According to a number of emails I’ve received over the last 2 days, it looks like some affiliates are stretching the truth (OK, preying on the desperate) when it comes to promoting ‘government grant’ offers. Apparently they’re suggesting that the business opportunities offers they promote are somehow connected with President Obama’s federal stimulus fund package.

Here’s the email I got from the Offeratti network.

An issue of the utmost importance has been brought to our attention and we felt it important enough to make all of our valued Publishers aware of it. Currently the Federal Trade Commission has been on the rampage pursuing government grants sites and any website or campaign that claims to help a consumer qualify for a share of federal stimulus funds or recovery package money.

We at Offeratti are committed to maintaining all of our offers in a Federally compliant manner. To that end, we need to remind all of our Publishers that if they are making false claims or statements to the effect that any of our programs can or will assist a consumer in receiving the aforementioned Federal recovery funds. While we do not maintain any “government grants” offers that have been
specifically targeted by the FTC, we understand that some Publishers may blur the line in an attempt to encourage sales. Our Biz Opp offers are not in any way to be connected with the Federal recovery package.

Publishers who do not follow these guidelines will be removed from the Program and their commissions will be forfeited.

All Offeratti Network Publishers must comply with the guidelines that are outlined at www.ftc.gov.

Please ensure that any advertisements you might use which are not already approved by your Affiliate Manager, are submitted for approval. Use of non-approved creatives, text ads and emails is grounds for dismissal from the Program.

While we love President Barack Obama and the spirit he has enlivened in the American people, we do not want to mislead any consumers into thinking that our campaigns are anything other than Work From
Home opportunites and not a way to participate in the Federal recovery funds.

Note especially the lines “Use of non-approved creatives, text ads and emails is grounds for dismissal from the Program” and “Publishers who do not follow these guidelines will be removed from the Program and their commissions will be forfeited“.

Quite frankly, I hope every affiliate that stooped that low is found, stripped of their commissions and never allowed to join another network or program. Not only do they give our industry as a whole a bad name, but they make merchants’ and managers’ lives difficult for having to souse them out to protect their brands and decrease creative marketing options for reputable affiliate marketers.

Boo! Hiss!!

OMG, I’m connected to the Internet! Hurray!!!!

Imagine being an Internet marketer at an affiliate marketing conference and not having an Internet connection from your hotel room for 5 days.

Are you feeling my pain?

Yup, despite paying $12.95 twice and $9.95 once, the Lodgenet service at the Rio was pathetic.

Despite spending more than an hour on the phone with Lodgenet and having the ticket escalated to Level 3, the connection speed was never more than 2Kbps. I even changed rooms hoping to access the wireless that some folks reporting picking up, but I had no such luck.

Fortunately, Twitter is a light load, so I logged on a couple of times to tweet, but the connection was never sufficient to log into the Administration panel of my blog.

UGH.

Anyway, now at McCarran International Airport with 5-bar FREE wireless and dancing for joy at having just uploaded my Affiliate Summit West ’09 conference pictures.

Woohoo!

Affiliate Summit highlights to follow…

How’s this for stupid? New York state brings in a new tax law that makes out-of-state businesses with New York based-affiliates collect sales tax on Internet purchases made by New York State residents, if the company’s affiliate sales in the state exceed $10,000.

By result, merchants that don’t want to deal with additional tax collection are dumping their New York-based affiliates.

Overtstock has notified it’s 3400 New York based affiliates that they’ve been dumped effective June 1st, 2008. One New York-based affiliate on Shawn Collin’s blog commented that he’d already been dropped by 4 Linkshare merchants.

Amazon, on the other hand, will collect the tax but it is also suing New York state for introducing a law that it deems unconstitutional. Bravo, Amazon!

Brian Littleton of ShareaSale reports on his blog that he is reluctant to give merchants access to information normally considered private and that he’ll warn merchants that “that terminating NY is a bad plan – and one that needs rethinking.”

Brook Schaaf of MediaTrust has put out a call to all affiliates proposing a new industry association.

Appears to me to be a lose-lose-lose situation.

Consumers won’t be keen to pay the additional tax, so they’ll buy less. Merchants that terminate affiliates will earn less. And in a state where more than 1.86 million residents (about 1 in 10) are already food stamp recipients; New York’s affiliates will earn less, thereby reducing tax inflow and increasing the size of the breadlines.

This ploy to weasel $50 million bucks more out of New York taxpayers’ pockets is especially heinous considering how ordinary citizens are already having a hard time making ends meet with high prices for food, fuel and escalating unemployment.

What a great contribution to an economy already in shambles… not.

Are you an affiliate living and working in New York state? Has your association with some merchants been terminated recently due to this new law? How do you think that will affect your bottom line? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Yesterday, Clickbank sent me the following email:

We recently sent you payment via XACH (International direct deposit) but it was returned to us by the bank.

What bothers me more than the fact that my payment will now be late to arrive, is that it seems like NO ONE LISTENS!

Before sending Clickbank my bank account details for the XACH direct deposit setup, I corresponded with them to confirm that the payment could go into my US Dollar account here in Canada. I was assured that would be no problem. So when I received the email from Clickbank, that US dollar account issue was the first thing that popped into my head.

Fortunately, when I got on the horn with Clickbank this morning, I ended up speaking with a representative who actually understood what I was saying and knew how XACH works. She confirmed that sure enough, that WAS the problem — Direct deposit must be made in the local currency.

Duh. So, will the first rep with whom I consulted please fork over the interest that I didn’t earn on that deposit? It wouldn’t be much, but it might prove to be a nice little lesson about the need to listen, understand and provide factual – not fanciful – answers.

Over the last couple of weeks the email address posted on my domain records has been completely inundated with emails sporting subject lines such as “Website Advertising Enquiry” as shown in the screenshot below.

These emails typically show up with one of the following subject lines:

• Website Inquiry
• Website Advertising Inquiry
• Marketing Inquiry
• Website Partnership

Although it may be tempting to respond to someone who is offering to pay to advertise on your site… do not take the bait and DO NOT REPLY.

They’re spammers and it’s a phishing scam just to get your email address.
[tags]phishing,email,scam,spam,spammers[/tags]