Forum Moderators: skibum
The same question was asked to shareasale's support, but haven't got any answer so far
Tnx in advance :)
While it's "technically" possible for a merchant to do this, it is NOT likely, because any program with more than a few dozen affiliates will undoubtedly have at least one who makes a test purchase in order to verify proper tracking. I've done this in the past, and identified several merchants whose tracking code did not work properly (the transactions were not reported to the affiliate network). Removal of the tracking code often happens if more than one person is doing the programming, and one does not realize the function of the tracking code. On one of the other message boards, there is an entire section devoted to reports about test transactions, reporting whether they were tracked or not.
I don't recall ever hearing about a merchant changing the dollar amount of a transaction (though occasionally affiliates are confused because only product sales are commissioned, not shipping charges or sales tax).
A much more frequent complaint is about "reversals" -- transactions which are identified as "cancelled" or "returned" or "fraudulent." In some product categories, reversal rates are very high, and some affiliates have complained that some companies falsely report reversals.
In general, the affiliate network shares the affiliate's revenue interest: ShareASale, for example, earns a fee equal to 20% of the amounts paid to affiliates. They also have more data (that is, they can view all commissionable transactions, and sometimes all merchant transactions).
My view: "trust, but verify." Ask around about specific merchants, and google for the company name with terms like 'affiliate' and 'fraud' and 'reversal.' Consider making a test purchase yourself (beware -- many merchants won't pay commissions on affiliates' personal transactions).
