My horrible adultfriendfinder experience
 

I signed up with AFF (adultfriendfinder.com) about 5 months ago, and started trickling traffic out to them. For my tiny site, I thought it was decent cash ($60 first month, and 2 months after than another $60).

Starting December of '03, I started getting serious with my site (as serious as my little site can get!), and starting making appx. $20-$30 a day. By January 5th, I had well over $600 in my account, and I was happily awaiting my payment.

Then AFF decided to ban me. After close to 20 emails to them, and maybe 10 or 15 calls, they finally call me back 2 weeks after the banning. It seems that I was flagged for spamming by their automated system. Fine, I said, go ahead and do an investigation and you'll see that every single one of my hits are legit. I even offered to allow them access to my server logs so they could see how my hits to them fluctuated with my site's hits. See, I was advertising them with a pop-up and a banner. On their FAQ it says that it's OK to send them hits any way we'd like (blind links, banners, text links, etc). I even told the guy who called me this.

This month's payday was supposed to be January 18th, but since I was under investigation, STILL, I didn't get my check. Around Janurary 21, they finally get back to me, after many many phone calls/emails on my part, saying that they'd gone ahead and unbanned my account, and that I would be recieving my check within 2 weeks.

I was ecstatic! I thought I was going to get my $900 in the mail!

Well, not exactly.

See, AFF has two programs: pay-per-click and percentage payments.

Up until January 29, I was on the pay-per-click program, and I had raked in over $1,200 with AFF. I was VERY happy, and was willing to overlook the banning problem if I recieved my check. To stay on this program you have to keep a ratio of somewhere around 1:400, which I've had for a while.

Well, tonight, they decided to switch me over to percentage payout. RECTOACTIVELY switch me over. Meaning, ALL MY EARNINGS starting in December, which I should have recieved in check by January 18th, HAVE BEEN CUT IN HALF. I lost over $500 with these people tonight, all because they either purposefully or not held back my check until the next pay period. MY balance went from nearly $1,200 to $650.

I ask you now, should the money that I'd already made, and had been promised to me, be affected by this switch over? Should I be punished because they took so long to figure out that I was indeed, not spamming?

I've already called tonight and left a message, and sent out an email to their general accounts information and the young lady who finally was able to unban my account, but I feel that I will go ignored for weeks, and most likely not get my cash back.

I've visited these forums many times in the past year or so, and have seen that AFF is one of the most respected and reliable sites for y'all. I also gathered that AFF does not frequent these forums to interact with the members.

But, here I am, begging someone, ANYONE, out there who thinks they can help me with my problem. As I've mentioned, mine is not a big site, and I am a poor college student. Those $1,200 (even the original $900) were going to support me for 2 months!

I don't care what you want in return. Money? I have none. I have a measly website that gets 3,000 uniques a day, with a googlerank of 5. Want your banners all over it for the rest of my life? Fine. And any other site I ever start/help with.

Please, and your help will be so greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Juan Treminio
[email protected]
http://ehacked.com
AFF ID: p64473c

They owe me money from November. Common thieves if you ask me. Good luck.

Thought you were going to post a story about how you couldn't meet any girls from AFF :1orglaugh

AFF isn't particularly respected or reliable.

Welcome to how AFF works - they do this ALL the time. This is nothing new for them in any way. Yes its fucked, but its how they work.

Hope ya get it sorted :thumbsup

well they take awhile to pay and i never used them for more than a couple hundred $ but i have been paid..
Try dating gold or another dating services and cosider it a lesson learned i guess

at least i would have read that whole story :1orglaugh

you tell us this because......

Thanks for the heads up.....

If I decided to pursue legal action, would I be able to charge them for lawyer fees, and actually be able to win?

I know it doesn't sound like a lot of money, but...

It says on their TOS that I'd have to go through a judge that they control, but it doesn't seem to me like they're playing by their own rules here.

Also: In Dallas, they're in California. Would that make legal action not worth it?

Really? My impression was just the opposite.

Consider it a loss:2 cents:


edit: maybe they saw what is under your username...look under it

That sucks, hope you get paid :thumbsup

picking the ppc option was "the mistake" if you ask me.

lmao you are either crazy or stupid to take them to court for 600$ lol

people loose thousands here and nothign ever happens....
thanks for lightening up my day

AFF are great. Any program that is big as theirs will have problems with cheaters, especially since they pay per click.

Obviously sometimes innnocent people get tagged or whatever and clearly that sucks. But luckily enough you were able to resovle the complaint and get yourself reinstated.

Personally I prefer the percentage program over the PPC

idiot.

Aff is a FIRST CLASS operation. They ALWAYS pay ontime and their stats are solid.

the BEST part is they don't use 3rd party processors so the guys that can usually scam companies that use 3rd party processors get caught when they use AFF, which seems to be the case here.

what is so horrible? you didn't maintain your conversion ratio, so they moved your account from per click to %

this is not unusual

woh woh woh... I read their TOS and FAQ many times over, and adhered to their every rule! I never sent out an email with their link on it. I NEVER spammed, and I am definitely not trying to scam them.

