Copeac – Intermark Media Fraud

This page is the long version about my experiences with Copeac - Intermark Media. I posted this for the industry to read, to stand up for myself and other affiliates. I tried for over a year and a half to resolve this situation with Copeac and got lied to over and over again, as you can see in my saved emails and conversations below.

This is documentation which shows Copeac breaching a contract it had with me by removing referrals from my account that were generating me a substantial amount of income.

Copeac was one of the first networks I joined when I came into the affiliate marketing industry. When it all started out, I was a very active member of the affiliate marketing forum WickedFire.com.  If it weren’t for WickedFire I wouldn’t have gotten into the affiliate marketing industry. I don’t post anymore only because I like to stay focused on work. Through the forum, I met Danielle Iovino, (now Danielle Krongel, since she married the CEO of the company Mike Krongel), and we became friends. She was my affiliate manager at the time, and we had a good rapport.

With permission, I spent a year promoting my Copeac referral link so that I could get people to sign up under me with the promise of 2% commissions from anybody I referred. A substantial number of people signed up underneath me and I was on a roll.

Then in the summer of 2008 I logged in to see what my earnings were for the month, and I saw one affiliate had made me 1200 dollars. I figured that $1200 was only 2% of what this guy was making then he must have been crushing some really good offers. The first thing that I did was email Danielle to make sure that I had not made a mistake, and that I was really going to get this guy’s commissions. Below is what I copied from the saved emails.

I asked her:
“I am wondering if you guys plan on keeping the referral program.”

To which she responded:
from Danielle Krongel
to Aden Mott
date Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 1:53 PM
subject RE: Hi Danielle
mailed-by intermarkmedia.com
hide details 7/28/08
Hey Aden,

I’m good and hope you are too J

We just wired you last week for the previous month’s referral.  I’ll
see if the next month is complete, and if so we’ll wire it out.

We are definitely keeping our referral program so no worries there

Not a problem at all to use your COPEAC sign up link like that, I hope
you sign up as many as you can!

I will absolutely be there at ASE from Saturday to Tuesday – call my
cell hunnie!!

Thanks
D

She told me in the email that they would not be getting rid of the program. In August I attended Affiliate Summit East in Boston and met with her face to face. She thanked me for the referral and assured me (in front of witnesses) that I would receive these commissions for life since I was the one who referred him and was entitled to the commissions and even told me the 2 dating campaigns he was running which was generating all of the volume.

After a month or so the referral started earning a lot more. Eventually, he was making me $7 thousand dollars a month, which means he was doing a lot of volume.

Then in the late Fall things started to get shady. Danielle assigned me to another account manager. She explained that she would no longer be handling affiliate accounts since she and Mike were getting married. I was disappointed but assured that I would still be able to go to her if I ever had any issue.

I was then assigned to a guy named Ed whom I met once at Adtech, but we never really clicked. I was not doing any volume with Copeac at the time because they did not have any offers in the niche that I had been focusing on, so Danielle and I started to lose touch.

January 2009 came and I got another wire for around $6k. These are many months now of nonstop cash, and still I was assured that it was not going anywhere. Then in the middle of February all of a sudden the referral’s Direct Track ID disappeared from my account. I had a feeling it was coming eventually, but I never thought these guys would have the balls to do it.

So I waited a day and emailed Danielle.  Here is what I sent to her:

—– Original Message —–
From: Aden Mott
To: Danielle Krongel
Sent: Fri Feb 13 12:49:22 2009
Subject: Hey Hey Danielle
Danielle,

I hope all is going well with you.  I tried to visit you in Vegas, but
I got to your party too late and they would not let me in!

Sorry to bother you with this before the weekend, but because it is
going to be a holiday weekend, I wanted to get some response before
then.

I noticed that the affiliate who I referred and have been making
significant commissions off of for six months now has been removed
from the list on my account.

On Monday the 9th I had over $500 for this month alone earned from
this particular affiliate.  Today I logged in and saw that all of
those earnings were gone as well as his affiliate ID from the list. I
know that none of the AM’s would have any control on this, and I asked
Eddie as well and have not heard anything back.

Can you please look into for me and let me know what’s going on
Thanks much Danielle!

Aden Mott

To which she responded:

from Danielle Krongel
to Aden Mott
date Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 12:54 PM
subject Re: Hey Hey Danielle
mailed-by intermarkmedia.com
hide details 2/13/09
Hey Aden,
Must just be a DT glitch I’ll have it fixed

She tried to tell me it was a Direct Track glitch. I have come to find out from a friend who used to work for DirectTrack that there is no such glitch, it’s impossible.

Anyway, the issue was not fixed. His ID was put back into my account but the earnings stopped. He was no longer producing any money under that ID which told me that they must have asked him to open another account.

I decided I would wait and try talking with Danielle again in a few months, which is what I did.

In April 2009, here is the email, I sent to Danielle:

Aden Mott
to Danielle Krongel
date Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 5:31 AM
subject Follow Up
mailed-by gmail.com
hide details 4/15/09

Danielle,

I hope all is going well with you and everybody at Copeac. So far,
2009 has been the best for me in this industry, and I am expecting a
great year. I look forward to adding some more volume to the campaigns
I have running with your network.

I am writing about the issue with my referral commission. I do not
like to complain or start drama on the forums, so I am hoping we can
straighten this out personally.

