View Full Version : Sterlingcash - If you promote read
NumptyNuts
07-09-05, 05:44 PM
Hi all,
if you like me promote their sites I urge you to check your stats. I have just finished talking with their support team after noticing a 'decreaase' in revenue.
On closer inspection it appears that around $400 worth of sales have dropped off the figures. They have agreed to look into it as they can see the REAL figures however the affiliate system looks fucked :mad:
Unhappy, really unhappy,
i have to admit we could do more to promote them other than the odd gallery, but in this case i guess it was good we didn't. we feel that conversions dropped since the change from CCBill, this may be coincidence though.
what was highly weird though was having a Smoking Video gallery on the Hun (yeah yeah, we all know Hun traffic doesn't convert great for most, but we also know non-vanilla stuff doesn't do bad usually), and making exactly 1 sale off it on June 3rd. fine, so be it, tough luck. July 3rd we made another sale. and also 3 rebills. now a general rule is a rebill is usually preceded by a sale.
what was it now? 3 sales, or maybe even more, not being credited or 1 sale billed 3 times, which undoubtly would lead to some nasty chargebacks. either way is not a welcome situation.
as i said before, i guess we are lucky not to have pushed them much.
oh yes, 2 nights ago the rebills dropped from 3 to 1.
i have to admit we could do more to promote them other than the odd gallery, but in this case i guess it was good we didn't. we feel that conversions dropped since the change from CCBill, this may be coincidence though.
what was highly weird though was having a Smoking Video gallery on the Hun (yeah yeah, we all know Hun traffic doesn't convert great for most, but we also know non-vanilla stuff doesn't do bad usually), and making exactly 1 sale off it on June 3rd. fine, so be it, tough luck. July 3rd we made another sale. and also 3 rebills. now a general rule is a rebill is usually preceded by a sale.
what was it now? 3 sales, or maybe even more, not being credited or 1 sale billed 3 times, which undoubtly would lead to some nasty chargebacks. either way is not a welcome situation.
as i said before, i guess we are lucky not to have pushed them much.
oh yes, 2 nights ago the rebills dropped from 3 to 1.
Have you spoken to sterlingcash about this?
Did you have any problems when they used CCBill?
Dave has promised to be onto the case, which i believe he is.
with CCBill you face CCBill's own scrubbing.
NumptyNuts
07-09-05, 06:03 PM
My convertions went up - its just the way the programme is managed that is causing an issue.
I have tried to tell them about broken links on the site, galleries which dont work etc though nothign has happened. Being paid is important so seeing they fucked this up good and propper too didn't help me out.
I dont have a ton of stuff out there just enought to turn out a few sales each week, as I know the guys I feel a little safer in promoting them, I just wish they stopped messing around and focused on their sites, not mucking about with the affiliate system.
Check this out !
http://www.inbedwithraven.com/
this site is there in place and totally working, they no longer update it, however instead of letting people who send traffic to the site get a chance at making the sale, the tour button redirects to another site in their netowrk. I as an affiliate never got told this would happen and was told it would be sorted out but nothing has happened!
My convertions went up - its just the way the programme is managed that is causing an issue.
I have tried to tell them about broken links on the site, galleries which dont work etc though nothign has happened. Being paid is important so seeing they fucked this up good and propper too didn't help me out.
I dont have a ton of stuff out there just enought to turn out a few sales each week, as I know the guys I feel a little safer in promoting them, I just wish they stopped messing around and focused on their sites, not mucking about with the affiliate system.!
