Menu
Login
Hello.
I am Skander from Sisko Hosting, a growing web-hosting website attracting thousands of unique visitors every day, reaching 20k visitors at peak times.
In December 2012, we decided to set an ad space program on our website, our marketing team added the ad spaces at strategic locations and in a way that doesn't force users to click them.
I (Skander - CEO) brought hotels combined to the team to review and see if it is a company we could have a friendly long lasting relation with, the website was well designed, and the timing was extremely important, Christmas is coming and 2013 is on it's way.
Our visitors were mostly males of 30 - 50 age, mostly Asian, and this plus the timing were appropriate for an hotel ad to be placed.
We signed up, set things up correctly and started seeing the views climbing, with an acceptable amount of leads.. (to be expected in this holiday season). We basically got 3K views per day, and peaked at 8K views when new year approached.
We accumulated 50.00$ in only 4 days because of good planning, correct timing and visitor interest.
However, today, January 2nd, we received an email saying that out of 124 leads, none booked and that was "unacceptable" and our account was terminated with all funds held.
The Control Panel was misleading, tricking users to believe they were doing things right, and they only terminate your account when you get near the minimum payment.. Hotels Combined is hiding behind the pay per lead scheme to hide their well planned scam project.
We did some research and discovered other users, who unfortunately spent months doing this (we were unfortunate to plan this well enough and to be large enough to accumulate the funds really fast) to end up getting their account terminated when they reach the payout minimum.
This is unacceptable, hiding behind the pay per lead scheme, and requiring hidden bookings that don't even show for users in their CP to trick them when they reach the payout date is unethical and completely disgusting.
We want you, to stop wasting your time, effort and resources and report hotels combined.com to every possible website you can, share the word, and stop their scam.
1st: Target the WOT rating of this company, this is the first thing that tricked us to believe the website was safe. https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/hotels combined.com
2nd: Add more complaints on different scam reporting websites like complaints board.com
3rd: Do NOT fall for "Jordan", he will wander around "replying and showing interest" by saying the same thing, milking users resources and hiding behind "no bookings were made" and ignoring the poor design of the CP and the Pay Per lead cover.
4th: If possible, we could unite together for a well planned lawsuit, funded by Sisko Hosting to stop such unethical disgusting behavior, their terms try to cleverly keep them safe, however this does NOT protect them completely, such people need to be in Jail.
5th: Share this article everywhere.
Thank you for reading and spending your valuable time, stay safe.
Hello FINFREEDOM,
I am sorry to hear the terrible news! What HotelsCombined is doing is disgusting and unethical.
Before other people fall for the scam, and because they simply don't want to cooperate to explain the program better to affiliates.. please tell anyone you know currently using the program to quit it, and add the complaint here.
In large numbers, we can:
-Destroy the company's trustworthiness.
-Rate it RED on WOT.
-Drive everyone away from the website.
-We can file a class action lawsuit if we get enough people engaged.. As an alternative for now, we can report the domain to GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com) for fraud and scams.
I could not figure out the webhost (I only did a small check), so if anyone can get that sorted it would be easier to report them to the webhost running the website.
Thanks!
How much did they pay you first? I'm interested in knowing.
Sisko means Sister in Finnish, so please educate yourself, and no, CISCO won't file a trademark notice because they do have brains to realise the meaning of the name.
Lastly, I would like to thank everyone who posted on forums about these scammers, the goal here is met, Hotelscombined now has a pretty ### reputation, should keep people away from getting scammed.
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/affiliate-programs/477269-dont-use-hotelscombined-com-affiliate-program-scammers.html
That's how they work.
They are not transparent at all, you are one of the few lucky people that even got a payout!
I advice moving away from this company as fast as possible.
