Rebills – Google Money Tree – affiliate networks pushing you into a DUH MOMENT!
Well It’s official like:
Suit filed against Acai Berry Companies
I suppose it’s time this happened – and of course many of my readers will be just fine with no worries, because you weren’t dumb enough to make false health claims or promote something that was a scam with the word “google” in it. Or say it was endorsed by a celebrity when it wasn’t, etc….
Attorney General Lisa Madigan today urged consumers to be cautious of signing up for free trials of acai berry products. Madigan filed consumer fraud lawsuits against three suppliers and a local affiliate marketer of acai berry products charging that the companies lure customers with free trial offers – through aggressive Internet marketing techniques – and then charge customers’ credit cards prematurely, do not always supply the product and make it nearly impossible to cancel.
“For thousands of dieters, the quest for a miracle product has become a nightmare,” said Attorney General Madigan. “Far too often, consumers end up losing their money – not weight – in these deals.”
On the sidelines while this is going on several networks and several dozen affiliates are getting sued by Oprah for Trademark Infringement. Google Money Tree is getting it hard on several fronts – and the affiliates for it are next.
Google money tree: Rebills for $79 or so bucks just for the right to call yourself a “member”. Ohh if you return the cd’s they send you they refund your shipping and handling – but rebill you that 79 anyway 
You don’t get anything really – just a bill on your CC.
Come on now – did you really not know this was a scam or didn’t take the time to check things out? Well some of the affiliates are going to find out the hard way because it appears that GOOGLE is co-operating with the FTC to get you boys shut down.
Let’s think about this one. It’s scamming people. Your advertising on Google (who tracks everything), a product that has the name google in it. People buy it – don’t see the 11 pt. tan TERMS of SERVICE on a white background. Then cancel after they get billed, only get part of their money back, then rebilled again. By the time it’s over they are 150 in the hole. For a whole mess of people that’s enough to rant and rave on-line – for a smaller segment it’s enough to contact authorities. Ohh Google knows a whole mess of data about you – do you think they are going to co-operate with authorities or protect you since they took your money to advertise it? If you said authorities you win a cookie – because now Google can also SUE you for hurting their name.
If the authorities go after you – you can almost bet that Google is right behind them.
You may not be a Google Money Tree owner — but if you were the affiliate you do have a level of “responsibility”. In some cases I hope the networks have to take some of the liability here.
A whole mess of affiliates have been pumping various rebill offers, and a whole bunch of advertising networks have been literally BEGGING us to run these offers. I’ve had it out with my affiliate manager in a few places over the last few months because they keep asking me to promote scams. They either know it’s a scam – or the AM is dumber than a box of rocks (in some cases this is true).
Let’s say that I trusted my network, and my Affiliate Manager (I don’t – they are trying to make a buck, and that means their advice is to benefit them – not me). The AM has keyword research to give me if I ask nicely – let’s say I did. I have someone throw together a landing page for me, have someone else make some content based on those keywords, etc… I put up some ads on adwords and poof I’m in profit (now you know this is la la make believe land – because I didn’t lose my ass while I was testing). I know nothing about what I’m promoting because I didn’t:
- order it.
- research it.
- build the landing pages.
- write the content.
- do much more than paste in a keyword list.
Now I don’t think that could actually happen – but I’m sure some affiliates outsource almost 90 percent of any promotions they do. I know of some affiliates that literally have a PPC manager that handles it, does the research, etc… It’s purely possible that some affiliates don’t know crap about what they are promoting.
Most of them do. In fact if you promoted some of these scams I’m sure you’ve laughed at the sheeple.
Anyway, got off on a ramble there. What’s the point of this post: COVER YOUR REAR END.
How do you cover it you ask?
Don’t promote anything that offers miracle cures. If it’s illegal skip it.
If it’s a rebill is there a product involved?
If it’s a rebill is it clear?
Don’t use trademarked logos or endorsements that aren’t true!
Don’t claim anything you don’t know to be true.
Is the company actually shipping products?
Can customers actually cancel?
WATCH THE IMAGES: NO OPRAH, FOX NEWS LOGOS, TRADEMARKS, ETC…
There are a number of conversations going on over at wickedfire’s forum right now. If you’ve promoted acai berries, google money tree, or a fat loss product through CPA ads recently you should probably go read up.
Cash in on your Competitors’ Work – SpyFu Ad History
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