I see many people saying they're not respected, and some saying they are. So why exactly does it feel like they're just taking advantage of a small site?

edit: to the person above me:

They rectoactively changed all my cash. As in, if they hadn't tagged me for spamming (which I reiterate I never did) I would have recieved my full check, THEN been switched over to percentage.

That's like an employer accidently thinking you've failed your piss test, so they hold on to your check. Then when it comes out that you're clear, they go ahead and rectoactively reduce your hourly wage by half. How'd that feel?

AFF converts great..

i don't buy your story.

I can't say about AFF or their practices since I've never used them, but to answer one of your questions - if you hire a lawyer, take them to court, and the court rules in your favor, then they are obligated to pay your legal expenses. However, the risk you'll lose (both lack of evidence and going against TOC) would not be worth it.

Maybe small claims would be better (again, against their TOC per you), but I don't know how it'd work across states. In California, you can NOT have a lawyer with you in small claims.

No, they don't always pay. Where is my money from November? Luckily I only had them on a handful of AVS sites so no huge loss but they are scammers. I'd strongly advise people against using them.

true - they don't pay scammers. and they're VERY good at catching them

Why the FUCK is it that SCAMMERS always think that the rules aply to everyone else CEPT them and when they get caught they always STILL want to get paid?


walk away - you got caught. acept it.

He said he is poor.

LMAO. Fuck you. I have them on some old AVS sites sending top quality traffic. I've always used the percentage option, never PPC.

read above what i said about scammers, obviously it didn't sink in.

I used to promote dating sites, in fact that is how I first started on the net. AFF has always converted ok, but I am leery of them.

My more recent experience with them was as a consumer. I buy memberships to sites and see if they are worth promoting, and so I bought a membership, kept if for a while then cancelled, or so I thought. A couple months later the accountant asked me what some charges were. Turns out they were still re-billing me.

To make a long story short they are thieves, and I wound up charging back several months membership that they had billed me for.

I do love SexyAds though! Converts well, and has been sending me checks for years!

Your traffic didn't convert, thought you might be cheating or hitbotting. You weren't, you were just sending garbage traffic and they recalculated your payout to what your traffic was actually worth.

Well Sleazy, we're definitely not scammers and they did the same to us - they wait about 2 weeks to 1 month after you were supposed to get your first payment and then switch you retroactively - theoretically, they should pay you what you were owed until their pay period ended, then switch you over.

I figure you do well with them and figure you're getting your fair & probably bonus cut - but there are thousands under you they play this game with. Won't change how much you make, that's for sure, but just know that it's not the same for the others behind you.

Sleazy Dream wipe your chin - your dribbling shit as usual

In our case - we don't trade traffic - we don't know how a hitbot works let alone run one - and all we get is search engine traffic - not much, but only that.

once again, i don't buy that AT ALL. I know hundreds of people with small accounts with aff that never had any problems with them - mind you they had real sites with real traffic.

fuck off, fat boy. AFF has always been a low, low paying outfit and not worth anyone's traffic. I used them as sponsors before you even heard of the internet and they haven't changed, still a shitty traffic investment.

Sleazy's just a TGP guy, he doesn't know any better.

If he is a scammer then why are they still paying him??


you only think you know everything - there's a big difference there candy ass

ah, Thursday night entertainment.

It's amazing that webmasters expect sponsors to pay them more money than their traffic even generated.

I've been an affiliate of Friendfinder/AFF since 1999 and in all that time I've never once had a problem with them.

I think he just expected them to live up to their terms. Most of us don't 'make our living from gambling' on getting paid :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

we expect to be paid what we're due.

i wouldn't hold my breath. sorry it happened. hope it's the last time.

put down that crack pipe chicken head

seeing 1200 bucks in your stats one day and then checkin it the next to see some motherfucker has decided its only worth 600 is fucked up

crazy concept!!!
:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

spammer

Well, Sleazy, whether you 'buy that at all' or not, really doesn't make a difference, it's common practice with their sites. As for the hundreds of people with real sites and real traffic you refer to - are you suggesting all of us have fakes sites & imaginary traffic?

come on man, such a big rep and that's all you got for me?

What exactly do you mean?

AFF decided my traffic was worth 1 cent per unique IP a day. If I send them 3,000 uniques a day, then that's $30 a day for me.

It's in their terms. They can't just up and decide "hey, this guy's traffic isn't worth what we promised him. let's change it".

Anyways, that's not why they decided to pull me.

Let me clarify: I am not a scammer/spammer/whatever.

Their automated system flagged me because I had an "unusual" amount of free email accounts signing up under me. They investigated, decided I was not spamming/scamming them, and reinstated my website.

But it was too late for their 3rd party check company to send out my check, so the lady promised it 2 weeks from then. 1 week later they cut my check in half. How, exactly, is that ethical/fair/legal?

Been with them a long time. Never had a single problem. Always paid on time like clockwork. Converts great. Nice steady advertiser.

:thumbsup

the truth doesn't require lengthy explainations