Almost immediately after posting my 9 affiliate fraud prevention tips on Econsultancy I have received the following question from a merchant:
If we do detect a fraudulent affiliate, do you think it’s standard/best practice to remove him or her from the program without paying out the commissions they’ve “earned”?
“Earned”? I believe “stolen” would be a much better choice of a verb in this context!
You may absolutely do what you’re saying. That’s the whole beauty of performance-based marketing: you agree to pay for the performance you’ve defined. You are never be liable to pay for fake “performance”.
Only one more thing to add: it is a good idea to make sure your program’s TOS points out to banning out violators, forfeiting any commissions credited for unacceptable activity.