Break out the lie detector in vegas!
 

How about lining up the top 20 sponsors, hook each owner up to a lie detector, and ask them:

Have you ever built into your affiliate software a means to intentionally "shave" traffic from affiliates?

I would be willing to do it. Just wonder who we would hook up for CE since R-N no longer owns it.

:1orglaugh
Great idea:thumbsup

very interesting

i could name a couple that i guarantee the results on.

Choose a better question, anyone who buys software with it already built in would get caught.

hehhehehe.... nice idea :glugglug

You could phrase the question a million ways. I do not believe "shaving" is widespread among the top sponsors. But I am sure there are a few who USED play games when average conversions were 1:100 and you could shave 10% and still be at 1:110.


But you will not get me to mention any names.

That is one of the best idea`s i have heard in years !!!

I would love to see some sponsors step up to this challenge !
Great idea Brad!!

WG

no it's not.

At the end of the day does it even matter? If someone pays X and doesn't shave, and someone else pays Y and does shave, the only real judge of how much the traffic is worth is who is cutting a check with more zeros before the decimal place for the same amount of traffic in the same period of time.

Traffic is worth what it's worth, and being fooled by conversion ratios and hit counters and amounts paid per signup is as foolish today as it was in the days when ratios did look good and people did play with the numbers a bit more loosely.

Not to rain on anyone's parade here, just making a comment regarding priorities.

Your right on the money, what I care about is the amount of that check at the end of the day. This would just be for fun since everyone accuses each other of shaving. I could care less if my best sponsors shave, so long as I make the most with them at the end of the day.

WG

Shaving does fucking matter

It's money

All this 'it doesn't matter' and 'get used to it' nonsense is a bunch of bullshit

It's STEALING regardless

STEALING is not okay. You can't take someones design, you can't use their content, why should they take my fucking signup?

It DOES matter and the fact is if they DIDNT shave there would be more zeros on your fucking check

fuck shaving

no

shaving = fraud

End of discussion.

I have a funny feeling it still happens though


:glugglug

But if the sponsor who shaved paid more at the end of the pay period, wouldn't the webmaster have even MORE zero's if the sponsor didn't shave?

Brad you have a fucking nice idea :-)

every wonder why certain people are so overly concerned with the goings on at companies they have nothing to do with?

comes across (at least to me) as a sort of low-rent penis envy.

if you've got questions, and the balls to ask them here, wouldn't it be just as easy to pick up the phone, instead of tossing out blind (and usually heavily misinformed and/or blatantly agenda based) speculation?

just a thought.

Exactly.........

KK I don't think it's a matter of "priorities."

I doubt most people really sit around all day wondering who's shaving...their time is probably more or less spent trying to find who's going to give them the most for their traffic.

But to just brush it off as you do IMO is just not understandable.

If you hired a contractor to build your house and agreed upon a set price what would you do if you found out that he had double billed you on all the supplies?

Would you just sit back and think..."well I was happy with the original price we agreed upon and that's all that matters."

If you were hired to do a job at a company and they told you they would be paying you X amount of money for 40 hours worth of work and at the end of the week they kept 10% of that would you be okay with it just because they pay better than the last company you worked for?

I doubt it.

As DH said...Fraud is Fraud no matter how you cut it and that is important...as well as against the law.

It is a good idea, but I think many will be disappointed with the results. Some people need to be more concerned with their own businesses. It is easy to blame your reduced income on "sponsors shaving", without addressing the real problems. This is a tough business, and if you do not work your tail off, you can expect your income to continue to fade away.

Very Well Said:thumbsup

Good point. But the issue here is shaving. Is it right or wrong and why?

cool idea :thumbsup

The current stir about shaving is not about traffic drops and "a bad week", nor newbies being pissed because they got 1, not 3 signups this month. It is about actual shaving that has been detected with several sponsors, although so far not many names have been mentioned

Shaving exists, and in essence it's wrong. It's stealing, the principle of it will never be justified.

Brad --why is it everyone bitches and complains about you spewing all kinds of crap on boards, but every once in a while those "little gems" come slipping out ... :winkwink:

is too

If you could prove that every single sponsor in the industry shaves.... what would you do?

