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Denied Affiliate Programs

So what is a denied affiliate program? quite simply it is an affiliate program where we applied and were turned down.

To end up on this page, a Company needs to have not only subscribed to a number of dubious assumptions, but then made a set of mistakes which cause problems because of those assumptions.

The first mistake they need to have made is to assume that they can control who links to them. In the general case, this is an obvious fallacy, but in the specific case of affiliate marketing there is some justification for saying that it is possible. Of course the persistence of pages, and the ability to forward the link to friends who have been accepted makes a bit of a nonsense of this. Even if it were possible, the question of who they want to be second on search engines usually has not been considered.

The next dubious assumption they have to agree with is that it is a good idea to do this, which makes it a permission based programme. As a well run affiliate program doesn't cost the merchant anything to have an add displayed, this is free advertising. The only time there should be any cost is either per lead, or per sale, depending on the merchant's business model. In other words, no result, no cost.

Then they typically have to decide to manually approve people for the programme. Generally, this takes way too long (the worst case I've experienced so far is six months), and generally leads to hasty and incorrect results, most of which seem to get overturned on appeal. A number of these bad decisions are offensive (with comments like "We don't want to be associated with a site like yours!"). Others are just plain silly (like the refusal of this site for a charity credit card program when we already promote both the charity in question and credit cards). Similarly, turning us down for an expired affiliate program doesn't really add up in most cases. In any case, the number and high percentage of u-turns implies that there are serious problems with how they work in practise.

Companies can have denied us from an affiliate programme for a number of reasons, and some of these reasons are quite good. If they tell us why and it is reasonable, it might be moved to the expired programs page. Others reasons are not so good, but mostly the reason is not given and is also hard to find out when you appeal, especially as some of the merchants won't talk to affiliates.

If you are on this page and don't like it, talk to us, and we may be able to do something about it.

Here is a list of those that have denied us, won't talk to us, and which we would like to have change their mind:

  1. Alliance and Leicester personal loans denied at OMG
  2. Alliance and Leicester premier direct current account denied at OMG
  3. Bank of Scotland credit card - denied at Commission Junction when they changed their conditions
  4. Boat U.S. insurance denied at Commission Junction
  5. Capital One Credit cards bounced from the program at Commission Junction because they only want the top few affiliates
  6. Capital One loans denied at Commission Junction even though we are on the Capital One savings account program
  7. Citibank Credit Cards denied at Commission Junction
  8. Direct line insurance denied at Tradedoubler
  9. Easymoney car insurance denied at OMG
  10. Elephant.co.uk insurance denied at OMG
  11. Endsleigh car insurance denied at OMG
  12. Guitar Trader denied at Commission Junction
  13. Harrods denied at Tradedoubler
  14. Hilton Hotels denied at Tradedoubler
  15. Homechoice denied at Commission Junction
  16. Jury's Doyle Hotels denied at Tradedoubler
  17. Kodak denied at Commission Junction
  18. Liverpool Victoria car insurance denied at OMG
  19. Liverpool Victoria home insurance denied at OMG
  20. Lloyds tsb credit card denied
  21. Lobstergram denied at Commission Junction
  22. Marbles Credit Card denied at Commission Junction
  23. Marks & Spencer denied at Commission Junction
  24. MBNA platinum credit card denied at OMG
  25. MBNA points credit card denied at OMG
  26. MBNA WWF credit card denied at OMG
  27. Money Search Loans denied at Commission Junction
  28. More Than, for arbitrary reasons
  29. Morgan Stanley Credit Cards denied at Commission Junction
  30. NatWest Business accounts denied at Tradedoubler
  31. Newspaper Subscriptions denied at Commission Junction
  32. NTL Broadband - bought by virgin and denied from the new program
  33. Orchard Bank Credit Card denied at Commission Junction (problems from their lawyers, but at least they will talk to us)
  34. Ramada Jarvis Hotels denied at Tradedoubler
  35. Safeway denied at Commission Junction
  36. Tesco denied at Tradedoubler
  37. The GM Card denied at Tradedoubler
  38. Trend Micro denied at Commission Junction
  39. Virgin Media denied
  40. World Perks Credit Card denied at Commission Junction