Well, I put in a lot of hours making nice-looking ad links to Amazon products in anticipation of 4% commissions. I'm putting this report under "Bait & Switch" because that is the closest I could find. But it is about Amazon which, like Ebay, is set up to attract new entrepreneurs only to steal their customer base and destroy their personal reputation in the process, which is really a vicious thing to do.
My Amzaon affiliate reports never quite add up. I'll get numbers in one category or another, and then "N/A" for the overall totals. I never noticed much of a problem because I have not been pushing traffic while I'm working on other parts of my business. When I see that reports don't add up in an affiliation program, I'm not inspired to keep working on it, but I just put it aside for a later time.
I noticed that there is no direct contact ability with Amazon. None. A big "red flag".
I use Commission Junction for affiliate marketing and I avoid most other programs because I know Commission Junction to be reliable and I don't have time to test the others. I saw that Amazon had its' new "WebStore" program promising $45 commissions on new stores, so, since I run an entrepreneur's start-up program, I went ahead and applied. Recently I went back to get some banners.
I discovered I was "declined" with no explanation, but Amazon's propaganda is set up to suggest they check for fraud etc, so therefore everyone who is not with them is some kind of crook, exactly the same extortion scheme used by a certain other big online business that has a history of slamming its own client businesses and grabbing their customer base.
Since I have passed all the tests to actually become an Amazon "Associate", I was curious as to why all of a sudden I am being characterized as an undesirable.
So I went looking for a contact link so that I could ask.
NONE. You cannot contact any staff at Amazon to ask about the WebStore program, including their $45 affiliation program. You can only submit your credit card to be billed for a WebStore account, and they even limit their form to those who have a gross business of $250K a year. And this is a program that STARTS at close to $60 a month!!!
This makes about as much sense as those Nigerian scam letters. Who, in their right mind, in the $250K bracket, would sign up for an ecommerce platform that gives absolutely NO contact for questions, and pay $60 a month for the (non) service? Anyone in that income bracket can afford a company that has available staff, even if the staff says "24-48 hrs response time".
And now I do know why I was declined. Amazon saw my site and saw that I run a totally open "co-operative" style business that assists start-ups in comparing programs and my customers pay for consultation, not hosting, therefore they are not "glued" to any products they buy through my site but they may retain my services while making their own choices to switch from one company to another. This means I cannot deliver my customers to the other companies as profit-fodder. I'm not set up that way.
Amazon does NOT want its products in an open, customer-controlled playing field. I was not aware of their total lack of contact points and the eerily Evilbay-like behavior pattern until I went looking for answers and onstead found these reports.
Now I will simply begin removing my Amazon links before Amazon has an opportunity to target my business for the kind of character assasinations and malicious frauds that inspired the phrase "Market Fascism, Corporate Cannibalism"
If anyone wants to launch a serious movement to get the US gov't to crack down on these Internet behemoths, contact me. Please. We need a "market rights" movement that concentrates on open contact and respectful business practices based on legal due process, protection against libel, and protection against coercive and deceptive monopolies.
Whatagain
Austin, Texas
U.S.A.
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