Affiliate Marketing rocks but CJ sucks!!
Many of you guys might have noticed that I have taken off the CJ ads from the blog because they refuse to pay me the affiliate comission I made. Reason? The advertiser says that transactions worth $15,000+ were fraud!!! I mean c’mon!! FRAUD? When I ask them what do they mean by ‘FRAUD’? They say that those transations were duplicated or were made by illegal sources. I understand their reason of illegal sources but why won’t they pay me if the transactions were dupilicate? I mean c’mon! If they store a cookie into the visitors computer and the vistor orders twice does the transaction become FRAUD? In fact, they should pay me double the amount!!
I was marketing Hostgator and $15,000 from $15,700 something were sales that I made for the popular web host, Hostgator. Now what happens is, many of us know that Hostgator offers a 1 CENT plan which is extremely popular. CJ counted those orders also as ‘FRAUD’ . That is non of my concern what the visitor orders when I send him to Hostgator. He can order the 1 cent plan or he can buy a dedicated server, my commission should be as it was fixed.The waiting time for Hostgator which I believe is 120 days is another negative factor. First they make you wait, then they claim that your transactions were FRAUD! Another negative factor is that you get $100 for a shared web hosting plan and you get the same amount for a dedicated sale. Their major negative point is that it takes about 30 days for CJ to clear the payment from your Indian Bank account. So yes, CJ is full of negative factors and I hardly see any positive factors for Indians or International affiliates.
What is next?
Well, I’m not at all upset about it!! Glad I came to know that CJ is a fraud before I continued sending clients and filled their pockets and waited for my payment which was likely never to come. In India, it takes upto 60 days to verify your transaction + 15 days for them to verify your commissions + 15 days to deliver the cheque and about 30 days for the cheque to clear your bank(The cheuqe is in USD) = 120 days of complete waste of time! I know many Indians make money with CJ, but is the time worth waiting? If you are in direct contact with the company, you can get your payment within 65 days of the transaction and via Paypal.
I will no longer join any Affiliate Companies since I have completely lost hope and trust in them. I joined CJ after seeing the positive responses, but those positive responses were of the people who joined CJ about 1 month back and were happy seeing their ‘Balance’ grow on CJ. Note: CJ adds balance even for the 1 cent/offer sales and then deducts it later, after 60-80 days.
I’m very dissapointed to say that CJ is a BIG SCAM. It might be paying its affiliate users but not all! CJ shows high hopes to newbies of $100/sale(even for the 1 cent plan) and then crashes them later!! If I placed the adbrite ads for 120 days on Sensonize.com, I could have easily made about $1,000 which is a very good amount compared to a double with CJ.
All you guys wasting your time on CJ think over again, is it even worth your time? Good luck!
Related Posts
14 Comments Add yours
February 21, 2009
4:55 am #comment-1
Buddy, You really need to read ‘hostgator’ T&C.
There is no way they will pay $100 commission for 1 month (1 cent) plan. 😀
The buyers must continue using the host. So if the buyers bought 1 month plan then extend it for next month then you get your $100. 🙂
It’s so amazing you could get $15700/mo from hostgator only. 😀
CJ is not a scam. I worked with them and so far I’m very satisfied.
February 21, 2009
5:06 am #comment-2
I waited for 80 days.. It still showed $15k+ .. WHY? Its a complete waste of time unless you use blackhat. I’m currently in direct contact with companies and that is much better than CJ!
March 11, 2009
6:55 am #comment-3
@Indo CJ is a SCAM.. They add balance even for the 1 cent sale.. How the F am I suppose to know if its a 1 cent sale or a $100 sale.. Don’t believe them and don’t waste your time!
March 13, 2009
12:07 am #comment-4
HI BUDDY,
YES CJ.COM is a great scam. They don’t pay actually. They would say that there was fraud committed and would have to deactivate account. Where the hell the affiliate is responsible ?
CJ is trying to fool as many as affiliates by its bullshit Agreement coz they make it in such a way where the affiliate’s don’t have an option. Search in google for CJ FRAUD activities and u will come to know. Many affiliates try hard to get sales and when earned CJ would deactivate by mentioning that there was fraud committed.
This is one type of SCAM business where CJ uses as many affiliates but they newer pay.
If CJ.com wants to come clean then they must pay and Affiliates must not be held responsible.
July 12, 2009
5:49 pm #comment-5
I’m unsure..but I think hostgator and Cj do not allow cookie stuffing..it may be coz of it….
April 22, 2010
6:01 am #comment-6
TRUE TRUE TRUE !!
April 22, 2010
6:01 am #comment-7
they are CJ are BIG thief !!!
July 30, 2010
2:16 am #comment-8
I’m a newbie I guess. I joined CJ about 6 months ago and started running ads on several blogsites. I wasn’t getting very good traffic at first, but this last month I had over 180K in impressions and 300 some odd clicks, not one lead or payment. So I asked CJ in their email service and was given a very “Don’t like it leave” type of response and that I should contact the Program Directors I am affiliated with.
They made a claim my clicks were false clicks, robotic to be accurate. WRONG! I have never done anything of the sort, I have my own tracking cookie service installed, and basically traced their clicks….I gave CJ the report and they denied it was accurate.
According to the clicks and leeds generated I am looking at about20K in payment, yet CJ claims I am only going to make $2.50 for the month, almost all of the clicks were 100$-150.00$ leads…
CJ IS NOTHING SHORT OF A SCAM!!! What is equally shameful is the companies that continue to use their service, basically abusing the relationship, generating revenue for themselves and not worried about paying the publishers, because they know you can’t prove anything. Yahoo, and others should hold themselves higher above such greed, it is really a shame they will do this to people!
November 9, 2010
5:05 am #comment-9
I’m still waiting for payment!!
December 7, 2010
3:07 am #comment-10
Wow, sorry to hear about that. I have heard of CJ being untrustworthy in the past, and I’ll be sure to spread the word.
April 11, 2011
12:26 pm #comment-11
This post is useful for my research writing, thanks!
June 2, 2011
11:46 pm #comment-12
Never used them, currently sticking to the ones who I’ve used and have continued to pay me. From my understanding though, they refuse to give large payout because they are afraid of losing money? That’s what I read. So yeah, pretty much money hungry.
July 11, 2011
11:29 am #comment-13
Sorry to hear that, I do not use CJ to promote hostgator because i don’t want to wait 120 days so I only use some of my blog and i got 2-3 active sales each month
August 25, 2011
3:16 pm #comment-14
Commision Junction is garbage. I sold a $500 Stephen Strasburg autograph through one of cj’s advertisers and the commission for the sale was $24.00. Well, they don’t send you payment until it reaches $100. I don’t have a problem with that, but now my account is back to zero commissions…the $24.00 is gone. I guess if you don’t sell anything else over time, they simply wipe out what you have sold because it hasn’t reached $100. I wouldn’t recommend Cj either. They stink!