Unsatisfied customers....
 

Amanda: And the charge has been billed on your account
you: I have proof that I have cancelled the account
Amanda: It is still active
Amanda: would you like me to cancel it now?
you: Yes
you: I tried canceling it and it said it was canceled
Amanda: Did you received and email confirmation for that?
you: No, and thats why I emailed you guys 2 days ago!
you: Oh, by the way... I once again didn't receive a cancel email
Amanda: The email is an automated email so it will reach your box within 24hrs

My blog is mainly porn site reviews. Theres a lot of customer interaction, its more a community than a blog now.
I just received an email from a very unsatisfied customer, who has been visiting my blog for at least a year now. In the email he sent the above, stating he has been ripped off by a site I was promoting. I cant exactly prove that hes telling the truth, but I know for a fact he is. Plus this sponsor is for sure shaving my signups.
What do I do from here? This kinda shit really fucks with my community. If it was the shaving alone, I could deal with that, but now theyre screwing my user base.

What can I do here?

You can't do anything, that's why you're here.

Stop promoting them, and promote us. Click my sig

And we might be able to work out some higher payouts.

just stop promoting them !!

on the other hand i know for a fact that many customers are real pricks when it comes to cancel their accounts in time.... we caught more than a dozen trying to ppersuade us they cancelled when in fact they never did.

we just look at the activity logs and see that they accessed the sites for two weeks after the date they pretended to have cancelled. also any sane person who do not receive confirmation of a cancellation within 12-24 hours after cancelling , is supposed to contact the site's support , not wait 3 weeks to see a rebill.

Just cut them off, and post there name here.

Honestly, do what's best for the community.. sponsors come and go, your community is paying your bills. :)

Name & shame...

Name them..

stop promoting if you're so sure.

Add this info to the review and move on...

Amen lol.

Actually, this is quite an interesting thread. A short time ago some friends of mine also started a little blog site they've been working on as a hobby. They were actually using information from industry resource sites and starting from scratch, so I monitored their progress having produced Klixxx Magazine until November and interested in how someone starting from scratch today could actually do.

I watched them monitor banners and links and learn to analyze their stats as they started joining affiliate programs and adding sponsors. What surprised me most was how many sponsors were not counting clicks, did not respond to support inquiries, and how they handled payment once the joins started.

Especially on a site where you are building a community, your sponsors should be chosen with care -- and perform some due diligence - it's hard enough to understand your traffic and choose the sponsors who best match your users' interests. There are so many choices now, as soon as you identify a sponsor who is not accurately recording your referrals, not responding to your support requests and user interaction, and not paying according to their TOS - move on immediately.

I will for sure NEVER promote you, simply for the fact that you plugged yourself in a thread like this. GFY.

Anyhow, The sponsor was SkinTraffic. Im obviously not going to promote them anymore, but this shit brings up trust issues between the users and myself, so I told the user I would repay him myself. Ive known the guy for years, and he gets ripped off by a company I promoted and told him was legit.

Great advice. :)

I believe I am by repaying this guy for the month they charged.

sometimes you have to shell out something to gain... :winkwink:

I guess so.

uh, report the sponsor to the billing processor. Or, have the client perform a charge-back! If you ""know"" the sponsor shaves, fuck 'em in the ear!

but, you may first want to make sure the customer is not confusing the site with the processor. Most often think the sponsor maintains the sites they are cross selling. AND, since many are quick-to-the cock customers---they click every freaking link and box---they often opt for every promo on page. Many do not even know what they just did. Thus, when they cancel the account with the original site they tend to assume it is over and done with, or universal/global.

In case anyone didnt see this

I think Ill bump this for the rest of my life. Just to make sure everyone sees what SkinTraffic does.

Hi everyone,

If you think we can run a successful program by not responding to customers then you are completely wrong. The fact of the matter is we have great support and usually never have any complaints or charge backs.

How do we avoid charge backs? By good customer support.

Now what seems to have happened here is the company we outsource our support to did not do their job with this particular customer. It can happen for a number of reasons. Bad staff, new customer service agents etc.

Please dont think for one second that we treat our members this way. Cause we dont. We have an entire site built around customer support: sobvsites.com And every member is mailed with links to this site along with a 800 number and email contact info.

I hope this clears this up. I'm taking this thread to our support agency now and will make sure this never happens again.

Dj

Just noticed this statement:

" I cant exactly prove that hes telling the truth, but I know for a fact he is. Plus this sponsor is for sure shaving my signups. "

You cant prove it because WE DO NOT shave. And anyone who thinks we do, you can promote some one else. We have paid our tens of millions over the years and the last thing we would ever do is shave. Contact NATS or whoever you like. We do not and can not shave.

Thanks,
DJ

was the customer actually charged or was it a pre-authorization?
did they cancel in time?
are they sure they cancelled the right account?

The reason I ask this is because when I was handling customer service, I got a firsthand look at some of these issues. It's amazing how many people swear up and down they cancelled, when they hadn't.

I'm not saying the guy in this instance is lying, but he might be or he might be confused.

Sounds like at most all you should do is stop promoting them and appologize to the customer as sincerely as possible. If it seems like a smart choice, maybe send them the money out of your own pocket (the customer will probably pay you triple in good publicity). More than likely it is just a misunderstanding though. Many people out their aren't very smart, nor computer literate.

For a sponsor they are crazy if they do not apologize and refund the money in all but the most extreme cases. If the customer charges back they can get fucked. Not to mention the effect of just one pissed off customer going to ripoffreport or other such sites. Then it may snowball from there and before you know it you have two people a week writing negative replies to the original complaint and it is turning up #2 for your site name in Google with the title "SITENAME is a SCAM!!". :2 cents:

You guys are missing the point here.

THEY DO and WILL cancel or REFUND any member that requests it!!

Give me the member details, i can do it myself at their support site!

Got an ICQ or email I can send it to?

HI,

I actually tried contacting you via ICQ.

But email me here:

[email protected]

I'll make sure this gets taken care of for you.

Maybe its time to change your sponsor list ;)