The other day most people agreed that Joel Comm’s ebook offer that enrolled you in a subscription in the fine print was a scam. Even Joel apologized for being less than than perfect when launching and modified his offer.

However many of the popular Cpa companies that you always see banners for like AzoogleAds, NeverBlue Ads, Rocket Profit, Market Leverage, and on and on ALL have tons of these type of scammy offers on their network and make tons of money from them.

I know some great people at a few CPA networks and hope they don’t take it personally but Cpa networks suck because they run fraudulent offers in my opinion, and hopefully they will clean up their act.

The Fine Print Is Fraud

I’ve seen a few people around the blogosphere say that it’s the buyers fault if they don’t read the fine print and get defrauded.

You might think these people live in a fairy tale land, but each person that is FOR fraudulent offers also makes good money from them, go figure.

Imagine a world where it was OK to place “gotcha” clauses in the fine print or change the contracts in the fine print:

“Congrats on signing your new mortgage for $150,000 - woops you didn’t read the fine print, you were only paying for the keys to the house not the actual house, sucker!”

“sorry that nintendo on ebay you paid $500 for said in the fine print you were only buying a picture of the nintendo, gotcha!”

The world doesn’t work that way because promising one thing and delivering another is called fraud and it’s illegal.

Are CPA Offers Illegal?

I don’t know because I’m not a lawyer however I wouldn’t recommend most of the offers on these networks to friends or family because they are very deceptive.

Also, one of the companies I mentioned above has payed 1 million to the florida attorney general to settle a fraud case.

The Joel Comm ebook wasn’t the first time I mentioned paying for one thing and getting something else, check out this post for an exact example of one of the offers running on these networks when I was first starting to smell something fishy: Do You Promote Things You Would Recommend Your Friends And Family Run Away From?

Pissing In The Well

Many people call it “pissing in the well” when you are screwing the very people that should be staying online spending their money or the tragedy of the commons.

I only mentioned fraudulent offers before, however many cpa networks also run borderline spyware offers that install toolbars etc. on peoples computers.

Let me show you a real example of how by screwing people over you aren’t just pissing in the well but poisoning the people as well.

My sister called the other day because she couldn’t get online. Long story short she had spyware that was blocking her until she downloaded and paid for some spyware removal software.

When I got off the phone with her I wondered if I didn’t know the person who put the crap on her computer and which company they are getting paid from?

But here is the kicker how you are poisoning the well: She couldn’t get on the friggin internet anymore so she is no longer a consumer to buy your stuff and click your ads!!!!!!!

People that get defrauded or opted into things and then can’t find phone numbers to unsubscribe are less likely to buy more legitimate stuff in the future.

The worse the online experience is for people the worse it is for people that plan on hanging around in this industry for awhile and my opinion is most CPA networks are making things worse by taking money from people by defrauding them.

Where Are The Product Super Affiliates?

I’m sure that CPA offers only account for a small percentage of the total online buying, so why does it account for 90% of the mindshare in the make money online world?

Almost every “super affiliate” that blogs is one because they are promoting these fraudulent offers.

Where are the super affiliates that are making a killing with amazon, or walmart, or zappos, or selling real products?

I think for the newer blood coming online to make money, we need more people like that blogging also, or at least more of a balance.

Are there any legit Cpa networks?

The only cpa network that I found that had mostly real offers and products was PepperJam Network, however I didn’t look at every single offer there but they look however I’m not sure if they are really a “cpa network”.

Am I wrong, are there any companies that have offers that I could recommend my Mom use or don’t defraud people?

Currently I wouldn’t in a million years send her to most of the offers on the Cpa networks I mentioned in the beginning of this post.

Of course there are many great, honest affiliate networks that sell mostly products and not “offers” like Amazon.com, cj.com, linkshare.com, and on and on.

Avoid CPA Networks

I don’t like being a victim of fraud so I don’t want to do it to others and that is why I stay away from cpa companies.

I also don’t run any offers on these networks because I’d rather just take my marketing efforts elsewhere instead of making these shady folks more money.