CJ Account De-Activated

Anyone experienced this?

[farmboy]

I've been a CJ publisher for several years. I play by the rules, never had any problems and haven't done anything new recently.

Today I tried to login to get some new links and I got a "Your account has been deactivated" message. There was no warning and no explanation.

I sent them an email asking for an explanation of what is happening, but so far I've not heard back.

Anyone else ever experienced this?

[eljefe3]

From what I understand it usually has to do with account inactivity, that is, not generating any revenue for the past 6 months. Not sure if that is the case for you, but that's what I've heard before here at WebmasterWorld.

[Jane_Doe]

They deactivated my account for inactivity. I don't understand why they do that.

[SteveWh]

If you haven't made a sale in 6 months, they deactivate your account. No warning email, nothing. You just can't log in anymore. You can sign up again, I believe, with a new email address, but why bother? Until you have a ton of traffic, I see no reason to enter the CJ program.

I sent them an email about it, too. They replied with a canned response... a month later.

[edited by: SteveWh at 5:23 am (utc) on Mar. 15, 2007]

[gamiziuk]

CJ did it to me 3 times already (inactivity). I wont bother signing up again.

Try the other networks (Linkshare, Performics, Shareasale). Nobody else has ever done this to me except CJ.

[Jane_Doe]

Nobody else has ever done this to me except CJ

Same here. I dropped their links because of poor conversions. I was going to give them a try again after a few months with a different program, but could not login.

With other programs, the affiliate managers have cut me special deals to keep me with their programs, and yet CJ deactivates me with no notice. I don't care that much as I never had great conversion from any program there any way. But when other affiliate managers are going out hustling, sending out emails and trying to attract publishers with a lot of traffic, it seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot with those kinds of non-publisher friendly policies.

[farmboy]

I may have been guilty of "little activity", but it was not "no activity" because I was consistently earning a little each week off the eBay program links if nothing else.

Oh well, I guess I'm off to greener pastures.

FarmBoy

[farmboy]

Try the other networks (Linkshare, Performics, Shareasale

I was with Performics a while back because a merchant I wanted to promote used Performics, but the merchant dropped its affiliate program. Does Performics still require you to basically sign up for a new account for each of your websites or can you combine them into one account?

I have an account with Linkshare.

I'll give Shareasale a look, thanks for the suggestions.

FarmBoy

[NemoNemo]

Commission Junction (CJ.com) is known for banning first and asking questions second - if at all - when it comes to alleged violations of Publisher Service Agreement.

Per contract they reserve the right to cancel Publisher account for any reason whatsoever - even for a suspicion of non-bonafide transactions.

What they don't have the right is to close an account and chargeback or keep Publisher earnings without clear evidence of wrongdoing. If this has happened in your case i suggest you – or even better - have a lawyer draft a letter asking for the rightly-earned but unpaid commissions. If you don't ask you will not get it. To get results have your lawyer send a letter via registered mail, return receipt requested to

Commission Junction, Inc., Attn: Legal Dept., 530 East Montecito Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93103 USA

If they do not oblige and you have a case, then take them to court to recover your commissions. In court the burden of proof is on them to show you willfully engaged in Non-Bona Fide activity. They know that so they will likely settle out of court, unless they have a strong case against you. In any case, sending the letter to their legal department will make them take time to explain exactly why they have de-activated your account. Even in the case you decide not to pursue further legal action this will give you a sense of closure.

For further reading i suggest
[clickz.com...]

The article is from 2002 but the basics economics at CJ have not changed. Webmasterworld is full of post from publishers like you complaining that they've been unjustly kicked out by CJ. From what i heard and from what i've personally experienced, CJ clearly favors Advertisers to the point of stonewalling Publishers when it comes to alleged terms of service violations. So if you have a case, get the legal system on your side and more power to you.

[SteveWh]

As a separate thing from whether you'd made any sales or not, I vaguely recall -- could be wrong -- that they can also deactivate you if you don't log into your account on their site within each 30 days. I remember creating a reminder for myself to log in once a month, and would only have done that if I noticed somewhere that they required it. For anyone who's interested enough to check out whether that recollection is correct (I'm not), their TOS would be the place to look.

[thecleaner]

same thing happened to me not to long ago. As a result I am not sure I will e using them anymore.

[callivert]

very informative. I signed up with cj because I had an idea for an affiliate site, but I took a few months to even get the website I had in mind up and running... and now I might be out of time from cj's perspective. I'm going to set up alternatives in preparation for when the axe falls.