Stupid Is As Stupid Does
When will some merchants learn? If you’re going to participate in public forums, it’s best to stick to the truth or it could come back to bite you in the butt. If you just have to lie, then at least make it a good lie.
There’s a thread over at ABW right now announcing Pets-Warehouse launch on Performics. In that thread, Bob Novak of Pets-Warehouse made the following post:
Bob was responding to some comments by a couple of affiliates regarding possible adware coming into his program moving from an exclusive SAS merchant to running on Performics as well.
The part of his post I’d like to comment on is:
“I had Kelly work with us a while back on suspicious activity.”
First of all it’s Kellie not Kelly. More importantly………….
AffiliateFairPlay has NEVER had any type of business relationship with Bob Novak nor Pets-Warehouse.com.
In case anyone is not unsure, I’ve never worked with Bob on any suspicious activity in his program. There has never been, nor do I doubt there will ever be, any association between myself and Bob.
I can’t even imagine how he came up with posting such or why. Except maybe that he got so caught up in his own spin that his head wound up his ass.
The extent to which I may have assisted Bob along these lines would have to be from the public information that I’ve posted over the years on ABW regarding “parasites” and adware. Of course that information is freely available to any merchant to educate themselves. It’s why I’ve posted there in the past. Maybe I found something in his program years ago and pointed it out in a thread??? That is something I’ve done on ABW numerous times over the years and I doubt I remember each incident. Certainly it wasn’t anything to stand out in my memory. Either of the above certainly doesn’t warrant the implied relatlionship in Bob’s post.
I have never talked to Bob in person.
I’ve never emailed Bob.
I’ve never IM’ed Bob.
I’ve never talked to Bob on the phone.
In fact, my only contact with Bob has been to the extent he has periodically participated on ABW. I *do* recall slapping a temporary ban on him over at ABW when I was a moderator for his persistence disruption of any thread discussing another pet merchant by pimping his own program and bashing all other pet merchants.
To whatever degree affiliate’s may have a favorable perception of a program because they work together with AFP, this should not hold true for Pets-Warehouse, since no such relationship has ever existed. It’s nothing more than spin, and it’s bad spin at that.
I do have very open lines of communicatlion with both SAS and PFX. I expect those to continue. It has absolutely nothing to do with Pets-Warehouse.com however. I’m sure Bob has indirectly benefited from my relationship with SAS. He may well receive some indirect benefit on PFX. But that holds true for all merchant’s on those networks and other networks as well.
Slap me silly, but it seems that if you are trying to boost affiliate’s confidence in the integrity of your program, maybe being honest and not lying about actions you’ve taken to keep your program “parasite-free” (aside from the fact anyone who really does understand the issues recognizes that parasite-free doesn’t exist) is a good way to begin.
But regardless of the marketing approach you take for your program, under no cicumstances try to use my reputation to spin affiliates. Even the merchants I really do work with don’t pull that crap. Every single one of them has honored the tight controls I put in place on how the relationship can be depicted. Controls I’ve put in place to protect against people like Bob.
But fear not, I do see hope on the horizon that maybe Bob will stop pulling this kind of nonsense. Afterall, I see he’s now using his real name over on ABW instead of Henri. 