I mean, if without a doubt they all did.... what next? Stop promoting all of them? Or just continue on doing what you're doing?

Good idea

I'd like to see Ernesto from NastyDollars on this lie detector

i couldn't care less about shavers - everything I do is either rmy own or pre-paid

And yet ANOTHER fucking thread about the shaving feature...

I declare this a national holiday...
Everyone pull out your razors. (or your fraudulent affiliate software) if you got one.

OK, well try to understand this, I'll go slowly.

I dont personally care if someone shaves 90% of inbound hits and 90% of signups. I don't care if they pay 25 bucks a join or 250 bucks a join.

I've never cared, I learned that in this business about the first 15 days I was in this business.

The only thing I care about if I am sending out traffic is how much I am being paid for it.

Quite frankly some of the biggest shavers from a historical perspective paid out the most for traffic when you cashed your checks.

As for this misconception that you'd make more if sponsors didn't shave, it's WRONG.

You'd be paid less per join and the end result would be the same.

Go ahead and tie to me to a stake and get the kerosene out if you like, but resellers have brought this on themselves. Most of them know in their minds that traffic is only worth so much, but you feed a frenzy with sponsors constantly having to say they'll pay more per join to keep up with the guy that just did it yesterday.

Just remember that sponsors DO NOT NEED resellers. Resellers CANNOT live without sponsors. Sales and traffic would still be around if there were not one reseller left on the planet.

Y'all don't believe me? You watch what's coming from some of the BIG companies.

Sleazy has the right idea. You pick a few people you do well with and that's how you make your money. I'll bet a hundred bucks this industry learns that lesson the hard way over the next six months.

Sponsors can live without webmasters Kimmy?

So why don't they?

:1orglaugh

because they care about my and Oprano incomes....gosh, this is sooooooooo elementary!

I predict it will be a smashing hit like FM's idea to control free site market, or the $10 programs. This business model will not change, unless VISA ends recurrings.

exactly

webmasters witha brain can live without sponsers............

how long do you think it'll take someone else to step up when you back down....

maybe 10 seconds.... and it'll only take that long if I'm in a hotel on a 56K dialup modem.


and if none step up I do my own stuff.


not like I care...............

KK, very good observation, indeed...

If someone goes into a contract with you and says they will pay you X dollars every time Y event occurs, but they only tell you 50% of the time when Y event occurs, then there is a breach of contract & a big problem.

ah well. It's not personal. :)

Who says they won't Kevin?

Thank you, sir.

Brad, good call, lets see the fucking sponsors! I wanna see them stand up against this!

Theft is theft.
If the robber this month takes less than the robber who dropped by last month, should I thank him for that and invite him back?

They're both thieves.

Carrie, don't be naive, girl.

When I was writing software for sergescash,
first thing I have done was sending traffic to Ron Levi and Al Hadhazy, which was counted by me as outgoing.
In both cases I was given credit for ...between 80 and 86% of the hits sent. THEIR counts gave me the "magic number" of multiplier for my counting engine.

And guess what? I was VERY competitive with them and had no problems finding webmasters to send me traffic, webmasters who were sending traffic to Ron and Al and who knew my counts are similar to those of the above.

SOME people swear they got with me bigger checks than with Al and Ron for the same amount of traffic sent, some didn't...
\
But the proof is in the pudding....$34,000,000 worth of traffic was sold in one year, the traffic they could easily sell to other sponsors if they chose to do so or beleived they can get more money from others.

WHY should I give away 15% others don't? just to be called "honest Serge" bt Carrie and few others with high principals and low business sense?????

it aint worth $5,100,000.....

Christ this is so true.

yeh, who wants to hear the names of siccash, ce, cen, mostcash/pbits, intergal, etc, etc, etc...

what a shocking revelation ;)


NOTE: all comments used in the spirit of parody only...


:thumbsup :thumbsup

that would be cool

LOL, I hope they do. It will be interesting to see what happens.

WAY off topic, but....

Brad, can you please hit me up on ICQ, 52175714

Thanks