I had heard their "Members Area" on faith was full of broken links but it must have been sorted cos I managed to have look in there when the .htaccess was fucked. When you clicked on the "Members" link you would get the password prompt, if you clicked "Cancel" you was granted access :takethat:
When you clicked on the "Members" link you would get the password prompt, if you clicked "Cancel" you was granted access :takethat:
Wow
Cardinal_Sin
07-09-05, 06:44 PM
I had heard their "Members Area" on faith was full of broken links but it must have been sorted cos I managed to have look in there when the .htaccess was fucked. When you clicked on the "Members" link you would get the password prompt, if you clicked "Cancel" you was granted access :takethat:
That is more common than you think - It is because you have a blank line in the pass file - Whenever you work on your pass file, always make sure a blank user/pass doesn't give entry
NumptyNuts
07-09-05, 06:45 PM
I hope they have sorted any broken links, AVN magazine rated it as one of the major reasons people cancel their subscriptions :-(
My convertions went up
i can only go by our bits and what 2 others told me. of course all of this is down to personal observations.
Shandy McAndy
07-09-05, 09:42 PM
i can only go by our bits and what 2 others told me. of course all of this is down to personal observations.
Ive heard the same, though I cant understand why, if you go from CCBill to cascading and still have ccbill, then surely sales can only go up.
Ive heard the same, though I cant understand why, if you go from CCBill to cascading and still have ccbill, then surely sales can only go up.
yes and no. if you switch new galleries to the new linking code, the CCBill signups will slow down.
I'm surprised no one from sterlingcash has been in to offer an explanation, I know daveydude (if that's his nick) is a member here.
Maybe they don't think B&B is big enough to warrant an explantion.
Well how long before this hits the other "big" boards?
Im sure someone from sterlingcash will appear sooner or later ... - anyone know if he/they are even aware of this thread? :confused:
Im sure someone from sterlingcash will appear sooner or later ... - anyone know if he/they are even aware of this thread? :confused:
Well at least one of them is a member here so maybe now they have joined they should check in now and again :takethat:
anyone know if he/they are even aware of this thread? :confused:
i pasted a link to Dave when i caught it.
daveydude
07-10-05, 02:05 AM
Yeah I'm here but probly too drunk to give a proper answer right now. But I'll try.
Paul & HF - I spoke to you both about all this earlier on and will be speaking to you both again when I have more to tell you. Posting the same issues on here doesn't make things happen any faster I'm afraid.
Rest assured we're taking the stats issue very seriously but we have to wait for the Executive Stats tech guys to give us a definitive answer on why there are discrepancies in the figures. They are in the USA and I suspect do not work weekends, so we may not know anything until Monday, but I will be sure to keep you posted.
daveydude
07-10-05, 02:07 AM
I had heard their "Members Area" on faith was full of broken links but it must have been sorted cos I managed to have look in there when the .htaccess was fucked. When you clicked on the "Members" link you would get the password prompt, if you clicked "Cancel" you was granted access :takethat:
Yup, there was some duff script from one of our billers that added a blank line to the htaccess and nicely opened up the members area. It got nailed shut pretty much as soon as we found out.
daveydude
07-10-05, 02:19 AM
They have agreed to look into it as they can see the REAL figures however the affiliate system looks fucked :mad:
For your information, there is no difference between the figures we see and the ones you see. Come over to mine and I'll show you.
daveydude
07-10-05, 02:30 AM
Check this out !
http://www.inbedwithraven.com/
this site is there in place and totally working, they no longer update it, however instead of letting people who send traffic to the site get a chance at making the sale, the tour button redirects to another site in their netowrk. I as an affiliate never got told this would happen and was told it would be sorted out but nothing has happened!
Would you like me to post my MSN log where I offered, and you agreed, that we would do an exclusive deal with you on all Raven's content *after* we have fixed the affiliate system?
daveydude
07-10-05, 02:35 AM
Would you like me to post my MSN log where I offered, and you agreed, that we would do an exclusive deal with you on all Raven's content *after* we have fixed the affiliate system?
Basically we don't want to sell memberships to a site that's not being updated - that would mean extensive changes to the tour and to the billing codes, ie, we couldnt sell a recurring membership to that site at the moment.
aaron_sterlingcash
07-10-05, 02:36 AM
Paul you really are a two faced twat! You know the issues we have been having, how the hell are we meant to know that the stats may or may not be showing incorrect data?
As dave said we will sort this as soon as we can speak to ES, furthermore Im offended that you needed to do this after the chat we had on the phone.
