Forum Moderators: skibum
[webmasterworld.com...]
(I couldn't add to that thread, as it was too old for new replies)]
Yesterday and today I've received calls or emails from 7** different small/medium affiliate programs asking whether we signed up to their program. We didn't sign up. Some fraudster just copied the public WHOIS info for our domain name, and uses it in its applications.
Presumably the fraudsters intend to use our good credentials to sneak into a program, and then serve up banners on some fraudulent site or with clickbots, etc.
I've suggested to all these programs that they can simplify their processes dramatically by using the site verification techniques from Google Sitemaps, namely asking applicants to add a meta-tag to their homepage to demonstrate ownership of the website they are purporting to represent in their application.
See:
[google.com...]
[google.com...]
If more affiliate program owners did this, they'd save a lot of time and money. They'd also save time and money for innocent publishers like ourselves who need to field calls/emails over these false applications. The only "losers" are the fraudsters, who'll need to move on to something else, like flipping burgers at McDonald's.
If someone (maybe a Googler?) created an open-source project to do the above verification, it can perhaps become a more widespread solution for the industry.
Sincerely,
George
** P.S. When I started this post, the number above was 6. I just got another one as I typed this!
I was able to track down one of MANY US PO Box/mail forwarding services they use. The owner cooperated with me and held all their checks for a month. They were getting paid from almost every network with the checks being made out to various names, not just mine. She sent the checks back to the networks but also sent me a copy of each payment envelope so I could see which networks paid as well as the pay to names.
This was just ONE many mail services they were using all over the US. I know they were using several peoples identities including mine. What I don't know is how they were actually making the sales or getting the leads to generate this income. But they were making a ton of money.
It sucked though because although most people in the biz know who I am, a few merchants who don't know me thought I was the one sending bogus leads or making fraudulent sales.
I tried to get the FBI involved but got nowhere.
The way I found out was I got 2 calls from networks confirming that I had joined. So I think more networks need to make personal confirmation calls as a way to screen for this type of fraud.
Your site verification idea has merit and is an interesting idea. Let me think about it and run it by some other AMs.
[edited by: Catalyst at 5:43 pm (utc) on Aug. 26, 2006]
Since my initial post, I had 5 or 6 more calls/emails, and directed them to this thread.
