Flaw in ClickBank HopLinks May Be Costing Affiliates Millions.

I have discovered a major flaw in ClickBank’s affiliate program that may be costing affiliates millions of dollars at the hands of unscrupulous website owners.

The flaw is that it is possible for website owners to create a phony hop link and then use it to promote a fictitious ‘affiliate program’.

They may say something like this: Use the following: http://{YOURCLICKBANKID.EVILWEBSITE}.hop.clickbank.net on their website stating that, for example, they will give you 75% commission on every sale. Next you promote their product/service, perhaps even write a glowing article that drives traffic to the offending site.

But you will check your ClickBank account and see that there are no results. “Bummer”, you will think. “I was sure that this product was a good fit for my site and content. I don’t understand”.

It may not be you. It may be that you have been scammed by an Internet Marketer who played you for a sucker.

Want proof? Below is a fake ClickBank hoplink.Click it. I can assure you that I have nothing for sale on ClickBank and that the link is just something I dreamed up. Purely benign. No harm will be done.

It will bring you to my landing page. This is just plain scary that you could be conned this easily. ClickBank needs to fix this loophole immediately.

This will open a new browser window so you may need to disable pop-ups for a minute.

http://tatumba.tatumba.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SCAMMED

Since this link worked it obviously passed through their servers . The fact that it came back to my landing page means that products can be sold through fraudulent websites, appearing to be tracked by ClickBank, when in fact they are not.

How can you avoid this? The obvious one is that ClickBank needs to fix this security breach, but until they do, make sure that you only get hoplinks from ClickBank, not from another website trying to pimp their products.

I was going to contact ClickBank before publishing this article but I could not find a contact email address on their site and I am not about to phone. I think it is important to get this out ASAP so sorry ClickBank…fix your mess before you lose affiliate marketers.

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