We will deal with this Paul so just chill the fuck out!
ChemicalEyes
07-10-05, 11:07 AM
Whatever the issues are, I couldn't care.. do British companies think it shows any form of professionalism coming on to a msg board with an attitude and swearing at an affiliate.
+ who runs a program using a stats system they can't get support for, lol
aaron_sterlingcash
07-10-05, 11:16 AM
Whatever the issues are, I couldn't care.. do British companies think it shows any form of professionalism coming on to a msg board with an attitude and swearing at an affiliate.
+ who runs a program using a stats system they can't get support for, lol
ChemicalEyes you are correct and I appologise to you Paul for kicking off in this thread, I did that post late on and lil worse for wear, no excuse I am sorry, but the issue still stands that we doing our best to sort this issue now.
The support issues with ES are well documented and again a variable out of our direct control.
daveydude
07-10-05, 11:46 AM
Here is the reply from ES tech support so far...
A typo in the cron jobs had the rebill cron script running looping a couple times a day, pulling down the same rebill more than once for some customers. I've fixed the cron problem and adjusted webmaster rebills to show the proper rebill amount.
That was in relation to -HF's problem. I then found out about Paul's issue and immediately alerted ES tech. This reply was posted this morning...
The problem with the cron may have affected other webmaster accounts. I will take a look and see what I can find. The changes that were done did not affect anything to do with transactions, however. I will treat that as a seperate issue in regards to this ticket.
We are on the case. Paul & -HF, if you have any specific enquiries you would like me to put to ES directly, please contact me privately.
NumptyNuts
07-10-05, 12:10 PM
Paul you really are a two faced twat! You know the issues we have been having, how the hell are we meant to know that the stats may or may not be showing incorrect data?
As dave said we will sort this as soon as we can speak to ES, furthermore Im offended that you needed to do this after the chat we had on the phone.
We will deal with this Paul so just chill the fuck out!
Aaron,
You know me and you knew me long before you launched this programme. Yes you are having issues though those issues are now effecting my business which makes them my issues.
Despite all the previous issues I never post anything anywhere, to me this amount of revenue disappearing caused me much concern and I want to let other people know to check their stats to see if they also are suffering as a result of your 'technical issues'
Dave its not a matter of whether you offer a new place to send traffic for Raven, shes in your programme, all over you site and if people like me invest time and effort you should at lest mail us a few days before you just re route the traffic to another site.
When i spoke with Aaron about the redirection he agreed with what I said and advised meit would be put back to he join page - I understand you dont update the site, dont have an agreement with the model no more so if this is the case why on earth is it STILL listed as asite within you programme.
I also have every right to discuss this with other webmasters who promote 3rd party sites, if you read closely what I say I have not knocked you, your sites or the performance of them, just the decisions which are being made WHICH have a direct effect on my business.
35 odd sign ups going missing over night is a lot, Aaron if YOU were promoting some one elses site and saw 35 sign ups disappear you would be going mad on GFY etc.
As I said to Dave on MSN from where I'm standing it looks like shaving because that is clearly what has happened -
'revenues have been removed from my stats'
Take all your emotions out of it, understand this is business not personal and look at it from my point of view as webmaster - My balance sheets went down by $400 over night. Unless the fairy's came took it its the programme owner OR their software that has done it.
If I had said nothing to you it would NEVER have been picked up, I dont even have a clue if your current system is tracking new traffic, if some much data has been lost how much more is slipping through the net.
One final thing, if you want to rant and rave and swear at me thats fine and get all ass'y over things then do it. Coz to be fair right now Im really pissed off and feel like some one is stealing from me and they are kicking off because they have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
Unlike you I am justified to feel this way, the revenues still get to you its just mine that have gone missing. we'll see you are due to call me Monday lunch time with a resolve to the issue, Dave I would also like my payment sent on Monday pls.
