I was browsing the Warrior Forum, getting my daily fix of information when I came across this post that suggested banning PayPal from the Warrior Forum, meaning no more Warrior Special Offers could be listed using PayPal as a payment processor.
Would this be a bad thing? Well actually I think it would but that post brought up some interesting discussion. It’s clear to see that listing a Warrior Special Offer using PayPal as a payment processor can put your account at risk and here’s why. Imagine this scenario?
You’ve been doing well online, putting around $500 – $1000 through your PayPal account each month. Things are looking good and your business is growing each month.
You then decide you want to create a Warrior Special Offer to teach others your skills. So you list your offer and set up an affiliate program, your Warrior Special Offer becomes a huge success and makes WSO of the day and you generate $10,000 in sales within 48 hours.
You are celebrating, you’ve made it, this is it, the big one, champagne all round, let’s book a vacation, I think I’ll look at buying a new car, the new iPad 3, woooo hoooo.
Later that day you login to your PayPal account to check your balance only to be greeted by this message …
… Your PayPal account has been limited.
Why would this happen? Well first of all if you’ve just gone from a $50 day to a $10,000 day flags will be raised as PayPal want to know what’s up. There’s a chance you’ll have some refund requests as you’ve just processed a ton of sales and you may even have the odd charge-back, and at this moment in time PayPal have no idea what’s going on. So it’s inevitable that a member of staff will check this out.
And what do they see? An outrageous title, crazy income claims, promises of instant success and automated wealth, (yes, I know not all WSO’s are like this but many are) and a payment button that tracks back to an Internet Marketing forum. Put yourself in the reps shoes, what would you do?
Of course you would limit the account pending further investigation.
This is happening time and time again because so many WSO sellers are too inexperienced to know better. They don’t think for a second that they may be breaking PayPal’s TOS. In fact most WSO’s are breaking at least one of PayPal’s terms by not having a privacy policy in place.
This is where the problem lies, most Warrior Special Offers don’t go through any form of approval process, you could be making tons of mistakes and you would never know and the first you would know about it is when PayPal terminate your account. It’s a very dangerous game to play.
So how can we stop this happening? Well the simple solution is to use ClickBank.
I have already given you 10 reasons why ClickBank is the perfect platform for WSO’s and there is one reason I actually forgot about, here it is.
When you list a product via ClickBank it has to go through an approval process. This reason alone is a reason to use ClickBank, they will tell you if you need to change any income claims, titles, statements, testimonials and in fact anything else that may be against their terms.
However, once your product is approved you are free to list it on the Warrior Forum as a Warrior Special Offer
But John, how do I list a WSO using ClickBank?
Simple, you invest a measly $10 in WSO Domination. This walks you through everything you need to know, step by step.
With more and more people losing their PayPal accounts people are looking for a solution, ClickBank is the solution.
Remember where you heard it first.
47 Comments
zora
March 15, 2012Thanks John,
Good information thanks for inviting me over here and showing some of the problems ans giving a solution.
Regards
Zora
john richards
March 15, 2012Hi john
This is great information, again i didnt realise you can use paypal as a paying vendor on wso, ive already grabed your wso dominitor and its superb you leave nothing behind for $10 john have you been hit on the head with a bar, $110 would be a realistic price but john thornhill is the real marketer giving quality value and knoledge and affordability, without the john thornhill master class mentoring program i wouldnt be where i am today so anybody who wants to get to the next level grab the wso dominator before johns bump on the head wears off, and list a wso successfully and make your money back with your first listing.
Peace of love guys
John Richards
Richard Arendt
March 15, 2012Thank you John for giving me this valuable information.
Kind regards,
Ricky,
Mandy@LearnToBlog
March 15, 2012Excellent points you’ve made, John. I got so much information from WSO Domination and it was worth every penny it cost me. I know when my own WSO is ready I will not be making the mistakes you set out as I will follow your plan of action.
Enjoy the journey.
Mandy
James @ Internet Marketing Blog
March 15, 2012I’m considering launching a WSO so this information will come in handy.
The last time I did one was about 2 years ago but it’s different beast now is WSO.
Thanks anyway John, if I do launch a WSO I may just pick up your course.
Cheers
James Scholes
Gary Jenkins
March 15, 2012Thanks John that is very good information. I’ve never run an WSO, but my online store has run into that very same problem several times.
Paypal would have a cow if they saw a bunch of payments from an Internet Site other than ebay.
Thanks again,
Gary
Alan's Internet Marketing
March 15, 2012John… that’s an effin’ good post. It’s only now I’m getting results I’m starting to see how everything I’ve built has been on a foundation of sand. Not having the correct legal forms, not backing up websites in case of hackers… and not protecting myself by thinking more about payment processors. Thanks!
Glen
March 15, 2012Hi John,
I bought your WSO Domination when you first released it some time back, and it was a huge eye-opener, particularly when you pointed out the massive impact that having your Papal account limited or terminated when using WSO Pro.
