contacting your affiliates not always as easy as you think
 

so we send out emails to affiliates who have payments coming up via epass asking them if they want a check instead or if they want us to hold the funds or to send them an epass like we normally would

we only got replies from 1/6 of them and 3 of the emails bounced

so now what should be the right thing to do?
send them an epass anyways and not delay payments
or
hold the funds until they reply which might be never?

i know some sponsors wont even try to contact each individual affiliate asking them what to do and just take advantage of the whole situation and hold their funds until maybe forever...

what are you doing about this? program owners?

I'd say send the funds since epassporte changed everyone to wallet, so affiliates should be able to ACH or wire them out without a problem. I have gotten payments since all this stuff broke and they went into wallet and I ACH'd them out without any issue.

ACH is not an option though for affiliates outside of the US.... Rather than pay them to Epass wallet that they probably wont be able to get at either easily if outside the US IMO its probably better to put something in the news section on site asking those that want payment to contact you stating the method that is convenient for them... Just my thoughts

I suggest holding the money for everyone who has Epass set but has not confirmed it after being notified. I'd rather be sure my money is some place safe. Then perform all due dilligence possible in trying to contact affiliates.

In order:

1. Email
2. Post general announcements on all major webmaster boards
3. Email again to those who have yet to confirm.
4. Phone call + ICQ, etc.
5. Send out a snail mail letter to those affected and still not reached. (Especially if a payout has elapsed).

No one will be able to blame you.

Sound good to me:2 cents:

Put something in the news section and hold their payouts.

If I used epass this is what I would prefer. If you have affiliates with invalid email addresses it should be reasonable for them to provide a valid email before getting paid anyway.

Definitely hold the funds and send them out when the epassporte situation is solved.

since i dont know if epass will work somewhere in future, i do not change my payment method on sponsors, even if they ask. why to waste time, if epass may recover tomorrow, and do it all again ... come on, cant you wait just a bit longer? i know its so so long, but michael is at least still around, so something is still going on ...

Did not know ACH was for US only, non US could still request wires but for those that don't have a bank account I guess that could be a problem. Maybe send to US webmasters but do as others have suggested for the remaining ones.

oh, and btw ... some emails bounced ... maybe mine email bonced, cause i have lost one of my domains with my old registration email, and now i asked many and believe many sponsors to change my email to new ones, and tried more than once, and only few get in touch ... so, now its about hard contact with affiliates, but if its not about programs problems, almost nobody care about affiliates ...

I say send the fucking money. If I am brain dead and unorganized and do not know how to handle my business by monitoring and managing my affiliate accost then fuck me. Those are the same morons that will then run to the board saying they have not been paid by you.

I'm holding payments that are set to Epass until they explicitly tell me that they want to continue using it. I'd rather have a few affiliates upset that their payment it late but know that the money is safe. Also, like you said too many affiliates have out of date or purposely false emails in our system. I just sent out an email to all affiliates that haven't opted out of emails from us and around 1500 were undeliverable.

While I basically agree with this from a philosophical standpoint, it could end up being a bigger headache than the alternative in actual practice. Even if the affiliate is technically at fault for not updating the info, a large program will end up receiving tons of complaints from them anyway if the payments go out via Epass (just read a thread directed at TopBucks for this very thing) and if the worst case scenario happens and we find out shortly after we sent payments out that Epass goes entirely under and affiliates lose that money for good, we are going to have even more angry affiliates to deal with.

Sam, I hear you. However, affiliates claim they are in business and that they are businessmen blah blah and the reality is at some point they need to act like it and be responsible and smart about things that are vital to their business. I have been an affiliate for years and developed systems for *everything.* I don't like seeing ANYONE honest getting hurt in the business but jesus christ most here made money being luckier than smart.