Ive met Sterlin Cash once, you seemed a nice bunch of guys, maybe as a bit of Public Relations, you may want to get someone from Executive Stats here to explain what happened. I guess for every one person whos complained there are 100 who have read it, if they have created you this issue maybe they could help in clearing it up
ChemicalEyes
07-10-05, 12:59 PM
Ive met Sterlin Cash once, you seemed a nice bunch of guys, maybe as a bit of Public Relations, you may want to get someone from Executive Stats here to explain what happened. I guess for every one person whos complained there are 100 who have read it, if they have created you this issue maybe they could help in clearing it up
If ES created the issue then it's their responsibility to come, own up and help sort it out in the public view.
Here is the reply from ES tech support so far...
That was in relation to -HF's problem. I then found out about Paul's issue and immediately alerted ES tech. This reply was posted this morning...
We are on the case. Paul & -HF, if you have any specific enquiries you would like me to put to ES directly, please contact me privately.
i think i did express my disbelief for that ES statement in private. if it wasn't clear enough, i am more than willing to confirm it here. you guys use ES since May at least, which means the first rebills of affiliates have most likely happened in June.
we can safely assume the cron job isn't messed with on a monthly basis, so that would mean this problem was there before. how many affiliates have had their stats 'adjusted' one has to wonder now. more importantly, why was no one informed of that problem? when i contacted you about it, you acted very surprised yourself, one would think at least you would receive information of such issues.
i for one do not se ES as trustworthy tool, granted i never really did, but now i see no reason in seeing any credibility with it anymore.
i have taken note of the stats being messed with, for reasons that seem questionable at least (bear in mind i do not suggest you are to blame for it). i also put forward to you in private where i could imagine these disappearing sales ending up. again i have to say i am glad we didn't get around to push your sites more.
we've pulled a few galleries that were supposed to be submitted later this month. maybe we modify them back to the CCBill links. if not, neither you nor us will miss out big time.
Paul you really are a two faced twat! You know the issues we have been having, how the hell are we meant to know that the stats may or may not be showing incorrect data?
As dave said we will sort this as soon as we can speak to ES, furthermore Im offended that you needed to do this after the chat we had on the phone.
We will deal with this Paul so just chill the fuck out!
Wow!, nice attitude, I bet more and more people want to sign up as affiliates now. To say you are "lil worse for wear" just makes you seem even more unprofessional. If you have been drinking or whatever then wait until the morning when you have a clear head and can reply in a professional respectful manner
By taking that attitude with a current affiliate isn't going to make others feel like joining you.
I always find it amusing when sponsors moan and whine because someone had dared to bring up issues with them. Most people don't go running to the boards as soon as there is a problem and when they do we hear all the calls on "being unprofessional" and all that crap.
If there is a problem then why shouldn't we make that public for all to know about. If it's just a pissed off affiliate trying to cause problems then the sponsors can simply reply in a professional manner, give the facts and clear things up.
I have had people moaning at me because I have asked "has anyone had any problems with...whatever". Now if I ask this question and everyone says "no problems here" then great, the sponsor doesn't look bad and I know it's either a problem at my end or and isolated case. If most people are having the same problem then great, we now know it's a problem with the sponsor and hopefully it will be sorted or at least warn others that there is a problem.
Most sponsors have no problems posting on public forumsthat they have new tours, or are now paying x amount of $'s or that they are coverting at 1:50, or even that they are the next best thing since sliced bread.
Why then does it become a problem when someone posts on the same public forums something about the sponsor they are having problems with.
daveydude
07-10-05, 02:16 PM
we can safely assume the cron job isn't messed with on a monthly basis, so that would mean this problem was there before. how many affiliates have had their stats 'adjusted' one has to wonder now. more importantly, why was no one informed of that problem? when i contacted you about it, you acted very surprised yourself, one would think at least you would receive information of such issues.
i for one do not se ES as trustworthy tool, granted i never really did, but now i see no reason in seeing any credibility with it anymore.