So I’ve done exactly as you suggested and started to set p my WSO using Clickbank as the processor.
The problem is that I stuck a snag, and I can’t seem to get a clear answer to this anywhere
You see I opened up a Clickbank account and set up my main product (which is for a $67 piece of software)
(The $67 price of the software is the ‘normal’ price, and not the special WSO price)
Then I decided to create a WSO for a $ 5 product which basically was a pre-sell product with an upgrade to the full price software.
Now, I know I can set up both products in the one Clickbank account, because they are closely related, but you can only create one Hoplink target URL per account, so I’m stumped as to how to go from here.
And Clickbank support haven’t been any help really.
Maybe you can do a another $5 WSO and step through this whole process of of setting up products in that way using Clickbank (I know you covered it briefly in WSO Domination).
Thanks again
Glen
John Thornhill
March 15, 2012Glenn,
I cover exactly how to do this in WSO domination, remember that you need to use the ClickBank Affiliate Master software that is also included with WSO Domination.
Just follow the videos and you should be fine.
Hope this helps.
John
Pauline Bennett
March 15, 2012Hi John
I have not set up an WSO yet but am thinking it for the future and have heard some nightmare stories about PayPal so thanks for the info regarding ClickBank.
I have been considering promoting an affiliate offer on WSO and wondering if I should do this as it needs me to allow it to access my PayPal account? I would love your feedback on this
Have a great day
Pauline
John Thornhill
March 15, 2012Hi Pauline,
As far as I’m concerned you are taking the exact same risks when promoting a WSO that uses PayPal. Some processors are ‘safer’ than others but if you promote a hyped up product what a suspicious title you are taking the exact same risks as the seller.
Remember that none of these products have gone through any form of approval process.
John
Pauline
March 16, 2012Thanks for the advice John I am now re-thinking the product I was going to promote and maybe stick to ClickBank, I really do not want to mess up my PayPal account.
Pauline
Carl Picot
March 15, 2012Hi John
It seems that you are making sense out of what is going on at the moment with Paypal. It is a shame as there are so many affiliate opportunities using Warrior Plus, but as you say, there needs to be some kind of regulatory body that oversee’s the standard of the products, in comparison to the claims made by the sellers.
I guess that the ‘Wild West’ nature of the Online selling game is slowly drawing to an end… but it’s nice that the ethical marketers such as yourself have set the standards for others to live up to. It is a shame that the net has gotten such as bad name that you have to advertise that you are actually ethical and honest on your blog, as really it should be like that all around….
But no doubt those days will come sometime in our future…
Thanks for the good advice. I’ll keep up with this with interest
cheers
xxxxcarlxxxx
Shireen
March 15, 2012Another great post, thanks john.
I’ve bought your WSO domination a few month back.
Base on your detail instructions, I’ve set up my 1st WSO
http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-special-offers-forum/272239-discover-how-i-quit-my-job-make-full-time-income-selling-info-products-ebay.html#post2719354
Thanks john
Martyn Moss
March 15, 2012Keep up the good work John: I would never have thought about it,
Good man
Kevin Long
March 15, 2012Hi John,
I also read that post, and I must say it gave me food for thought, but personally speaking I followed your WSO Domination and didn’t have any problems with my first WSO,(except my Buy Now button not working that you sorted for me.lol), and like you say, before I got approved on CB I had to tweek a couple of minor things which didn’t comply with their TOS’s, it was sorted really quick and excepted.For any one looking to do a WSO, invest in John’s program and do it the right way first time, learn by John’s mistakes, not your own, that’s the importance of having a mentor.
Thanks for the great post John.
Kevin
Terry Cummings
March 15, 2012Hi All,
Whilst most people need to be care about using Paypal their is one thing that John has not said about using Clickbank. If you are in Europe then you are going to pay more than the amount stated on the sales pages.
VAT is added to the amount.
Whilst this is usually not much extra it is still not fair to us in EEC when the rest of the world pays just the price stated.
Because of this I shall probably never use Clickbank for sales and always think alot about buying from Clickbank. Paying 20% extra is a lot.
Having said that I should also let UK sellers know of a problem using a WSO with Paypal. Paypal will not state the total price before you login via a WSO. I recently had a surprise on my receipt from paypal with VAT added. This is ALL WRONG. We should see what we are paying before we login. Paypal said the problem was with WSO but that was not the point they should make sure the price stated is what I pay.
This just goes to show no one seem to be perfect.
Regards
Terry Cummings
John Thornhill
March 15, 2012Some good points Terry but I think that the fact VAT is added to the sale is actually a good thing if you are a UK seller as it keeps the VAT man off your back. This is another reason to go with ClickBank as they are taking care of the VAT on your behalf.
Those of us who live in ‘rip off Britain’ are well used to these taxes and IMO it has no effect on sales.
