April 21st, 2009 by eShop600
Over the last month I have received communication regarding Sky Digital and the way they are paying out commisions to affiliates. Below are emails that have gone backwards and forwards regarding Sky changing back confirmed commissions to pending commssions even though the commssions were approved for well over a month now from an Affiliation Company. How can Sky change commissions from approved back to pending, this is unethical and wrong, and as far as I am concerned they are getting a lot of FREE advertising here from affiliates, and if any affiliates out there please feel free to read this and leave your comments on the below:
Hi Charles,
The new customer base, is actually upgrades (but we have misspelled it in our system and also paid out a lot of new sales when they shouldn’t have been paid until March this year).
I am sorry for the confusing, I didn’t think about that we have now launched the product level reporting for affiliates – I will have it amended ASAP.
FREESTANDARDBOX
SKY+
SKY+HD
Are the new sales. They have all got different order references so we can check what they are.
Sorry for any confusion and thanks for raising this with me.
Kind regards,
Eva
From: Charles Wilson
Sent: 21 April 2009 16:21
To: Eva Bowring
Subject: Re: Sky Digital Update – April 09
Hi Eva,
Can you explain to me what ” New Customer (Base)” is with Sky as one of the commissions is this.
Regards
Charles
Sky does not pay out Commissions on Upgrades
Hi Charles,
Sky are not paying out on upgrades and haven’t said they did since they joined our network. However, They did pay out upgrades for a short period of time due to it having been set up incorrectly.
Kind regards,
Eva
From: Charles Wilson
Sent: 21 April 2009 15:03
To: Eva Bowring
Subject: Fw: Sky Digital Update – April 09
Hi Eva,
How can you have the cheek to send these out to affiliates when sky are not paying out commission properly. I have generated at least 4 sales today through my two accounts with you for Sky and got zero commissions.
This is pissing me right off now as sky are taking afiliates for a ride.
Regards
Charles Wilson
Eva,
This is completely unethical and against all good business ethics. Once a commission is approved it legally cannot be withdrawn and put amongst new pending commissions. I have taken the time to seek legal advice regarding Sky’s conduct and this is what I have been told. Although I appreciate the situation that Sky has put Affiliate Window in, this does not help myself as a self-employed businessman who relies on commissions for daily living. The conduct of a company that has the amount of advertising ultimately rewarding itself by my hard work and effort for FREE on a commission only basis should take a long hard look at the potential loss of earnings when the advertisers (Affiliates) who give them their customers, reward their loyalty by no longer promoting the said company. I feel very strongly regarding this matter and hope that this situation is amended with more than a little speed as my commission payment is due to be paid out 15th April 2009 (Tomorrow). Hopefully when I check my account the correct agreed commission payments will be evident in my bank account and Sky will re-think, regarding their lack of business ethics.
I am so incensed regarding this I wonder how Sky would feel if I was to go openly and publically, with a blog regarding all these communications? It is farcical considering Sky rewarded me with “A financial thank you ” commission for all the new customers and sales I have projected for them through my advertising on my website.
Yours Sincerely
Charles Wilson
—– Original Message —–
From: Eva Bowring
To: Charles Wilson
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 6:41 PM
Subject: RE: Sky Programme
Hi Charles,
I am sorry for such a long process. We were expecting to get the feedback of all the sales that we have queried further information about by end of last week. Unfortunately now it looks like this will not be until end of this week.
I am really sorry for the delay, unfortunately it is out of my control.
I will let you know as soon as I have got further information.
Kind regards,
Eva
From: Charles Wilson
Sent: 14 April 2009 13:25
To: Eva Bowring
Subject: Re: Sky Programme
Dear Eva,
Any news from Sky yet? Just so you know the tracking for sky was down partly over the weekend, primarily on Sunday. I checked other sites like the voucher code websites and the tracking for sky was definately not working for at least 4 hours.
Any way the reason i am emailing you is, i have still got £1700 in pending which was actually confirmed as you know at the end of last month. Am i going to get any of that paid out as today is the deadline for merchants to confirm commissions for payment is it not.
Can you please come back to me, account *****
Regards
Charles Wilson
—– Original Message —–
From: Eva Bowring
To: Charles Wilson
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 3:34 PM
Subject: RE: Sky Programme
Dear Charles
Thank you for your email.
I fully understand your frustration with the situation, however I do need to point out a couple of things.
Firstly, the affiliate terms and conditions that you agreed to when signing up to Affiliate Window (please see attached) state categorically;
5.3 Once the Merchant has paid DWL then DWL will prepare and send the Affiliate an invoice together with payment in respect of the CPC or CPA that the Affiliate has earned by generating the Sale. DWL will endeavour to pay the CPC or CPA to the Affiliate during the month following payment of the invoice by the Merchant.
