Moniker/TrafficClub: Fraud - payments delayed w/o notification, 25-50% shave
 

Your beloved Moniker and their domain parking branch TrafficClub have hit an unprecedented new low in their history of poor customer service, hare-brained programming and over-the-top marketing.

Some two years ago I opened an account with Moniker, who then marketed themselves as the premier registrar. Being used to Fabulous.com's excellence I wasn't overwhelmed by the experience - the site was full of amateurish programming errors (example: whois/registrant email lookup done by Moniker when initiating an inbound transfer would return '[email protected]' after a certain time of the day, this generally happens when an IP does > 100 netsol queries per 24 hours, to prevent spamming, but naturally isn't supposed to happen in such cases as the abovementioned). Support replies were usually slow (>24 hours for an answer) and sometimes absent, such as in the case when I alerted Moniker about errors like the abovementioned. But overall, it was "ok".

In the past few months, however, customer service quality has further deteriorated and come to a complete halt. Emails simply aren't being answered anymore, nor by the general support address, nor by my account/sales rep, nor by general sales.

I'm sure it wasn't a problem with my email address, as I wasn't the only one with this problem, and my premium domain submissions for the live auction always somehow found their way to the people in charge. For example, a domain I submitted months ago for the Internext Live Auction, for which I signed a contract, and about which I never got any confirmation despite my repeated attempts, suddenly ended up on the 'top list' of feb 20th TRAFFIC West Live Auction.

Now I've been parking some of my domains at TrafficClub for over half a year. TrafficClub uses a Skenzo feed, and due to their payment times TrafficClub "pays" on a net-45 basis. This is clearly mentioned in the TOS.

Moniker/TrafficClub were taken over by Oversee.net (DomainSponsor etc) in January. A few days later, without any form of communication or authorisation, domains were switched from a Skenzo to a DomainSponsor feed. While Monte Cahn and other Moniker reps were busy telling lies about Moniker's stability and how this takeover would increase everything under the sun for everyone, loads of people (including me) experienced heavy earnings drops and had to manually reset the feed to Skenzo.

A net-45 payment basis means November '07 payments should have been sent out and received January 15th. However, I just got my payment a few days ago. Moreover, it's ±25% short of what it should be. Moniker haven't cared to send out any notification of late payment whatsoever, do not reply to inquiries and have not given any explanation why they're shaving. To get this straight: my statistics are still showing the "correct amount".

I'm not the only one affected by this. Judging from forums like NP and DNF it seems like all domainers have been hit (some have not yet received payment, everyone's payment was short 25-50% of what it should be), and if that is the case this fraud extends to hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

What strikes me is the utter arrogance of this company. How dare they not reply to support requests, how dare they defraud their loyal affiliates without any sort of communication while their marketing machine rolls on and while they continue to flaunt worthless .mobi domains in their "premium" live auctions?

I'm sure a few on this board have been hit as well. I hope the situation will change soon, or that legal action is taken by the americans amongst us (I'll gladly donate!)

Cliffnotes for the lazy readers:
- Moniker/TrafficClub customer service standards are now less impressive than Juicy's "Glockenspiel"
- TrafficClub, a domain parking service by Moniker, delay payments for over a month without notification and defraud loyal affiliates by simply shaving 25-50% off revenues paid without any form of communication and still fail to reply to questions about this.

Very sad, and so true.

:disgust

I'm absolutely furious about this. From certain adult sponsors you can sort of expect a shave, so to say, but this is a "reputedly reputable" (they don't deserve it and never really have, though, it's only due to clever marketing) company that prides itself on integrity, great customer service, etc etc.

The arrogance... it's a smooth talking corporate attitude that doesn't really fit to this industry.

Oh, and to add to this already horrid story, after the Oversee.net takeover it was suddenly unilaterally decided that December payments (were also expected last week) will now be done in March.

This is completely unacceptable. I don't understand how these people think they can get away with this!

Moniker are assholes.

They sell your email to fucking everyone.

