Posted on Monday, 4th August 2008 by Jeff
A few months back I got suspended off Digital Point Forums for an argument I had with one of their members over whether ringtones affiliate programs were a scam or not. In my opinion they definitely are. This guy claimed to be earning thousands of dollars a day by marketing ringtones affiliate programs. While I’m unsure whether his earnings claims had any merit, there’s one thing I was completely certain about - he was using these programs to scam underage kids who think they’re getting free ringtones. You’ve probably run into several of these landing pages yourself. Basically what most of them tell you is that you’ll get 10 “free” or “complimentary” ringtones if you enter your phone number on their form. While the $9.99/month price is within view if you look “closely”, they setup these pages to where 1 out of 50 or 100 teenagers won’t see this price and will signup thinking they’re getting 100% free ringtones. When they get their phone bill in the mail a month later they find out that the ringtones they got really weren’t free. Most affiliate marketers who do promote these programs will argue with you that it’s not their fault if somebody misses that on the form. What I think they need to understand is that a majority of the money they’re making is “dishonest” and shouldn’t be allowed. I would have to estimate that over 50% of their signups are from people who didn’t know they were signing up for a service. If everybody saw the monthly fee on the form it would probably be almost impossible to make a profit with ringtones affiliate programs. Fortunately, Google is supposedly closing in on people who promote these programs through Adwords.
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Scams | Comments (1)
August 16th, 2008 at 1:34 am
Your blog is interesting!
Keep up the good work!