Hostgator Affiliate Scam
April 16, 2010 by Major Affiliate · 10 Comments
It came to my attention about a year ago when hosting giant Hostgator started extending sales through Commission Junction. Later we would discover that over 50% of extended sales would be reversed. Commission Junction, a leading affiliate network provides tracking and management of Hostgator’s affiliate program. Typically when a CPA has occurred the affiliate would receive payment for their commission after 30 days. An extended sale allows for merchants to extend the commissioned sale for 60 days. This is useful for merchants that offer a 30 day return policy.
For three months we logged all activity through Commission Junction tracking sales/commission. By the third month we decided to test and see if Hostgator was truly scamming its affiliates. Luckily for me I knew someone who was looking for a hosting provider. I sent them over to my site to sign up and the next day I saw the commission posted to my affiliate account.
One week later the commission was extended. So after 37 days I was shocked to see that the sale had been reversed. I immediately contacted the person who I knew signed up for Hostgator and asked if they where still hosting with Hostgator and his reply, “Yes”.
So taking this information in account, I went back to my data and discovered an odd pattern. Within the past five months Hostgator has been reversing over 50% of my sales. Within this past month I have had 100% reversals…yes EVERY sale was reversed. I had 27 sales amounting to over $3,375.
Now most of you are thinking this could be a result of my site and the traffic I send them, however I do not use PPC and all traffic is organic. My site ranks #1 in every search engine for a popular hosting keyword related to Hostgator. I have read through Hostgator’s affiliate terms and conditions and have not violated anything.
I know the economy is down and companies are making cuts to reduce cost but when you sink low and start scamming people who are bringing you business, you reached a new low. Even though Hostgator as a hosting company is great, sadly as an affiliate program they are terrible.
As I am writing this I am still waiting for a response from Commission Junction and Hostgator. It has been a week and I have not received anything from either of them. I will post an update once I receive it.
The same has been happening to me. Hostgator used to reverse ANY signup if they could not reach the signup on the phone they provided upon signing up for their hosting. Let me ask you – how many people input their real phone number into the form when they sign up? Very few, who wants to get spammed by annoying sales calls? It is their convenient excuse to not pay you a dime, even though the signups are STILL hosting with Hostgator, even for many years. Hostgator is a complete scam as affiliate program goes – promise high payouts to attract suckers to send you free traffic and money, then screw them on a technicality that you KNOW in advance happens in 80% of cases. Someone should really take these scammers to court – all the affiliates that got screwed by them should find each other band together and pool funds to get a good law firm after these Hostgator scammers.
Yes, same here. Stopped promoting Hostgator 5 months ago, because there were months where 70% of the sales were reversed. They scam their affiliate clients really hard. Why not drop the freaking commission instead to 50$ and stop scamming ???
Thats a shame, I am part of their affiliate program and have referred a few people but I am weary of scammers
hostgator better improve their game
HostGator should just use Phone Verification so that when someone signs up for an account, they have to put their working number in the application. This would reduce the amount of bogus numbers and increase their conversion rates. All together its a win win win situation! Host Gator wins, affiliate wins, and real potential buyers get real attention rather than some sales guy who has just had 20 invalid numbers in a row and is overly ambitious when a number actually reaches a person.
This is terrible. I am about to reach the 30 days period and at this moment I have 14 commissions. There will be hell to raise if they branch out of their terms and agreement.
If anyone has any stories to share, please send me an e-mail: bjorn@cox.net
Maybe some legal actions should be sought.
Hostgator is a scam. And their president is a shill.
Same here!!! 100% reversed to duplicate status but I promise not one person even had hosting because they didn’t have a website before I made them one.
Same here… every time I get a commission it is first “extended” on exactly the day it should be locked.. then at 60 days it is reversed. Hostgator sucks!
Hostgator affiliate they are commission theft ,please don’t promote that ..I am also going to remove that ..you know what I got after three months they replaced all my active commissions to duplicate after three months at the time of payment when I was waiting for three months ,how one guy after three months change his account to another same hostgator account or why he opens another account if he had one account..these are all questions at the time of payment ,This directly signifies that hostgator is taking our commission and this program is turning into big scam..so better try another ,Now the Hostgator turned into scam
Thanks
Amit
What Hostgator does is to find any reason to find a new hosting account invalid, and returns the money.
By this time, the hapless person has already started building a website or two through their Hostgator account.
So then they try to rectify things with Hostgator – and they pay again – only this time, the affiliate publisher is cheated out of a commission.
And I’ve heard publishers saying that commissions they definitely knew should have been coming to them (because they knew the people signing up and knew that these people had valid Hostgator accounts) – But Hostgator still reverses the payments.
In the end, Hostgator’s commissions are only worth maybe 10% – because of all the fake reversals.
It’s all a big cheat. For all that effort, you may as well be selling your own product. As least you know you won’t reverse the payments!