:disgust

[QUOTE=Rhesus;13799884]Moniker/TrafficClub were taken over by Oversee.net (DomainSponsor etc) in January. A few days later, without any form of communication or authorisation, domains were switched from a Skenzo to a DomainSponsor feed[QUOTE]


I got 3 emails telling me that they WERE SWITCHING this and notified the users atleast 3 weeks in advance, you should check your spam box for there emails.

I'm not sure which emails you mean. I've got multiple emails about a switch in January after the Oversee.net takeover which coincided with the involuntary switch. At that time it was still possible to change the feed back to Skenzo. However, shortly after that, and I don't think it was even 3 weeks, perhaps not even a week, it was suddenly announced that TrafficClub had lost their Skenzo feed. Well actually, it wasn't announced by TrafficClub (only a while later), but I had to read it on forums and on the Skenzo website. I'm quite sure you don't mean emails from December, since by that time the Oversee.net purchase wasn't public yet.

Ah.

That would explain why I get hundreds e-mails on sites I have never promoted, linked to, or submitted because they are still in "project" mode.

Guess I need to get a move on with webhosting/registrar plan.

:disgust

Jet, you're an absolute post whore. I wonder who employs you. I wonder if you have a screen in front of you with buttons to click to generate a post for each thread genre, where you just have to enter the subject's name. However, thanks for the bump.

That's just whois spam, will happen everywhere if you don't somehow protect your email :2 cents:

You know what? Fuck you.

I just posted my honest oppinion on Moniker.

I have an email registered just for Moniker. And guess what? It's gets spammed the hell out of.

I use a different contact email for whois.

Moniker email is unique and was used only to register with them.

Ok, sorry then. But did you use it just to sign up or is it also on your whois page?

Only to sign up with them.

Whois uses a different email, and it's protected anyway.

Same here.

All my domains are registered to one of two companies. Depending on if adult, or mainstream. With same admin contact, and e-mail address across the board.

WHOIS would not have all my others.

:disgust

Monte Cahn, CEO of Moniker has finally posted in a DNF thread, on my request:

My reply:

Just look at that smooth talk. It's a complete lie!

Also, no explanation for the delayed payments is given. Obviously a whole lot more is going on.

hmmmmmm? Was thinking of using moniker but will hold off.

can you post a copy of this?

Moniker is the best in the business.

I agree their merger/ acquisition could have been a little smoother, but it seems to be OK now.

Domain parking will never be as lucrative as creating your own site. Just accept that. That applies to all of the various parking services. However, for the domain owner, it allows easy money without alot of work.

Overall, I am very happy with Moniker, and I expect more great things from them.

:thumbsup

I'm still waiting for domains that I bought at the Internext auction to clear Escrow and land in my account. It's been a month which is much longer than I'm comfortable with given that I wired $xx,xxx.

Some more smooth talk I see no real reason for you to post for.

You fail to address this fraud. Your chatter about how parking is easy has nothing to do with this.

Also, it's not just the takeover that could be smoother, Moniker's whole corporate attitude has been very poor in the months prior.

Well it doesnt suprise me at all.

From a DNF thread:

Smooth marketing talk. I don't think there's anything ethical in paying over a month late, 25-50% too little, and not communicating about it (you still haven't).

Sorry for the delay in jumping on this thread......If anyone has any TRAFFICCLUB issues please feel free to contact me directly and I will do my best to get them squared away!

See sig for contact info! :thumbsup

jrzeygirl, that's an empty response. Why don't you explain everyone right here, right now:

- why TrafficClub don't communicate about important issues like this
- why TrafficClub don't reply to inquiries about this issue
- why payments were delayed for a month
- why you think you can get away with shaving 25-50% (involving every affiliate) and claiming it was due to a fraud adjustment, and importantly, again not communicating about it!

When will we be paid what we're owed? When will Moniker officials stop lying?

icq: 261-070-140
yahoo messenger: [email protected]

Don't forget that Moniker was pushing .XXX too

Wasn't Moniker sold recently? May be new owner wants higher return on his investment.

While despite all the corporate crookery I'm inclined to believe that TrafficClub were paid less than they were owed by Skenzo, and perhaps a month late as well, a fraud adjustment of this scale is obviously out of the question.

