My Payment Was Declined

Any advice on how to get my cash?

[wonderbread]

Hello Everyone,

Over this past Christmas season I set up a small affiliate site dealing with toys that did pretty well. Now I've been waiting for my checks to start rolling in but I got the message that my payment was declined. I won't say the specific merchant I was dealing with but it was through the CJ Affiant Network. When I asked CJ why my payment was declined they said that the company I had earned commissions from had filed for bankruptcy so they couldn't pay my commissions. They did state however that they where 'working' out the problem and I'd hopefully have the money dispersed.

I just want to know what my chances are of ever seeing this money? Has anyone had any similar experiences with CJ? Also, I'm a little confused as to why this particular merchant still shows up in the CJ directory as any good normal standing merchant would. In addition it’s odd that some sales are still coming in from this merchant...I haven't bothered taking the links down yet.

Thanks!
Nick Ladd

[Macro]

That's what disgusts me about CJ. They require up-front payments/deposits from merchants so they should be in a position to pay you.

[PCInk]

Surely your contract is with CJ and CJ have a (separate) contract with the merchant? Would not this allow legal action against CJ, maybe a small claims court procedure? The fact that the merchant went bankrupt is nothing to do with you and the CJ contract, CJ still owe you the money - unless you signed an agreement otherwise.

[Macro]

unless you signed an agreement otherwise

therein lies the crunch. I suspect there'll be something in their small print that covers them.

[wonderbread]

It looks like I can't get payment from CJ and I'll have to go through the merchant. Some interesting lines in CJ's Service Agreement:

"<snip>"

I think that at CJ should at least act responsibly and notify the members who are running campaigns from this merchant. It’s a bit deceiving and unethical to leave the merchant up like nothing is wrong when it is.

Cheers,

Nick Ladd

[edited by: Woz at 3:17 am (utc) on Feb. 23, 2004]
[edit reason] No Copyright Material please. [/edit]

[FromRocky]

It was happen to me last month. Over 90% of the leads in one of CJ's advertisers were declined. The reason is due to duplicate order. I contacted this advertiser as CJ suggested but I got no reply. In many days, 100% of the leads were discarded, not even one was accepted. Note that a repeated order through the order form can not be made anyway. So I wonder why it did not reject these duplicate orders if they are when these orders were made but waited until at the end of the payment cycle to reject. The month before that no order was rejected although all of my visitors from both months have come from AdWords. Can they, advertisers and CJ, reject the orders without showing any evidence or reject as they please?

[happyallday]

can you tell us the company's name here

[Woz]

This is a problem facing all business, whether offline or online, and whether through private arrangements or through networks. I have ended up in this situation in both arenas. I guess the choice to be made is whether to spend the energy chasing the finds, or simply move on and invest that same energy with new merchants. Of course one factor in making that decision is the amount of money involved and the threshold will vary from person to person.

The frustration is another matter though and I have yet to find any cure for that other than shouting NEXT!

Onya
Woz

PS, Let's not go down the legal route nor name names in this forum please. This thread is already extremely close to the line and may be subject to some judicious editing at a later stage.

[FromRocky]

This is what I got:

"If you are running things this month, you'll notice that we made some awesome programming enhancements, and are 100%. We have had no rejected leads since this system was updated."

I have the leads everyday except this duration where I have 100 % rejection. I got nil. If this problem is true, it's not my fault and why I have to be penalized. Of course I'm not spending any time or money to promote it anymore. Just let it idle and get what can get for nothing. Even that I still have some leads each day.

[rcjordan]

>bankruptcy

This has more to do with bankruptcy law than affiliate payments. In short, any payments made during the 90 day period before bankruptcy is filed are often pulled back in and you become one of many unsecured creditors (that will likely never get paid). Happens all the time in the bricks world. Still sucks, though.

[halldickler.com...]