We had a surge of bad leads on Email & Zip Submit offers on my network in August, so I’ve been digging into where this traffic is coming from.  The thing that was puzzling me is that some of the fraud leads were coming from established affiliates that we know and have done business with for a long time.  Weird, right?

Upon further examination & questioning, the truth came out.  My affiliates were suckered into hiring freelancers that promised that they could “get lots of email & zip submit leads” for them.  Of course all the freelancers were doing is submitting fake email addresses & zip codes into these offers on a massive scale.  I’m assuming that they were paid up front for their services, so they don’t care what happens to the affiliate once the advertiser discovers the bad leads.

So… If you are cruising eLance or BlackHatWorld and find someone selling their “excellent” email & zip submit marketing services to you, don’t fall for it.  If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Long story short, here’s what will happen: you will not be paid for the fake leads, you will most likely be terminated from your affiliate network, you will scar your reputation in the industry so it will be harder to get into other networks, and you will be out the money that you paid to the freelance scammer.  There are plenty of legitimate ways to promote email & zip submit offers, if you need help just ask your affiliate manager or listen to my podcast with Andrew Wee where I discuss a promotion method.

Stay classy San Diego.