For the record: my former TrafficClub domains receive pure generic type-in traffic.

It's possible that Skenzo somehow didn't like Oversee.net's purchase of Moniker (Skenzo feeds were abruptly suspended after the takeover) and retro-actively downgraded TrafficClub's revenue share. It's even possible they indeed sold this as a 'fraud adjustment'. However, TrafficClub/Moniker should know better (and I know they do).

This is simply fraud, and whether it was Moniker's fault or not inititally, it certainly is now. I wonder what's going on behind the scenes there but I'm sure it's not pretty.

Still, NONE of use have received an email stating even only that November payments are late. No apologies whatsoever. Moniker just continue extracting money from the market in their unscrupulous ways.

I asked Monte for proof of this fraud but consistently get no answer.

So, "jrzeygirl", why don't you spend some time making up an explanatory email to all affiliates, to start with?

In response to Monte's claim that there was a fraud adjustment, this was posted by another Moniker affiliate on another board:

:Oh crap

A few days after they merged and "forgot to tell me" they were redirecting my traffic, I moved ALL my domains away from trafficclub/moniker (and I'm a domain professional). Good thing I did. They will never see my traffic again, ever.

Well, I did exactly the same thing. However, I'm still owed November and December (and partial January) earnings.

So how much was your November payment reduced by?

Wait, I don't see a "fraud adjust" in my stats. Are they adjusting previous earning when sending out the checks? Didn't receive my November payment yet... Say it ain't so!

You won't see anything in your stats, mine are still showing the correct amount. They just send you a random amount (usually 25-50% less than what you're owed) without any other form of communication.

Yes, we're all being defrauded.

Pay Per Click is a shady internet business and has always been. Every company in the PPC industry has been accused since day 1 of shaving affiliates and screwing advertisers.

http://www.gordonchoi.com/blog/image...ruit-found.jpg

hehe, that pic is funny :winkwink:

But it doesn't really do this case justice. There's no click fraud, Skenzo and TrafficClub just claim there is in order to nick a few hundred thousand / million from affiliates.

I just started documenting everything. Screenshots, TOS, the works. That is pure defrauding! I didn't think it was that bad! Good post, thx for the heads up.

I'm not American so I'm not sure, but are FTC the right organisation to report this fraud to?

There's another thread at DNF and one at NP. It seems like lots of affiliates haven't yet received their November payment, haven't been confronted with the extent of the fraud which may be the reason there's surprisingly little interest expressed.

I'm catching up as we type. Looks pretty ugly to me!

BTW, 50% is possible.

25% legit fraud+ 25% non-converting traffic.

http://www.theequitykicker.com/wp-co...raud-cover.gif

http://blogulate.com/wp-content/uplo...clickfraud.jpg

Nah, certainly not on my purely generic type-in domains, and certainly not on such a scale across the board. First, primary fraud auditing is done within 24 hours of the clicks being generated (usually an adjustment of a few percent). Furthermore, this is the first time in TrafficClub's history that there has ever been such a large 'fraud adjustment'. Everyone suddenly received 25-50% less than in previous months.

More importantly, as it was suggested earlier in this thread, Google completely dominates the domain PPC playing field. Fraud adjustments would be done at Google's level. However, for some reason this large 'fraud adjustment' has only occured at TrafficClub (as a Skenzo reseller), not at any other aggregator (whose feed would be heavily dominated by google ads), nor have I seen any other reports of other Skenzo resellers having such big 'fraud adjustments' for the month of November.

Pure fraud.

His only reason to post is to spam his Moniker affiliate link. Daddyhalbucks has the same relationship with Moniker that Turboangel has with Webair, no matter what mistakes the companies are making and how many people are being negatively affected, they will always pop in and spam their affiliate link and tell everyone how great they are. Moniker is without a doubt the most overrated and overhyped domain registrar, their support and communication are absolutely horrible now.

These are people that are just about extracting as much money as possible, which is reflected in their corporate attitude.

:Oh crap

Which is reflected in the fact they charge you for every little thing. Nickel and dimeing you into agitation. Not an issue if you own a handful of domains. Very much so when you have over 100.

:disgust