I had my referral #(deleted for confidentiality) removed from me. I
should be getting 2% commissions for all earnings that he makes as I
referred him to Copeac. I have not said anything about it yet because
I was hoping that the issue would resolve itself, but it has not. I
haven’t heard a word from my AM since the last email I sent to you
when the issue was resolved. I feel like I am being given a runaround
and honestly it is really shady.

You told me that it was a DT error and I’ve been told since by other
AM’s, one who used to work for DT, that there is no such thing as an
error in the referral side of the programming.

You guys have always been friendly to me so I am hoping we can work
this out. I even read that Copeac was voted one of the most
trustworthy networks by Website Magazine, Congratulations. I only want
what is fair to me as I promoted Copeac for a reason: to get people to
sign up and have success, like I have with your company and many
others since I learned how to run a business in this Industry.

Perhaps the affiliate wanted a raise and somebody over there decided
to cut him from me and change his affiliate ID without carrying over
me as the referrer. If that is the case then there is always the
possibility of going to the merchant for the raise rather than just
cutting out the person who referred him in the first place. I don’t
know who decided to pull him from me but the way that they did it was
wrong and I hope we can work something out.

Please respond at your soonest convenience.

Thanks Danielle

Aden Mott

Below is her response:

Danielle Krongel
to Aden Mott
date Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 9:31 AM
subject RE: Follow Up
mailed-by intermarkmedia.com
hide details 4/15/09
Aden,

When we had that issue, it was my understanding that it was a DT issue
and then it was fixed b/c your ID was then back in that account. If it
is not I will have it added, but I was told it was all fixed.

Since before that issue and since this affiliate started a company
with another pub and they have other accounts in COPEAC under that
company. Id#(removed for confidentiality reasons) is still this pubs
personal account which he can run under but he has not run anything
that he wants paid to his personal name as he now runs all of his
affiliate marketing under his company so there is no money that you
lost at all.

Thanks
Danielle

It was one lie after another. I read about it happening to other affiliates at Copeac and it even happened to a friend of mine, but I figured that my relationship with them would be enough to keep them from doing it to me.

That was the last correspondence I had with anybody from the network until this year, on May 5th, when they assigned some new girl Kristen to my account that had no idea about it ever happening. She started to ping me on AIM trying to get me back into promoting offers with Copeac. Finally, I decided that I would bring up the entire issue again and here is from our AIM conversation pasted below:

Kristen: ok so I got some insight on what the situation was about
Kristen: who did you deal with before me…eddie??
Me: Yes, but not about this.  I spoke directly with Danielle about this
Kristen: okk well I was not around at that time so this is the reason
I am getting…
Kristen: you were removed from his referral because (name removed) was
receiving extremely high payouts and in our policy here is that if a
pub is receiving higher than 85% payout, super commissions are voided.
during his peak, we was receiving payouts of 90+ and in that case you
had to be removed from the referral
Me: That’s not in the contract I had with Copeac
Me: The verbal and written contract said it was commissions for life
Me: and that is also not what I was told at the time
Me: and that policy did not become part of Copeac’s new policy until
after they removed him from my referrals and gave me a different
reason
Kristen: ok and I completely understand where you are coming from,
again I was not here at the time so I am just going by what I was jsut
told.
Me: I know, of course I am not blaming you for any of this
Kristen: oh no I understand I was jsut hoping to find some common ground here
Me: of course
Kristen: again I sincerely apologize for this situation, I wish there
were something else I could do so we can start working together again
Me: I would like find an informal settlement than to have to pursue
this the ugly way. If you could help I would appreciate it
Kristen is away at 2:17:09 PM.

(funny, suddenly she puts her away message up)

Of course I do not have to tell you that she never emailed me, or Pinged me again. That was the end of it… I thought. I was still earning commissions from other people who I had signed up, so I would log in and check every few weeks, until early July when both of my Copeac accounts were closed. I wasn’t given any notice and have never been given a reason why. So not only did they remove one referral from me, they took them all. I asked for an informal settlement because everyone I talk to at all of the networks I work with said that I am entitled to compensation.

The first excuse they gave me was that it was a glitch with Direct Track. The second was that the affiliate had formed a company, and I was no longer entitled to his commissions, and the last one was that the policy had changed and my commissions were voided. When will it
end?

It’s a shame that there isn’t something out there to help protect affiliates in situations like these.  Or perhaps some regulation on networks to stop them from getting away with doing things like this. Everything Copeac did was unethical and illegal. They went about the situation in the wrong way and broke a contract that I had with them. This contract was conveniently changed after they did this to me, but I happened to keep a copy of the original one that I had with them.

Copeac released a new platform today in hopes to appease affiliates that don’t like working with Direct Track, but it won’t stop them from doing this to other people in the future. Fortunately I didn’t let any of this harm my businesses in any way. I have been setting records for myself each year in this industry and am growing with each year. I have found many other networks to do business with that are honest and agree that the situation with Copeac is wrong.

I just want to say beware doing business with this company. You can see through my evidence that I was given the run around, lied to, and ripped off.  This happens too many times to too many affiliates and nobody says anything about it. If it weren’t for affiliates then the networks would be out of business and maybe they should remember that before treating affiliates the way Copeac treated me.