How do hackers steal your Clickbank commissions?

[gobear2000]

I've heard a few people say that if you use the direct hoplink, some hackers can steal your CB commission and transfer to them instead but I don't understand how it works, would anyone explain it briefly?

And also, if putting the direct hoplink is dangerous, would displaying short URL will be safe? such as tinyurl.com etc?

Cheers

[Linda Buquet]

There is lots of info in this thread. I'm linking to page 3 which has a lot, but page 1 and 2 may have info too.

There are different ways people can steal your commission but one of the most nefarious is parasite adware. See the video I linked to in post #65 to see how they do it.

Clickbank - Not a Good Place for Newbies to Start

I'm not sure how much tiny helps but I would not mask that way anyway as it looks spammy and I would think it would scare away more clicks than you'd lose through commission theft, which is probably only a very tiny percentage. Best way to cloak IMHO is through your own domain. mysite.com/productname. Then it looks like another page of your site, plus has the name of product so helps consumers feel they will get to the right info instead of being afraid of where they will land with a blind URL like tiny. Plus I read that ZoneAlarm firewall blocks tinyurls.

That type of link cloaking is done through HTaccess.

There are a bunch of ways to hide links, here's one thread and there are a bunch of others if you search the forum for cloak links or hide links.
encrypting affiliate links

[johnc]

Hi -

It's not even really hackers involved with most of the lost sales. When some one follows your link they normally can see the ClickBank hop link. Even if the don't they know when they get to the ClickBank invoice page it's from there.

If they can see the hop link all they need to do is replace your affiliate id with their own or that of a friend. If the hop link is cloaked they may still back off the invoice page and clear their cookies. Go to ClickBank and search out the product you were promoting and create their own hop link.

Here's what ClickBank says about using your own ID -

Can I purchase products through my own hoplink?

The short answer is yes, but ClickBank does not condone affiliates using their accounts for this sole purpose. As stated in our Accounting Policy, "ClickBank accounts cannot be used for the sole purpose of collecting rebates or otherwise extending credit to yourself or others." That is, affiliates should not be using their own hoplinks to purchase products for themselves and then collect a "rebate" check from ClickBank.

Unless an account contains sales from made with 5 or more different credit card numbers, including at least one Visa card, and one MasterCard, our system will not generate a check for that account (even if the balance has met or exceeded the payment preference). PayPal purchases do not count toward the minimum.

End of ClickBank statement.

Look at that last paragraph. If your just starting out you can see they set some not to friendly conditions for you to paid. Even if you start selling their stuff it may be a while before you can meet those requirements to get paid.

I also had problems with links in my own browser. This turned out to be SpyBot which many people use. They (the SpyBot people) have but ClickBank in their bad site list even though they know it isn't. I have read some post in their forum were they even think it's a joke. Another thing is Spybot has an uninstall but it doesn't seem to remove much. I spent hours tracking it all down. and don't forget the add on it puts in Internet Explorer. People think Spybot is a good program but it didn't stop me from having problems. I'm glad it's gone and so are my problems. It gets high rating at places like download .com so people keep downloading it.

So if your customer has SpyBot there is a good chance they are not passing your affiliate info to ClickBank and it may very well be truncating the affiliate and tracking portions of your other affiliate url's also.

There is always a challenge so don't get discouraged. Every one faces the same hurdles. There will always be dishonest people that will try and succeed at stealing your hops one way or another. Focus on the honest customer. Lucky for us there are more of them.

John

[johnc]

Hi gobear2000 -

About tinyurl and about a dozen other similar services. I know some people recommend them but I have lost commission using tinyurl. I don't know who was at fault but it was only the tinyurl links. I was losing $67 a pop.

I used the original affiliate link showing everything and the tinyurl for the same item. My own brother had utilized the tinyurl but his buy didn't register and I didn't get paid. All the sales that registered were form people not using the tinyurl. This also passed through ClickBank and PayPal. The only difference was the url. Why - I don't know why but I don't use tinyurl and more.

John