It all started on a cold winter day in November, when we referred a personal client to sign up for a PayPal business or premier account. After providing our client the merchant referral link which in itself is very challenging to locate, they gladly signed up as we provide SEO Services and other online support to this large organization.

After completing sign up, their first transaction was over $1000…which met the #2 criteria (has to be over $200 and not eBay related).  Needless to say at some point we expected to see some sort of indication from PayPal that we had in fact gained a referral. Weeks passed so we attempted to navigate the PayPal maze to discover whom we should talk to about a merchant referral.  After many painful attempts using their web-form inquiry contact sheet and their standard  boilerplate responses, we opted to call. Well, it did not get any better….25 minutes on hold, a  complete re-hashing of all our past emails we were finally directed to yet another agent.  So far, three layers and no answers. Finally an agent agreed to take it up with technical support…their response “the link we provided has never been clicked or used”.   We know the end user, we provided the link, an account was set-up, we met all the criteria and boom nothing in return.  This really stings and stinks!  How many other clients have we sent them without any benefit?  There is zero transparency or controls in place when it comes to these types of affiliate programs and one has to wonder how many millions of dollars are being syphoned from web masters like you and me.

PayPal Merchant Referral Program receives a score of 1 out of 10. It is without a doubt the worst affiliate program in the marketplace. Their customer service for Merchant Referrals  also scores a lowly 1 0ut of 10, primarily because they do not have it as an option on their web-form and their agents are unable to provide assistance directly to affiliates. Lastly, there is no transparency or trust.

I have often wondered what encourages someone to register a domain name, build a website and create a forum ( www.paypalsucks.com ) to slam a corporate entity but after our experience it no longer seems that far fetched.

Has anyone else had a good, worse or similar experience … kindly fill us in as I truly hope this is an isolated incident. Sometimes articles or blog posts like these force corporations like PayPal to revisit their processes and do affect change. Let’s hear your story!

On the surface this portal appears to be on the up and up. They use SSL and have the credit card images in the footer to implore credibility, however, as someone that has tried this service our opinion is much different.

So far they have neglected and or failed to payout an outstanding balance due, they do not have a customer service phone number, do not respond to inquiries and no where on the site is there a physical address of their business….strike three. This site has all the elements or making of a scam portal. When you whois the domain name it is protected which means you cannot glean any contact information on the developer or owner of the site….strike four.

A credible business will post a physical or business address, phone number and contact information. Gazhoo has none of the above. Well if you are like me you simply chalk it up or write off the experience and move on…sort of moving on as writing this article to make others aware is my only recourse. The lesson was minor, yes they sold some of my information but they did not physically steal money out of my pocket, they only cheated me out of my intellectual property by reselling it to unsuspecting third parties and not paying the rightful owner. Be warned (caveat emptor) and advise your colleagues of the Gazhoo fraudsters as it is posts like these or reviews from credible people that help police the internet. If this article goes viral and puts Gazhoo on the right track it will discourage the scammers or ripoff artists from taking advantage of people. Help us make an example out of them, please forward or post this article on your site.

If anyone has had a similar experience let us know or if you have been paid in the last month we would love to hear from you.

UPDATE: April 4, 2010 Gazhoo finally made payment. We have opted to leave this post up in an effort to hopefully keep them honest.

Proof of scam..

If you are trying to generate a revenue stream with your website and you do not have your own products you can sell others by using an affiliate program like CLICKBANK. If you are thinking about selling a product or if you have an e-book your want to promote… CLICKBANK is a good choice. It has a history in the marketplace and when investing your time into building a successful online business you want to partner with a vendor that plans to be around for the long term.

Now that you have selected your product to market you should consider using a statistical program to track results and performance. Here is a great tool to help you follow statistics generated by your link. As much as some of us hate tracking or reporting, to be successful, it is critical that an affiliate marketer glean results from their links to determine effectiveness.  http://bit.ly/

To build a successful following one needs to offer your readers valuable content, solve problems, build trust and in the end hopefully a relationship. Trust is the biggest factor when it comes to any online transactions. Offer up plenty of free items to entice your readers to join your e-mail list, protect their privacy and only transmit offerings when you have something valuable to share. It is then and only then will you begin to build a profitable client base….many online marketers send you every lame offer because this is how they make their money. Peddling affiliate programs is their bread and butter so they are not putting the customer first they are thinking profit. BIG mistake and this is troublesome . When I see the quality of offerings stoop to this level I quite often opt out of their listing and they lose creditibility in the marketplace.

To manage your opt-in mail marketing list you can use several free software services such as Gammadyne Mailer or Your Mailing List Provider. Once you grow your list you will want to move to a provider like AWeber …they do offer a free test drive to see if their service meets your requirements.