How to Deal with Fraudulent Affiliates

Almost immediately after posting my 9 affiliate fraud prevention tips on Econsultancy I have received the following question from a merchant:

If we do detect a fraudulent affiliate, do you think it’s standard/best practice to remove him or her from the program without paying out the commissions they’ve “earned”?

“Earned”? I believe “stolen” would be a much better choice of a verb in this context!

You may absolutely do what you’re saying. That’s the whole beauty of performance-based marketing: you agree to pay for the performance you’ve defined. You are never be liable to pay for fake “performance”.

Only one more thing to add: it is a good idea to make sure your program’s TOS points out to banning out violators, forfeiting any commissions credited for unacceptable activity.

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