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This part is the one I'd be most worried about: "They also wiped all the commission fees we were keeping there." Amazon can be a jerk and unilaterally change

This part is the one I'd be most worried about: "They also wiped all the commission fees we were keeping there." Amazon can be a jerk and unilaterally change the rules, but wiping out their commision goes beyond that. I know Google does the same, but it's not an example to follow. It's odd because Amazon has got a good reputation as a fair arbiter of disputes for buyers, but it seems not in this case. Things like these might impact the perception in other cases, I always thought Amazon AWS would have better customer support than Google's developer offerings, this might make me rethink that (I never had to contact AWS support yet and read mostly positive things about them, so this is surprising). I guess they violated some provision of the Amazon TOS?

personZ 12y ago
I know Google does the same, but it's not an example to follow. When Google decides that clicks were invalid, they remove the commission and also remove the charges from the advertiser. The fact that they do this, and aggressively fight click fraud, is one of the major reasons they have so little real competition. In the case of Amazon I'm not sure how they could do that...do they cancel all of the orders under the old agreement? Give customers their money back and ask for stuff to be shipped back? As an aside, Amazon's Affiliate program is one of the big vehicles of noise on the net. When authors suddenly decide to write a big blog entry about the best headphones, or the best coffee grinders, etc, invariably you find that it was 100% affiliate fee driven. That might seem like a "well they might as well capitalize", but the corrupting influence of peddling commission goods is unavoidable.
josefresco 12y ago
"Amazon can be a jerk and unilaterally change the rules" Just guessing, but they probably didn't change the rules, only started enforcing rules they weren't prior. Therefore commissions earned would still be "invalid". Considering Amazon fulfilled the orders sent from this affiliate and most likely re-invested the profits in their business (which is the Amazon way), makes it a dickish move.
Someone1234 12y ago
Amazon has a good reputation from consumers, many people in the retail space who deal with them find them quite difficult (and arrogant) to work with. The only company I've found worse is Walmart in the US. But US retailers in general like to make one anothers' lives as difficult as possible, even when they depend on each other to even exist, I don't get it! In western europe (aside from a few French companies) most businesses are pretty cooperative, and want to reduce workload not increase it arbitrarily (looking at you US companies, again). I just think Americans love bureaucracy. It reminds me of Futurama with the "central bureaucracy" where everyone there takes pleasure in making things as slow and inefficient as possible.
- ivraatiems 12y ago
  It has nothing to do with bureaucracy. Americans loathe bureaucracy. However, American corporations are highly anti-competition and have been for years. This is an extension of that.
- smackfu 12y ago
  Suppliers and retailers on opposite sides of the table, both trying to get the best deal. I don't know why they wouldn't have an adversarial relationship.
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    You're talking about buying/selling, I am talking about what happens after that has taken place. After a supplier has agreed to sell at X price and a buyer has agreed to buy at X price they're no longer in an adversarial relationship, they're now in a symbiotic one. How is it you think product physically moves from company A to company B? Through osmosis? There are physical trucks, and a ton of technological infrastructure behind the scenes to make that happen (from orders/invoices, through to inventory metadata (e.g. expiry dates), and all of the organisation that has to happen so all the trucks don't appear at the loading dock at the same/wrong time.
Domenic_S 12y ago
Too true. I have a single blog post explaining how to do something useful on Amazon (make a partial payment with a Visa gift card). It got picked up by the Consumerist and other retail-type blogs and actually generated a few hundred $$ a month. Then Amazon shut down my account, kept the affiliate fees, and stonewalled me. They said I had violated a ToS provision that affiliate clicks couldn't be for resale purposes (wtf?). Thankfully I was able to reach out to someone at the executive customer service team, and they actually responded with an "oops, our bad!" It was a very frustrating experience being stonewalled and not even knowing why.

personZ 12y ago

I know Google does the same, but it's not an example to follow. When Google decides that clicks were invalid, they remove the commission and also remove the charges from the advertiser. The fact that they do this, and aggressively fight click fraud, is one of the major reasons they have so little real competition. In the case of Amazon I'm not sure how they could do that...do they cancel all of the orders under the old agreement? Give customers their money back and ask for stuff to be shipped back? As an aside, Amazon's Affiliate program is one of the big vehicles of noise on the net. When authors suddenly decide to write a big blog entry about the best headphones, or the best coffee grinders, etc, invariably you find that it was 100% affiliate fee driven. That might seem like a "well they might as well capitalize", but the corrupting influence of peddling commission goods is unavoidable.

josefresco 12y ago

"Amazon can be a jerk and unilaterally change the rules" Just guessing, but they probably didn't change the rules, only started enforcing rules they weren't prior. Therefore commissions earned would still be "invalid". Considering Amazon fulfilled the orders sent from this affiliate and most likely re-invested the profits in their business (which is the Amazon way), makes it a dickish move.

Someone1234 12y ago

Amazon has a good reputation from consumers, many people in the retail space who deal with them find them quite difficult (and arrogant) to work with. The only company I've found worse is Walmart in the US. But US retailers in general like to make one anothers' lives as difficult as possible, even when they depend on each other to even exist, I don't get it! In western europe (aside from a few French companies) most businesses are pretty cooperative, and want to reduce workload not increase it arbitrarily (looking at you US companies, again). I just think Americans love bureaucracy. It reminds me of Futurama with the "central bureaucracy" where everyone there takes pleasure in making things as slow and inefficient as possible.

ivraatiems 12y ago
It has nothing to do with bureaucracy. Americans loathe bureaucracy. However, American corporations are highly anti-competition and have been for years. This is an extension of that.
smackfu 12y ago
Suppliers and retailers on opposite sides of the table, both trying to get the best deal. I don't know why they wouldn't have an adversarial relationship.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  You're talking about buying/selling, I am talking about what happens after that has taken place. After a supplier has agreed to sell at X price and a buyer has agreed to buy at X price they're no longer in an adversarial relationship, they're now in a symbiotic one. How is it you think product physically moves from company A to company B? Through osmosis? There are physical trucks, and a ton of technological infrastructure behind the scenes to make that happen (from orders/invoices, through to inventory metadata (e.g. expiry dates), and all of the organisation that has to happen so all the trucks don't appear at the loading dock at the same/wrong time.

Domenic_S 12y ago

Too true. I have a single blog post explaining how to do something useful on Amazon (make a partial payment with a Visa gift card). It got picked up by the Consumerist and other retail-type blogs and actually generated a few hundred $$ a month. Then Amazon shut down my account, kept the affiliate fees, and stonewalled me. They said I had violated a ToS provision that affiliate clicks couldn't be for resale purposes (wtf?). Thankfully I was able to reach out to someone at the executive customer service team, and they actually responded with an "oops, our bad!" It was a very frustrating experience being stonewalled and not even knowing why.