I'm still waiting to hear about how long the "typo" in the cron job had been there. I was given no notice of the error by ES, and it was only picked up after I reported the strange goings-on in your stats HF.
i have taken note of the stats being messed with, for reasons that seem questionable at least (bear in mind i do not suggest you are to blame for it). i also put forward to you in private where i could imagine these disappearing sales ending up. again i have to say i am glad we didn't get around to push your sites more.
we've pulled a few galleries that were supposed to be submitted later this month. maybe we modify them back to the CCBill links. if not, neither you nor us will miss out big time.
We have to face the possibility that the "disappearing" sales never existed in the first place. I can put my hand on my heart & say that we aren't fiddling the numbers, and given the recent security troubles that ES have had, and the resulting damage to their reputation, it would seem extremely unlikely that sales are being siphoned off anywhere by them. This can probably be solved by looking at our CCBill sales and cross referencing between them and the current ES figures, so I am also speaking to CCBill about this as well.
More news when I have it.
I'm still waiting to hear about how long the "typo" in the cron job had been there. I was given no notice of the error by ES, and it was only picked up after I reported the strange goings-on in your stats HF.
at least that's what has been reported to you as the reason.
We have to face the possibility that the "disappearing" sales never existed in the first place.
no doubt. which would make your Smoking Video site converting rather badly, which i doubt. as i said, that very gallery with more rebills than original sales had a hun listing. experience shows at least a handful of sales with more original stuff, which i believe the smoking videos are.
I can put my hand on my heart & say that we aren't fiddling the numbers,
and i did highlight in my previous post that i am not putting the blame on you at all.
and given the recent security troubles that ES have had, and the resulting damage to their reputation, it would seem extremely unlikely that sales are being siphoned off anywhere by them.
i didn't think they ever had that good of a rep to begin with.
More news when I have it.
looking forward to that.
I'm still trying to find out what all happened..
I will say that there is NO WAY that Sterling Cash is or has been shaving any sales or signups.. as they do not have any access to the code to do such a thing...
secondly.. from what I have read in our "tickets" system is that there was a typo in a cron job which pulls data from the processors... where some of the info was "looped".. again .. i do not know all of the specifics yet... every cron job is set up custom for each client dependent upon their configuration and processors...
yes.. we will take responsibility and get this resolved with Sterling Cash and its affiliates...
NumptyNuts
07-10-05, 05:28 PM
I'm still trying to find out what all happened..
I will say that there is NO WAY that Sterling Cash is or has been shaving any sales or signups.. as they do not have any access to the code to do such a thing...
secondly.. from what I have read in our "tickets" system is that there was a typo in a cron job which pulls data from the processors... where some of the info was "looped".. again .. i do not know all of the specifics yet... every cron job is set up custom for each client dependent upon their configuration and processors...
yes.. we will take responsibility and get this resolved with Sterling Cash and its affiliates...
Hi Greg - Nice offer -
can you explain to me the % of sales which have dropped off? Also can you advise me the process to ensure these accounts are allocated back to the ref webmaster.
One would assume you are affiliated wth ES - if this is the case are you admiting the loss of revenue I saw is as result of your company?
Look forward to your help :)
Hi Greg - Nice offer -
can you explain to me the % of sales which have dropped off? Also can you advise me the process to ensure these accounts are allocated back to the ref webmaster.
no I cannot... but again.. I'm still trying to find out what has happened..
One would assume you are affiliated wth ES -
yes
if this is the case are you admiting the loss of revenue I saw is as result of your company?
no I am not
again.. I need to find out what happened... I just wanted to state that SterlingCash is not and cannot be shaving anything...
NumptyNuts
07-10-05, 09:51 PM
no I cannot... but again.. I'm still trying to find out what has happened..
yes
no I am not
again.. I need to find out what happened... I just wanted to state that SterlingCash is not and cannot be shaving anything...
OK cool if they are not shaving then your software went wrong, has this happened before?
OK cool if they are not shaving then your software went wrong, has this happened before?
Any news Paul?
