Rakuten Marketing

Review: I've been discussing login-related issues for Rakuten Marketing ([redacted]) and the customer service staff refuses to admit that I even have an account. The email account attached to the Rakuten Marketing account is [redacted] and I've been using the username [redacted] for the login.Desired Settlement: "Finish the job" just comes closest. Mostly I just want a solution for the login issues I've been having and I'd like for the customer service people to quit lying and saying that I don't have an account.

Business

Response:

To whom it may concern:We believe that we have satisfied the customer's complaint. Please see the attached screen shot of our online correspondence.Sincerely, Rakuten Marketing

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID[redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me and the matter has been resolved.

Sincerely,

Review: "This company is actually doing more harm than good to its affiliates and merchants and i'll explain in the coming lines.

Before I proceed, Revdex.com please take note of these complaints.

Keep in mind, there are literally thousands of terminated affiliates and I would explain why linkshare keeps banning endlessly.

Till date I have personally generated over $190,000 and my fellow affiliates have done more than $100,000,000 in sales volume for companies like walmart and best buy, that linkshare has banned without payment.

Linkshare waits until this kind of large funds has been generated and then they kick these affiliates out and keep the money for themselves.

They then recruit more affiliates and repeat the same process over and over again, I know this because it has happened to me and 1000 other affiliates like me. You can [redacted], --linkshare account termination-- to see the egregious reputation they have.

To substantiate my earlier claim that linkshare is ripping off merchants and affiliates, take a look at this site==>> [redacted] Note- the site is owned by [redacted]inkshare (more investigation need to be done

on this site, i'm sure more digging would expose lots more).

These are the steps they use to scam mostly affiliates and merchants.

the site is owned by [redacted]inkshare, now

what they do is they mass install a virus program on millions upon millions of computers online called one cause toolbar.

Next thing is, anytime real affiliates and 100's of other top affiliates make sales through search ads and normal advertising, the virus they have on these systems changes the referrer to onecause.com and they basically steal this commission in the name of "Good/Charity Donation".

Revdex.com please check this issue and do your investigation, merchants should literally run away from a company like this, I am ready to answer any question you guys have about this unscrupulous company.

Furthermore, Rakuten Linkshare sees the life blood of their business, which are affiliates, with utter contempt. Can you imagine that some merchants on linkshare do not pay their affiliates. Some affiliates have been waiting for payment for over one year, some couple of months, some several years e.t.c All linkshare says is "we cannot process payments unless these merchants pays us".Although, this is bad business practice, but why would you still keep these merchants in their system? what is the reason? monetary gain?

Their so called reputation? what?

On the other hand, they terminate affiliates at will, saying, "we can terminate affiliates anytime without reason" after stealing their commission i.e like they did to me. The SEC and FBI should look into some of linkshare's terms and policies as lots of them are illegal.

I really do not know how these huge scam has survived for a very long time, People are just talking both no one seems to be taking serious action.

Myself and other scammed affiliates plan to report them to the appropriate authorities.

I Hope you take this information seriously and look into it.Desired Settlement: I want this company to change its attitude towards affiliates and re-access its terms and policies, furthermore I want my account reinstated and my owed payments sent to me. I also hope they do this to other affiliates who have been unfairly treated.

Business

Response:

Rakuten LinkShare (“LinkShare”) is in receipt of the complaint letter dated Friday, December **, 2013 regarding ID [redacted].

It is difficult to know where to start in responding to [redacted]’s complaint…

First, please note that [redacted] was removed from the LinkShare Network because he was found to be engaging in several forms of conduct that violate LinkShare’s Publisher Membership Agreement. [redacted]’s activities also violated the terms and conditions of a number of our Advertiser customers – who are the ones that pay publishers for valid customer referrals. Any commissions that [redacted] believes he earned were therefore invalid, and they will not be paid to [redacted] under any circumstances.

Second, LinkShare is an affiliate marketing network that allows online publishers to partner with online advertisers to deliver customers in return for commissions. LinkShare was one of the pioneers in online affiliate marketing, has been in business for more than fifteen years, and was acquired in 2005 by Rakuten, Inc., a publicly traded Japanese company. LinkShare has been named the #1 Affiliate Marketing Network for two consecutive years by mThink’s Online Advertising Blue Book. None of these would have been possible if LinkShare was actually a scam, as alleged by [redacted]. These allegations are absurd on their face.

