Merchant Site Has Traffic Leaks Probably most common thing I see with affiliate programs. Mostly from newbie merchants that just got their affiliate program started. Most don't realize what they are doing and usually will correct problem once I explain to them how traffic leaks are hurting their business and their affiliate program. Traffic leaks are links on affiliate program site that potential customers can click on and go to other sites... sites that affiliate won't get credit for if visitor buys something. Leaks can consist of third-party banner ads, Google AdSense ads, popups, popunders, text links, etc...

No Phone Sale Tracking With internet market growing so rapidly every year this means more customers are shopping online. Alot of them will call merchants 800 number to call in their order instead of submitting it online. Where does this leave you? The merchant gets cash on sale while you get stiffed. So when evaluating an affiliate program be sure to check to see if merchant has measures set up to track phone orders for affiliates. It is simple to set up and it puts affiliates ID number next to phone number. So when customers call in they are asked for that number so they can manually credit appropriate affiliate for sale.

No Replies To Your Emails If they do have their email address on their site and you send them an email but they never reply then you should drop them like a hot rock. If you can't trust them to take one minute to give you a reply then you shouldn't trust them to spend a few more minutes cutting and mailing you a check.

Returned Affiliate Payment Checks If they do send you a check and your bank returns it then this would be another reason to draw up red flag of being scammed. Of course you should always contact merchant to try to resolve issue, it could be an honest mistake. But if it happens in conjuction with no email replies and lousy affiliate support then I wouldn't waste anymore of my time with them.

The bottom line is that you should always use your gut feeling when dealing with affiliate programs. If you are not sure about an affiliate program then search search engines for merchants name. If they are known for scamming affiliates you are sure to find it in search engines and affiliate forums.