have multiple credit cards and names. All this ads up to work.

Promote the sponsors that convert the best for you and then you don't have to worry about it. That and spread risk to multiple sponsors.

Disclaimer - I am NOT accusing any sponsor of shaving.

[SmokeyTheBear]

hey paul. i think many people misunderstand what your trying to say and your misunderstanding what everyone else is saying..

Ill break it down for you ( and everyone else )

Most webmasters pretty well do what your suggesting on a regular basis.. for those that dont, its a usefull tip.. some people think your suggesting a foolproof method of catching shaving , and of course you aren't..

[topshelfdesign]

Excellent advice there

[nekrom]

So here's a question for you Paul.

Tell me, If a surfer follows my ccbill link code to Paul Markham Teens, (code taken direct from my ccbill aff admin) and clicks through to the Join Page.

Signs up with your secondary biller Paymonde, do I get credit for those sales? Seeing as you brang this topic up.

-N

[seeric]

there will always be ways to cheat in any system in any industry in any partner structure. no matter what business you are in, if you are a partner and sending customers you could get shaved. its not just in adult. there are honest people and there are people who are not. thats just the way life is in general.

[Snake Doctor]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Lenny we should of talked further about this in Amsterdam, did you go?

Well let's talk about it in Thailand, we will be there.

So can it be done with NATS, can someone follow through the sponsors site and go to the processors page and lose the affiliate code?

I personally think a lot of this shaving talk is bullshit, think about how many threads there are and how many times SOLID proof has been brought up. Yes big gap.

The best way to get and keep affiliates is to pay them LOTS OF MONEY. The easiest way to lose them is to pay them less than the affiliate they are using. So anyone who shaves is killing his own business.

Unless you are accusing affiliates of being to dim to see the drop in revenue. I think affiliates are clever enough to notice less money coming from a sponsor.

But if you thought like a businessman you would understand that.

Show me your paysite and I will tell you if your exclusive contnet is better or not than non exclusive and I will tell you why. Do you have a paysite?

You're a pissy little bitch aren't you?

Paul there is a TON about this business that you don't know, you need to quit acting like you know everything about everything because threads like these make you look like a fool.

When you were just selling content that probably didn't matter, but now that you're trying to get people to trust you with their traffic it's probably not in your best interest to let them know how thick you are.

[Quickdraw]

Originally Posted by SmokeyTheBear

hey paul. i think many people misunderstand what your trying to say and your misunderstanding what everyone else is saying..

Ill break it down for you ( and everyone else )

Most webmasters pretty well do what your suggesting on a regular basis.. for those that dont, its a usefull tip.. some people think your suggesting a foolproof method of catching shaving , and of course you aren't..

Quoted in case a few others missed it..

Originally Posted by Soul_Rebel

paul's tip here is applicable. I found in the past a very known teen aff.program that was altering my ccbill id through a php linking code. Unfortunately I wasnt fast enough to duplicate it on time to provide evidences of it, but i'll keep an eye in the future.

I know of one large teen program that openly changes the ccbill codes within the tour. After questioning them about it, they said they would fix it. 3 months later nothing was changed. After another mail, they finally fixed one of the links a month or 2 later. But if the surfer clicks on the customer service, or contact us links, the refcode is still changed if they proceed with the tour from that window.

Anyway, to say that CCBill programs are unshaveable is untrue imo(and not just in the rebills area), but of course, I guess that depends on your definition of shaving.

[fuzebox]

Originally Posted by Lenny2

Paul there is a TON about this business that you don't know, you need to quit acting like you know everything about everything because threads like these make you look like a fool.

When you were just selling content that probably didn't matter, but now that you're trying to get people to trust you with their traffic it's probably not in your best interest to let them know how thick you are.

I was thinking the same thing.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by nekrom

So here's a question for you Paul.

Tell me, If a surfer follows my ccbill link code to Paul Markham Teens, (code taken direct from my ccbill aff admin) and clicks through to the Join Page.

Signs up with your secondary biller Paymonde, do I get credit for those sales? Seeing as you brang this topic up.

-N

Yes you get credited and I have to send you the money. The two affiliate programs are now linked. I never knew it could be done until recently. but it's fixed now.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Quickdraw

I know of one large teen program that openly changes the ccbill codes within the tour. After questioning them about it, they said they would fix it. 3 months later nothing was changed. After another mail, they finally fixed one of the links a month or 2 later. But if the surfer clicks on the customer service, or contact us links, the refcode is still changed if they proceed with the tour from that window.

Anyway, to say that CCBill programs are unshaveable is untrue imo(and not just in the rebills area), but of course, I guess that depends on your definition of shaving.

So actually my way of testing it, works fine.

The problem with some is they think the world is full of people as bright as them. I make the same mistake when I'm judging shooters. I see the same elementary mistakes and tell them. And some rip me a new one telling me I should more understanding. Then when I make the same level of mistake in their field they think they can rip me apart.

Hey Kettle this is Pot!!!

Lenny you will never send me traffic, so I've nothing to worry from you not sending me traffic.

[circlekhabib]

the more he fucks with them the less they will send him.

afraid your wrong. all it takes is a contest, party or outrageously
high special payout period for the sheep to yet again line up for the slaughter.

Promote the sponsors that convert the best for you and then you don't have to worry about it.

regardless if your supporting known/suspected criminals and criminal activity?
that is what is wrong with this business and why crooks flourish.
proven by those criminals that repeatedly come back here to fuck over
sheep time and time again.

and notice it's not newbie sheep getting fucked. where as in
fact many of the longer term members are the fuckees.

many say it's not if they shave but who makes you the most.
it's that attitude that is the major problem in this industry.