Affiliate Commission and Return Policy

Newbie Affiliate question

[bsterz]

What is the generally accepted policy on returns and commission?

Is it common for the affiliate to lose their commision on sales that ended up in a return to the seller?

Thanks,

Bill

[jcoronella]

Most retailers do not pay commission for returned sales.

[stevenmusumeche]

We don't pay commissions on returned items. This is a fairly standard practice in the industry. On returned items, merchants don't make any money and thus would be losing money on the sale if you kept the commission. This also leaves open the possibility of fraud by the affiliate marketer. He/she could order some expensive items, and then later return them.

[kwasher]

I recently had some commissions that were over a year old, reversed ('they were paid accidentally'), which included the deletion of all evidence pertaining to the transactions.

So apparently its good to read each different sites' particular policies (IF they have one).