My company Tech-Pro Ltd. runs a small network of websites promoting quality software, from which we make a living from affiliate commissions on each referred sale. As a consequence of my links with the independent software developer community and my desire to promote security and trustworthiness it seemed appropriate that I should promote Comodo code signing certificates on our site. I wrote a number of articles and tutorials on code signing and developed a simple freeware tool to assist with signing applications. We registered as an affiliate with Comodo and the hope was that we would earn some income from commissions on the sale of Comodo code signing certificates through our site.
Comodo staff were extremely helpful in getting our account set up, although it took three attempts over several weeks before the account was set up correctly. Alarm bells rang when I received several emails - including some from people I knew - saying that they had purchased certificates via my site, yet no sale has ever showed up in our control panel. About a month ago one of Comodo’s staff produced an Excel spreadsheet showing the sales we had made - and several others - which at least assured me that the system was recording our sales even if I couldn’t see them for myself.
To date, as far as I can recall, Comodo has never requested any information from me in order to make payment of commissions, nor have I received any contact about payment. A recent email to the original support staff I dealt with enquiring as to what the payment policy was and when I might expect to receive payment went unanswered. A support ticket opened on the subject produced a speedy reply that I should contact sales@comodo.com, but when I did as requested no reply was received after several days.
Tech-Pro Ltd. is registered with a number of different affiliate programs and is experienced in what to expect in terms of treatment. I find it quite surprising that Comodo, with its open and friendly image as evidenced by this forum, should turn out to have such a cavalier attitude when it comes to dealing with the affiliates who are helping to promote its products.
Thanks, Melih. I have no problem with that. It would be nice to know what the minimum amount is, and where I stand.
I would also like to know why your online system, which appears to support affiliates as well as resellers (there is a link in the control panel that is supposed to generate reports of affiliate sales) never shows any affiliate sales. I don’t want to have to email people (still less, post complaints in a forum) in order to get information about what sales I have made. In every other program I belong to, I can get real-time reports of sales I generated, so I can see immediately the effect of any promotion efforts I make without bothering anyone.
Affiliate system is a brand new system, things are not as well as a mature system. Your feedback is very valuable to us for making sure we can improve our systems.
thanks
Melih