Withdrawn
I am an affiliate with them, i actually put there search boxes on dedicated hotel websites who do not have booking facility, I run around at 50% conversion (visitor/lead) based on their graphics. Obviously based on booking received (yes we can track on our side is booking are made via venere, booking or any other booking site, we will see how it comes when reaching payout, though, this month they announced that Paypal payments are delayed due to PP mass payment failure. Will see how it goes
They drop my lead value after I receive first payment. Seem they easily annoying affiliates by drop down the lead value because there is no tracking data for any lead that generate revenue with their provider. The affiliates didn't know which lead that got booking or not. They just only provide the lead value that have been calculated by their own formula. Even more, the calculation in my reports never have the correct sum. How come 1+1=3?
hey skander,
my experience with hotelscombined is the complete opposite. i was an affiliate for over a year, and i never had problems with commissions or payment. it took a while to reach my first payment, but the money went into my account without problems.
i'm interested in a few things i noticed in your email. like it's strange that your company is called "Sisko Hosting". how many people do you think will mistake your company for the large, multinational company "CISCO". i'm sure their lawyers are preparing a trademark infringement notice right now.
and what do you mean by "hiding behind "no bookings were made" and ignoring the poor design of the CP"? if no bookings are made, there's something wrong with your traffic! and i think the control panel is as functional as it needs to be.
so, sorry skander, but i think you just have bad traffic and want to cause trouble. hotelscombined is a great company with an excellent affiliate program, and i'm sure there are many people out there who agree.
hotelosaurus
hey skander,
my experience with hotelscombined is the complete opposite. i've been an affiliate for more than a year now, and i've never had problems with commissions or payment. it took a while to reach my first payment, but the money went into my account without problems, and i'm still going strong.
i'm interested in a few things i noticed in your email. like it's strange that your company is called "Sisko Hosting". how many people do you think will mistake your company for the large, multinational company "CISCO". i'm sure their lawyers are preparing a trademark infringement notice right now.
and what do you mean by "hiding behind "no bookings were made" and ignoring the poor design of the CP"? if no bookings are made, there's something wrong with your traffic! and i think the control panel is as functional as it needs to be.
so, sorry skander, but i think you just have bad traffic and want to cause trouble. hotelscombined is a great company with an excellent affiliate program, and i'm sure there are many people out there who will agree.
Hi Skander,
We have already addressed the issues with your account in our previous email sent on 3/01/2013, but it seems you haven't responded to our email.
Please feel free to reply to our last email to discuss this matter in private. Or you can always email us any time at affiliate@hotelscombined.com. We respond to all affiliate queries within 24 - 48 business hours.
Kind regards,
July
Hi Skander,
After reading your complaint about HotelsCombined just today, I receive an email from them closing my account. After I have spend several months spending my hard earned money on creating targeted ad campaigns that would convert to leads and bookings. I finally created a campaign that was sending lots of traffic daily to their site and now I get this email that the unpaid balance will be forfeited. THIS IS A HUGE SCAM! PLEASE BE WARE! See the email I received below. Please let me know to proceed with a class action lawsuit against the SCAMMERS.
Unfortunately, during our last review we identified an issue with the traffic originating from your account. Specifically, we analysed leads tracked through your account so far and found that none of these leads converted into bookings for our suppliers.
Unfortunately, your traffic has been non-converting and it's unacceptable for our program. As you can imagine, we cannot afford to pay for non-converting traffic that does not generate revenue. It's important to ensure that all business requirements are met and acceptable traffic quality is achieved for our partners.
We cannot charge our supply partners for such leads. As your account generated false revenue, as per our Affiliate Agreement Clause 11.2, please consider this to be your Affiliate Account Closure notice effective immediately. Your remaining unpaid balance will be forfeited.
It has shown that your traffic does not perform well with our program at all. You will probably earn more revenue by partnering with other programs that better suit your site and user’s needs.
Please reply to this email if you wish to discuss further.
Kind Regards,
Affiliate Support Team
www.HotelsCombined.com
Hi Skander,
My name is July and I look after Affiliate Support at HotelsCombined. We are sorry that you are disappointed with our affiliate program. Just to clarify, we are a reputable company with tens of thousands of happy and profitable affiliate partners. Also, our Affiliate Agreement Clause 5.6 and Clause 11, and even the Affiliate FAQs clearly state that although we pay per leads, we require a certain proportion of users to generate revenue for our suppliers. We earn revenue from commissions from our suppliers, and unfortunately we cannot afford to pay for non-converting traffic that does not generate any revenue for us.
Here's the link to our Affiliate Agreement for more info: http://www.hotelscombined.com/Affiliate/AffiliateAgreement.aspx
I'll be sending you an email to discuss about your account and traffic quality issue in more details, so please check your email shortly. Or please feel free to contact us directly at affiliate@hotelscombined.com .
Thank you
Regards
July