Clickbank in flamesI have seen those make money online scams, especially those work at home, paid surveys and get rich schemes, most of these scammers have used Clickbank as a way to amass thousands of dollars from unsuspecting and mostly innocent online buyers who were mostly drawn to neatly designed sales letters and marketing pitches promising hundreds of dollars just by working at home.

It is sad to note that a lot of people are still victims everyday - for paying programs worth USD49.00 to supposedly fill-up surveys which are not surveys at all, but outrageously simple instructions on how to earn from certain affiliate programs, advertising on many sites among others and tips that don’t simply work.

Clickbank is also host to cheap, useless e-Books and crap softwares that supposed online Marketing Gurus sell for prices ranging from a dollar to hundreds of dollars. Several people also claimed that they never received the items purchased from Clickbank sites and no refunds were ever made to them.

No wonder my Spyware program, Spyware Terminator, warns me everytime a site I visit gets some some codes from Clickbank, which, according to Spyware Terminator is a site reported to as dangerous.

Is Clickbank really this bad? How about those lots of people claiming they earned thousands of dollars thru Clickbank? Are they all scammers? Certainly not - is my answer. It is not wise to say that when some people use Clickbank to scam people, then Clickbank is a scam, don’t you agree?

I have personally came across a few good products thru Clickbank, and actually purchased them. I have spent a few hundred dollars for some Clickbank products, half of which were good, the other half is simply bad - and nowhere near delivering what it promised.

Did those experiences stopped me from using Clickbank? Nope. In fact, there’s this one good product I am so interested to become an affiliate that I applied for a Clickbank account - since the product’s affiliate program works only with Clickbank. I thought I could effectively market it as an affiliate and earn from it. However, when I clicked on the Clickbank site to register an account, I could not find my country, the Philippines among the list. Hitting the Contact form, I made an inquiry about the possibility of opening an affiliate account with Clickbank.

Here’s what I got from Clickbank Client Support:

Hello Roel,

Thank you for your interest in ClickBank! Unfortunately, our security team has determined that we can no longer accept clients from certain countries, including the Philippines, due to the high rate of fraud we have experienced from those areas. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you.
zzz
ClickBank Client Support
zzz@ClickBank.com

After reading it, I said to myself, okay, no problem. But wait!, hey, you mean the Philippines was excluded because of the high rate of fraud? You mean because there were frauds coming from the Philippines so its better to exclude all Filipinos from earning money with Clickbank? And hey, does it mean that its okay, and there is no fraud from the Philippines when we buy stuffs from Clickbank? I have not remembered a single purchase transaction I made that was denied because it came from the Philippines and it might have been fraud purchase.

So does this mean its okay for Filipinos to spend dollars (well, combined purchases may not be as attractive compared to purchases from other countries), but they are excluded to earn dollars from Clickbank? I find this very absurd, and crap and a bugger and all! Its an insult not just to Filipinos considered as frauds, but also insult to common sense.

Is this the same as saying that Clickbank could not handle fraud from these countries, including the Philippines that they decided not to allow affiliates from these countries? Meaning Clickbank’s system is so flawed it could not handle frauds from these countries? Totally insane! Now, tell me, if Clickbank could not handle high rates of “fraud” from the Philippines and other countries, how could they assure users of other countries in their “safelist” against frauds? It would be totally unfair for Clickbank to opine that “frauds” only come from the Philippines and other similar countries and that no frauds coming from those countries included in their list.

My grandmother had a told me once that it is stupid to cut your smallest toe (is it called pinky toe? or Peedie?) because its giving you some little pain. You cannot fight “fraud” by cutting off places with supposedly “high” incidence of fraud, but rather, work on your system, build better security and invest on anti-fraud programs and technology.

KickbankThis is simple, common sense approach to the problem, unfortunately, common sense isn’t common after all. With this, I am boycotting all Clickbank products. I will instruct my Spyware to block access to sites getting codes from Clickbank. I urge people with sensibilities to do the same. I will just find other means of affiliate marketplace, like PaydotCom. PaydotCom may have its share of problems with Clickbank, but at least, they are brave enough to accept countries which Clickbank blacklisted for their affiliate programs.

I know some of you may find this a stupid idea as most internet marketers are using Clickbank. However, like they say, to test if a bullet-proof vest is indeed bullet-proofed, try firing a gun at it - just another common sense.

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