5.4 If Affiliate Window cannot recover monies from the Merchant then Affiliate Window will be under no obligation to pay the CPC or CPA in question to the Affiliate
Our Traffic Light system was set up as a commitment to affiliates to ensure that any valid transactions approved by merchants would be paid out to affiliates. However, in this case transactions were approved accidently which were not valid. Affiliate Window’s commitment is to pay on transactions where the affiliate was the last referrer, the customer has bought and the merchant approved.
Obviously the situation is not ideal as affiliates believed that they would be getting money which has now been removed.
The situation with the level of declines is down to Sky’s de-duping process and the fact they are now de-duping against all online channels including paid search. This was communicated to affiliates in January. Affiliate Window do not agree with the de-duping of affiliate traffic against brand paid search and have raised those concerns with the agency Stream20, who have also raised the issue with Sky in the past. Affiliate Window are also unhappy with the level of declines and are seeking further clarification from Sky regarding all the declines, meaning all these reversed sales will remain as pending until we get confirmation. We will be sending stats across to Stream20 for all the affiliates affected and will have a response for you for all your individual sales.
Please bear with us whilst we go through this process as I am sure you can appreciate there are hundreds of affiliates affected by this.
Thanks for your patience,
Eva
From: Charles Wilson
Sent: 01 April 2009 14:23
To: Eva Bowring
Subject: Re: Sky Programme
WITHOUT PREDUJICE
Dear Eva,
After our conversation this morning I must stress that Affiliate Window are at fault here as much as Sky. To reverse confirmed commissions is wrong, your terms and conditions are ( and it states quite clearly when a merchant confirms commissions themselves) that once commissions are confirmed they cannot be changed back to pending status.
If Sky are de duping then they should be doing that against pending commissions not reversing back confirmed commissions. See attached screen shot as of last night.
What affiliate window have done here is unethical and not only have you as a company shot the very people that are working to keep your company going, you have shot your-selves in the foot by reversing confirmed commissions back to pending, so Sky can now go ahead and decline even more commissions, which means you as a company earn less money as well.
I can tell you now that if the money that has gone back to pending (basically the £1600) is not put back to confirmed and paid out immediately to me, which should of happened on the 1st April, I will never advertise Sky digital again. I should have been paid out £2,102.09 today, instead you paid me out £600.
Affiliate Window should never reverse confirmed commissions, this is wrong, and to do it the day before this money is to be paid out, how convenient.
All my correspondence that I am emailing to you will be going up onto my blog in the next day or two regarding this matter if this is not sorted out, and my wife’s friend works for Tiger Productions, they would be very interested in this whole story regarding how affiliates are being ripped off, and how someone like Sky can get away with FREE ADVERTISING with affiliation, without paying out confirmed commissions.
This has greatly upset me considering how hard it is for affiliates to earn money now with all the restrictions in place my merchants.
Regards
Charles Wilson
—– Original Message —–
From: Eva Bowring
To: Charles Wilson
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 12:34 PM
Subject: RE: Sky Programme
Hi Charles,
Sorry I missed all your emails last night. Please let me know when is a good time to call and to which number and I call you back.
Thanks,
Eva
From: Charles Wilson
Sent: 31 March 2009 20:30
To: Eva Bowring
Subject: Re: Sky Programme
Hi Eva,
I am suppose to get paid out £2,102.09 tomorrow 1st April 2009, so what you are saying here, is that this is going to be reversed, is that what is being said. At the moment affiliate window is stating that i will be paid out £2,102.09 tomorrow morning. I hope that this is still the case because this amount has been approved for ages now in the system. These sales go back as far as January on some.
Sky commission reversals
In January Sky sent out a communication to affiliates outlining recent developments where they were looking to improve their programme moving forward into 2009. These included a new sales validation process, which was effective from 1st January.
All orders are now validated to ensure they are genuine sales. This means all affiliate sales are being de-duped against display, search and email activity, effective from 9th January, with sales attributed to the last click, subject to validation.
This has lead to an increase in the number of ‘rejected’ sales due to one of the following reasons:
a) If a customer goes via the NEW customer link as an EXISTING customer, this will be flagged on the system followed by an email. The email is a notification which includes a contact number to call so that the order can be fulfilled. Sky is currently working on processing existing customers online.
b) If the sale is identified as a duplicated sale against other sky online marketing activity
c) The credit card used in the transaction was declined.
As part of the recent review of sales we identified a number of transactions that were approved for commission that were not in fact valid last referring sales. Some affiliates may therefore see commissions that have recently been reversed in their account.
Sky and Affiliate Window would like to apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.
We will be in contact with all those affected directly, however if you would like to discuss this with us please feel free to contact either:
Eva Bowring – eva.bowring@affiliatewindow.com
Richard Plumridge – richard.plumridge@affiliatewindow.com
Regards
Charles
—– Original Message —–
From: Eva Bowring
To: charles.wilson
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 6:08 PM
Subject: Sky Programme
Hi Charles,
Just tried to give you a call in regards to the Sky programme but you were currently busy. It is quite late here in the UK so I will be leaving now. Please give me a call tomorrow and we can discuss the recent validations further.
Kind regards,
Eva


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