Third, LinkShare does not own onecause.com. Onecause.com is owned by a corporate affiliate of LinkShare’s, FreeCause, Inc., and as such is subject to the same requirements as any other publisher using downloadable software to generate customer referrals. The Onecause software passed LinkShare’s testing at the time that it was introduced, and has passed all subsequent tests as well. If [redacted] has any actual evidence that the Onecause software is in fact operating in violation of LinkShare’s terms and conditions, we invite him to provide that evidence to us so that LinkShare may conduct an appropriate investigation.

Fourth, LinkShare is committed to ensuring advertisers pay publishers for valid commissions. To be clear, commissions are obligations from the advertisers to the publishers. LinkShare provides a service to network advertisers whereby LinkShare distributes such commissions to publishers on the advertisers’ behalf. This service does not make LinkShare liable for the failure to pay such commissions. Notwithstanding this fact, LinkShare does in fact include an obligation to pay publishers’ commissions in its agreements with advertisers. LinkShare also advocates on behalf of publishers in collection discussions with Advertisers, and often takes less than the compensation it is contractually entitled to in order to allow publishers to be paid as much as possible. While it is true that we do not immediately terminate advertisers for failing to pay publishers in full, this is not analogous to our taking swift action against publishers that take actions that threaten the integrity of the LinkShare Network.

LinkShare’s actions vis-à-vis such collection efforts on publishers’ behalf do not, however, absolve the publishers’ independent obligation to protect their own respective business interests. The publishers are independent businesses, and enter into separate legally binding agreements with the advertisers. If a publisher is unhappy with the payment practices of an advertiser, it can reduce the effort it devotes to that advertiser, leave that advertiser’s program entirely, or even bring suit to enforce its contractual right to payment.

Finally, [redacted]’s comments about LinkShare are simply false. We will be consulting with legal counsel about possible defamation action against [redacted]. We will also be informing FreeCause, Inc. about the potentially defamatory statements made by [redacted] about OneCause in his complaint.

Unfortunately for [redacted], we are unable to provide him with his desired settlement. [redacted] used practices that were prohibited by our Publisher Membership Agreement and by a number of our Network advertisers’ program terms and conditions, and as a result, any commissions he believes that he earned are invalid, and are not payable by our Network advertisers. Further, we take pride in our treatment of our Network publishers. That is, we do our utmost to improve the experience of publishers that operate within the rules, and we make no apologies for promptly removing publishers that do not. We will continue to protect the integrity of the LinkShare Network by removing publishers that we identify violating our terms and conditions.

It's not the first time to shop on rakuten ,but it will be last time !

Review: On March **, 2015 I posted a ad on [redacted] to sell my stove, washer and dryer. On that same day a [redacted] emailed me saying they would buy it all and asked for my address so they could mail me a check for my items. She also stated that they wanted me to take the posting down and not to sell the items to anyone else. In turn I was to get the check and keep $550.00 of it and [redacted] the other portion to some guy that was going to pick up the items. I received the check on March **, 2015. When I opened it the check was for $1985.00 which seemed to be way too much to pay me and then for a person to move it. The check was from [redacted] from New York but the envelope says Service Corporation International from Houston, TX. I tried calling the bank it was written from [redacted] and they told me they could not verify the check to take it to my bank and have them verify it. I took it to [redacted] only to find out the check is fraudulent. Twenty minutes later [redacted] contacts me through email and says she knew the check was delivered and that they thought I was scamming them because they had not heard from me yet. I did email her and told her that I had the check checked out only to find that they were trying to scam me instead. I have not heard anything else.Desired Settlement: I think that these people should have to pay me for holding my items when I had others that were interested in purchasing them. They have really inconvenienced me and now I am stuck with items in a house that I am no longer residing in and have no means to move them.