NumptyNuts
07-12-05, 10:50 PM
Yes its with SC to sort out now - as soon as I have a conclusion I will post it
Yes its with SC to sort out now - as soon as I have a conclusion I will post it
cool Keep us informed :drink:
The sterling cash boys are stand up people, i've met Aaron and faith yet to met dave yet. I've never had any problems with them :drink:
NumptyNuts
07-12-05, 11:01 PM
The sterling cash boys are stand up people, i've met Aaron and faith yet to met dave yet. I've never had any problems with them :drink:
Likewise however this is business and stand up and nice don't really figure in the equation. They will deal with I am sure and hopefully an insight into what happened too :)
The sterling cash boys are stand up people, i've met Aaron and faith yet to met dave yet. I've never had any problems with them :drink:
Ive met them too. All seemed great guys, but I also know Pual is a cool guy. Lets hope its just another ES problem
I can guarantee you this is all caused by ES that software is fucking shite!
I shouldn't really say this on a board since brad might sue me or something but since this is a uk board and I doubt he reads it here it is
I used to work for him and the software I worked with at siccash is the basis for ES and its fucked up.
I dunno what went wrong but if you pull ccbill datadumps too frequently ccbill will lock that user / ip out so they won't be able to pull stats, i'm not saying thats it but thats one reason off the top of my head that could cause rebills to get lost.
I am pretty confident there is nothing as advanced as shaving built into ES and aaron and dave wouldn't know how to do it either
I hoep sterlingcash get their problems sorted soon cos they got some great sites just the technical shit is letting them down atm
thanks for your support there spanno ;)
actually we are not using the software that you worked on... as you said it was jacked up... we hired a new team and rewrote it... but thanks for your opinion..
we are working with aaron and dave to get this straightened out..
fyi... we did not get blocked from pulling ccbill datadumps... a typo in a cron ran and looped importing the data twice..
thanks for your support there spanno ;)
actually we are not using the software that you worked on... as you said it was jacked up... we hired a new team and rewrote it... but thanks for your opinion..
we are working with aaron and dave to get this straightened out..
fyi... we did not get blocked from pulling ccbill datadumps... a typo in a cron ran and looped importing the data twice..
so has this happened before? surely you won't set up the cron jobs on a weekly or monthly basis, so rebills stemming from May sales coming up in June may be reported falsely as well.
daveydude
07-13-05, 02:22 PM
OK, I think we've reached the end of the road on this. ES have been in touch with us and assured us that the system is now working correctly, and that the current affiliate sales stats are correct. Some rebills were overcredited, these are now showing accurate numbers and the script error that caused the problem has been fixed.
Paul - there are still some questions remaining about your stats upto June 15th. ES cannot shed any more light on that at the present time as the records on the system do not agree entirely with the records you and I have. However, the amounts we are talking about are fairly small and I believe we have come to an amicable agreement about this, is that correct?
-HF - Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you have been promoting us long enough or have enough rebills to have your stats affected by the cron job error if it had occurred in previous months? Again, I believe we have cleared up the issue between us, but if you have any other problems, please contact me.
We will have all our ES worries solved permanently quite soon.
i'm not asking for myself but on a general basis, gregtx seems to act as if those errors were a one off thing, which seems weird if it's a cron job they blame it on.
also if he now says the data was imported twice, how come there were 3 rebills for one recorded sale?
all these statements do not add up.
obviously i'm still not accusing SterlingCash of anything, quite the contrary.
daveydude
07-13-05, 02:34 PM
I'll follow up on this with ES & report back. Thanks.
NumptyNuts
07-13-05, 03:53 PM
Paul - there are still some questions remaining about your stats upto June 15th. ES cannot shed any more light on that at the present time as the records on the system do not agree entirely with the records you and I have. However, the amounts we are talking about are fairly small and I believe we have come to an amicable agreement about this, is that correct?
Yep its with you and I was expecting a call today after you spoke with Aaron, but right now I still not convinced about this whole situation and it still stinks to high heaven.
None of the numbers add up, hope you ballance your books better.
vBulletin® v3.7.2, Copyright ©2000-2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.