Affiliate Managers - Fraud Affiliates

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JoeZ

JoeZ

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Dec 13, 2006
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This really is only for Current Affiliate Managers...

I wanted this thread is to act as an open forum for getting rid of some fraud in our networks. Everyone has those affiliates that sign up under "John Smith" but put the payee as Jahong Li.

I figure we can use this space to put down known offenders that are less obvious. For instance, I had a Caroline Habba that when they called me after I suspended it was an asian man claiming to be her. Hmmm....

So...I'll show you mine if you show me yours...

Please list what ever info you can, including domain names, email, addresses, etc. If you are on this list and wish to be removed, just ask. (like that'll happen...)

Jerry Winfree
4686 Cass Avenue
Detroit, Mi 48201
webmaster@financialdict.com
financialdict.com

Callie Brewer
4445 Eastgate Mall
Suite 200 PMB 4218
San Diego, CA 92121
admin@supergamedirect.com
supergamedirect.com

Du Pengfei
2868 Yojoa Place
Hacienda Heights, CA 91745
webmaster@validlinks.net
master-resale-rights.com

Noah Weston
842 40 St <-I've noticed a few from here
Brooklyn, NY 11213
webmaster@bestlivework.us
bestlivework.us

Daniel Julius
842 40St
Brooklyn, NY 11213
&
136 Bowery #9
New York, NY 11013
web@businessplango.com
businessplango.com

Samuel Nicholas
215 W 242 St
Apt 42
Bronx, NY 10471
webmaster@weight-loss-successful.com
weight-loss-successful.com

Annetta Politt
aka. Liu Yuan
5872 Abernathy Drive
Riverside, CA 92507
admin@coastalwaterguide.com
coastalwaterguide.com

Caroline Habba
aka. Yang Lei
848 N. Rainbow Blvd #1413
Las Vegas, NV 89107
info@mybie.net
mybie.net

Lisa James
aka. Yang Lei
848 N. Rainbow Blvd #1007
Las Vegas, NV 89107
info@valuebie.com
valuebie.com

Ann Smith
aka. Huomengjuan
212-7331 St Albans Road
Richmond, BC, V6Y 2K4
info@freebusinessshow.com
freebusinessshow.com
 


As an FYI the people perpetrating the fraud read this board, we have seen some of them put wicked fire as how they heard of us when they apply.

It all follows a simple pattern, if you want i can help you with the pattern, i am also considering doing a site for everyone to share info about the fraud perpetrators.

My advice is to look at all your canceled checks, specifically the back, anyone double endorsing checks should be investigated in to further as those are your fraud guys who got through.

You do want to watch out for the following names that are not part of the Asian ring but are ripping off networks. D*** McGee and J*** Embry they send ghost leads or use a bot to fill out one page offers, they tried to get us for $40K and another network as well that i know about.
 
Yeah, when I ran affiliate programs I always thought it would nice if someone maintained a known fraud list that you could scrub new signups against. Someone should create one :)
 
It's pretty easy to eliminate 90% of fraud at the application stage. You just follow a standard fraud profile risk assessment with a points system.

They almost always go for lead programs and use proxies to fill them out.

The only tricky situation is when they start using stolen credit cards on %sale programns and the merchant's system doesn't pick it up (rarely).
 
As nice as it would be to have an organized shared list of some sort, it's not something that I see happening any time soon. I've seen this idea thrown around many times over the past several years on other boards and it always seems to get shot down for the same reasons. The primary one being the risk of being sued for libel for accusing someone (semi) publically of being a cheater. Other reasons include inaccuracy of the data due to false positives or out-dated data and lack of a high network participation level.

The best defense a network has against these blatantly fraudulent affiliates is to significantly tighten the approval process. I can't speak for every network, but I know of many networks whose only approval process is an e-mail confirmation! I won't go into all of the details of what you can do to tighten the process (for the reasons Mike alluded to), but you should at least make personal contact with the affiliate before you approve them. In addition, since an inter-network fraud database won't be available anytime soon, a network should build its own internal fraud database using information pulled from its own affiliate ranks.

We've implemented the above two things and they've dramatically reduced the number of blatantly fraud affiliates who have been approved into the network.

The added benefit of keeping these cheaters out in the first place is that the overall quality of the leads that are delivered to merchants is better than if we relied solely on the "catch them later" method of fraud detection.
 
Watch out for a large fraud ring from India, hopping from internet cafe to internet cafe, filling out free lead offers. Names to be aware of include Salunkhe, Patil, Kalgaonkar , and Shinde. Any affiliate claiming "Sify.com PPC" as their model, from India, is engaged in fraud.
 
I have a blacklist of about 20,000'ish scammers, spammers and just downright awful affiliates that was collected over the years.
 
in all honesty....

Fraudsters can always be a step ahead of this....
They dont even have to signup with the same name or address or even phone number to confirm the account nowadays. I can create account with 20 different cpa networks all with different identities AND phone numbers. If this requires lots of work it may stop the minor fraudsters but it wont stop em all. Making this public will only force the noob fraudsters to also go to this next level. For your own good i think it would be better to be kept quiet and confidential so itll play a slight better and longer effect.

And by the way fraudsters who use public proxies and stuff to fill out offers are in my personal opinion rather dumb in a sense. Maybe might have worked in the beginning stages, but theres always steps you can take to keep ahead and "under the radar"
 
Maybe by breaking the TOS and committing fraud those users give up their right to privacy?
 
I think we need to do a lot more than simply call potential affiliates after they've signed-up.

We've started asking for industry referrals and it has worked out very well thus far. I encourage everyone to do the same. If you get affs listing Advaliant as a referral, I'd be happy to give you some feedback.

A central database of fraud affiliates is also a good idea if we can find a way to avoid false positives and gaming of the system.
 
LukeAdValiant said:
I think we need to do a lot more than simply call potential affiliates after they've signed-up.

We've started asking for industry referrals and it has worked out very well thus far. I encourage everyone to do the same. If you get affs listing Advaliant as a referral, I'd be happy to give you some feedback.
Click to expand...

So, if everyone has to be a referral, at some point, no new affiliates will get into the system because under that system they would already have to *be* in a network that didn't require a referral ?

Realistically, if you can verify SSN/Tax ID and make voice contact, wouldn't that be enough to prevent most blatant fraud (other than the obvious 90% of an affiliates leads/sales are shit metric).

Or even require a notarized copy of their articles of incorporation or other ID before payments will be issued. Make this clear before the they start promoting offers (don't require it before they become active, just make it clear payment won't be made, ever until they are verified).
 
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