Business

Response:

To whom it may concern:We are in receipt of the above referenced complaint. While we are sympathetic to [redacted]’s situation, we unfortunately cannot agree to grant her desired settlementbecause we played no role in the scam that [redacted] describes, whatsoever, and because we have no business relationship with [redacted] whatsoever. We were not at fault here in any sense, and therefore cannot compensate [redacted] for her apparent losses. We note further that [redacted] is seeking recover for money that she lost only because she withdrew her goods from [redacted]. In fact, it’s certainly possible that she would not have sold them at all, even had she not pulled them from [redacted] does not guarantee that items listed on its site will sell, and indeed, [redacted] does not appear to have received any other offers during the time that her appliances were listed on [redacted] is not a customer of Rakuten Marketing. At the outset, we question why this complaint was submitted to the Revdex.com at all. The complaint does not allege that [redacted] is a customer of Rakuten Marketing's, and in fact makes no allegation of any connection to Rakuten Marketing whatsoever. Rakuten Marketing (formerly known as LinkShare) operates an online affiliate marketing network. This network allows online retailers to partner with independent websites (which we call “publishers”) and pay these publishers commissions for the retailers’ sales that are attributed to specific publishers. These commissions are tracked, tallied monthly, and distributed after we receive payment for these commissions from the applicable online retailers. Our network distributes payments to thousands of publishers every month. [redacted] is not a publisher in our network, nor is this dispute based on her shopping through one of the Advertisers thatwe work with through the network.Rakuten Marketing's Check Security Measures Quickly Identified as Invalid the Check Presented to [redacted]Based on the description of the check sent to [redacted], it appears that the check used in the scam was based on a check issued by LinkShare more than a year ago. A call to our office would have confirmed that fact, as well as the fact that the check was not valid. We have worked with our banks to implement security features that are intended to minimize the potential for abuse. These systems are effective if common sense steps are followed – such as the steps [redacted] took when she looked into the validity of the check. In fact, these security systems worked, as evidenced by the fact that [redacted] very quickly confirmed that the check was invalid. It was [redacted]'s decision to pull her appliances from [redacted] -- based on an offer that she immediately identified as suspicious -- that is the more direct cause of her inability to sell her appliances here.We are not liable for [redacted]'s alleged losses because we had nothing to do with a scam that [redacted] should have been aware of and that she in fact thwarted.Rakuten Marketing did not issue the check in question, as was confirmed by [redacted]. Rakuten Marketing has never authorized any person to alter its checks for any purpose. Rakuten Marketing in fact incurs costs to prevent such abuses. But Rakuten Marketing is of course unable to prevent someone intent on wrongdoing from forging a check that appears to be from us. That does not mean that we have any responsibility for a criminal act that we had absolutely nothing to do with.We also note [redacted] posts warnings to its sellers on its website under a link on its home page entitled “avoid scams and fraud.” These warnings include: “Don't accept cashier/certified checks or money orders - banks cash fakes, then hold you responsible,” and “Never wire funds (e.g. [redacted]) - anyone who asks you to is a scammer.” In fact, [redacted] includes a specific example of fraud that is almost exactly what happened here: "Distant person offers to send you a cashier's check or money order and then have you wire money: This is ALWAYS a scam in our experience—the cashier's check is FAKE. Sometimes accompanies an offer of merchandise, sometimes not. Scammer often asks for your name, address, etc. for printing on the fake check. Deal often seems too good to be true.[redacted] also includes a number of examples of scams, including one that proposes delivering a check in an amount in excess of the purchase price and a request to wire funds back:… Since the cost of your bike is $800 I just contacted my client about the cost of your bike and it present condition and he said there is no problem about that. So my client said he will be issuing you a Certified Check of $4000 while you wire 3000 to me through [redacted] Money Trasfer and you deduct the cost of your bike $800 and keep the remaining $200 which my client said you should take for the terms of Transaction and Agreement between you and my client…"Had [redacted] followed the warnings that [redacted] makes to its users, she would have presumably not pulled her listing and may have been able to sell her appliances.We are not unsympathetic to [redacted]’s situation, and we regret that she was unable to sell her appliances. We are not, however, responsible for her apparent losses. In any event, we had nothing whatsoever to do with the proposed transaction, and are therefore unable to offer her any money for her inability to sell her appliances. We do ask that [redacted] forward the check she received to us so that we can investigate the matter more thoroughly. We would not expect, however, that we will be able to connect the forged check to any of the legitimate checks that we have issued, or to any person or persons. But if she is willing to do so, we will look into the matter on our end. We would propose that [redacted] send us a copy of the check through the Revdex.com, if that is amenable to the Revdex.com.We trust that this matter is now closed.Sincerely,Rakuten Marketing LLCTell us why here...

Review: LinkShare stopped paying me affiliate compensation. They currently owe me $316.34. After many years being an affiliate through [redacted]'s affiliate program (administered by LinkShare) they suddenly stopped paying me after I received my October 2012 check. Since then I have referred $903.82 dollars worth of business to them and earned: November 2012 - $5.25 December 2012 - $124.24 January 2013 - $99.35 February 2013 - $87.50 For a total of $316.34 I contacted them directly and through LinkShare starting February [redacted]. Message sent again 3/*. Message sent again 3/*. Message sent again 3/**. Message sent again 3/**. Message sent again 4/**. I opened Revdex.com Case ID: [redacted] on April [redacted] and was in contact with [redacted] who resolved the issue on their end and forwarded my payment to LinkShare in early May (per [redacted]) I allowed time for the payment to flow through the process and contacted LinkShare again on June [redacted] and July [redacted]. Both times I got a reply similar to "We are looking into it and will get back to you." They have never once actually got back to me. It is now August [redacted] My LinkShare SiteID is: [redacted]Desired Settlement: Pay me the $316.34 owed.

Business

Response:

Dear [redacted]:

Rakuten LinkShare is in receipt of the complaint letter dated Friday, August *, 2013 regarding ID [redacted].

Please note that Rakuten LinkShare has looked into the issue detailed in the above complaint and have concluded that the reason [redacted] was not paid commission for November, December 2012, January and February 2013 is because they were denied by [redacted].

In order for [redacted] to be paid any pending commissions, he would need to reach out to [redacted] as per the terms and conditions of their executed agreement.

All commissions that have been approved were or will be paid to [redacted].

Additionally, we have done all we can on our part to resolve this issue; however, if you need further information, please do not hesitate to contact me at [redacted] or ###-###-####.

Best,

Senior Contracts Manager

Review: January 2014 Linkshare sent me a form stating that I had not deposited a check in the amount of $17,751.27 dated 12/**/2010 and instructed me to complete the form and have it notarized and return it to them to get the check reissued.

I immediately did as they requested. Months later I still did not receive a replacement check so I started emailing and leaving voicemails and not getting any response. Finally in July I contacted someone by phone and was told the compliance department would need to sign off on releasing the check.

I emailed the compliance department and received this response:

The reason why we terminated your account is because you did not provide full transparency into your traffic generation methods to a member of our Network Quality Team, [redacted]). If you want to appeal our decision, please respond in full, complete detail to her past inquiries into your business model and traffic generation methods

What the compliance department is referring to is after years of being a [redacted] and generating tens of thousands of dollars in sales, On January *, 2013 they wanted to know how I was doing it. I didn't respond to their request. They terminated my account.

To get my payment I responded with: I own 6000 plus domain names so unless you can come up with a time machine and go back in time and register domain names you can't replicate what I can do. I don't pay [redacted] or anyone else for any clicks. I generated paid sales where you and your customers have benefited from each and every sale. I would understand your concern if I were being paid on a per click basis.

Are you saying that you are withholding commissions from me that you have already been paid for?

They ignored my response.

The result of all this is Linkshare is keeping the money they collected from [redacted] in 2010 and their justification is that years later they foolishly terminated my account. I am not only out the $17,751.27 but I also paid 33% income tax on this amount.Desired Settlement: The $17,751.27 they collected from [redacted] and decided to keep.

Business

Response:

Rakuten Marketing LLC f/k/a LinkShare Corporation (“Rakuten Marketing”) is in receipt of the complaint letter dated Tuesday, March *, 2014 regarding ID [redacted].

Please note [redacted], was a [redacted] in the Rakuten Affiliate Network and agreed to the online click-wrap terms and conditions detailed within the [redacted] Membership Agreement on the Rakuten Marketing website. To participate in the [redacted] Network with Rakuten Marketing advertiser clients, Rakuten Marketing requires [redacted]., to provide transparency into the traffic generation which leads to commissioned sales so that Rakuten Marketing can ensure that no fraudulent transactions have occurred.

Our team tried to work with [redacted] of [redacted]., over a period of a few months which has been documented extensively. Multiple requests were made for transparency into the traffic generation methods, but documentation was never made available to Rakuten Marketing. Therefore [redacted]., was removed from the Rakuten Marketing [redacted] Network.

Rakuten Marketing issued a check on January *, 2011 to [redacted]., for a total amount of $17,751.27, the exact amount in question. [redacted]. cashed this check on January **, 2011. Rakuten Marketing believed the issue to be closed.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me and the matter has been resolved.

Sincerely,