Dan Sumner
March 15, 2012I believe we spoke about this yesterday on our audio call. There is nothing I could think of which would annoy me more than losing my Paypal account.
I know there are a lot of guys making decent amounts of cash with alternative affiliate programs such as WSO Pro, but you do need to ask yourself is it worth it?
Clickbank all the way for me JT
Thanks for sharing
ian jenkinson
March 15, 2012Hi John,
When I get any where near making a few quid online I will then think about this problem:) But yes it does make sense as I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about PayPal just freezing peoples accounts, and it can be frozen for over a year.
All the best
Ian
Reg B.
March 15, 2012Hey John;
Great info and you are right on the money. But does it deal with hugh amounts of cash? See selling on WF is all speculation that you are going to sell $1000’s of product or software. But if you are like me it is just a trickle here of Cash. But your point is good Clickbank is the route to go… They are the leader and you are selling in both WF & Clickbank…
Chow!
Reg B.
Beth
March 15, 2012This is great information. At some point this year I want to list a product on WSO and I would have made this mistake, no doubt about it. I know from experience how touchy PayPal can be, so thank you for this heads up.
That’s the problem with being new to all of this. There are so many pitfalls that one may not see.
Beth
http://www.whattosellonamazon.com
http://www.stonebrookseowriting.com
Mary Kathan
March 15, 2012Thanks for the great info. It is always hard when you are new because “you don’t know what it is that you don’t know”.
The extra safety of an approval process is actually a blessing for beginners.
WSO Domination is great by the way….
Mary Stephenson
March 15, 2012Hi John
Thanks for the post. I had heard about PayPal suspending accounts because of making too much too fast. But as for
purchasing with PayPal, it can be a nightmare if the product
does not meet up to what it says it will. If the product
creator lags and does not what to honor a refund, well
good luck! At least with Clickbank, you can get a refund
and if people have good products they should not be so
concerned with having to refund. Of course you have those
who are unethical and will get a refund but use the product
anyways, but that is life and they have to live with themselves.
Mary
Linda
March 15, 2012I saw that very same post about that WSO and how paypal can ban accounts and how they used paypal to process their payments..lol.
I think the reason most people don’t use Clickbank and what everyone fails to tell them is the $50 per each new product. So, they try to do it by themselves and I can easily see how Paypal would suspend or shut down their accounts. There are other payment processors out there that people do have the options of working with. Have you used any of them? I would love to see a comparison sometime listing pros and cons for each 😉
Linda
John Thornhill
March 15, 2012Hi Linda,
It’s $50 for the first product then $29.99 thereafter. Not a lot more than the competition.
I have used some of the other processors but most use PayPal.
A comparison is a good idea and something I may consider.
John
James Robson
March 15, 2012Hi Linda & John,
I’ve been in touch with Clickbank lately as I’m going to be setting up a single site with multiple similar products on sometime in the near future. I originally assumed too that it was $50 for the first product and then $29.95 for each subsequent one too, but it turns out that it is $50 for the first account, then $29.95 for each subsequent account – not product. Apparently, you can add up to 500 products on one account, essentially for free, once you’ve paid that initial account fee, although Clickbank will still want to approve each new product (and quite rightly too). I suppose it’s probably not a good idea to have loads of vastly different products on a single account, if indeed they allow it, but if you are selling loads of similar products, it could be an option to look into. Just a thought, though obviously it would be wise to check with Clickbank first to as how much variation of products you can have on a single account.
By the way John, it’s because of WSO Domination and a few of your other products that I am at the stage where I’m doing this kind of stuff, so thank you!
John Thornhill
March 15, 2012Hi James,
Although you can add multiple products to each account it’s best to put each product onto a new account as only one product will show in the ClickBank Marketplace.
John
Tommy McLaughlin
March 15, 2012Hey John,
Good post and I know you have been looking at this for a while and warning people ….
Now my own online activities have been curtailed due to a bout of bad health and young family and I was gearing up to maybe creating a WSO but guessing I could be missing the boat …
My own experiences from dealing with Paypal have always been positive ….
I have spoken to them on many occassions and all good
Some tips I would suggest if you are going to list a WSO and use Paypal ….
Call them – I remember when I was launching My Marketing Startup Masterclass a couple of years, the product was $197 …..
I let them know that these sort of payments would be hitting my account and what it was for ….. I estimated X amount of sales …. so might hit 100 sales — 100 x $197 … etc ….
No problem, your account is Unlimited anyway but thanks for the call …. I did not hit the 100
lol !!
I have also spoken to them personally when people are charging back (as they might) regardless of services, product etc …..
Also had someone request 6 x monthly subscriptions as ‘Unathorised Transaction’ etc you can’t refund these via Paypal yourself….
Personally speak to them — refund everything please …. Also personally spoken to them to advise my policy is to refund everything immediately if dispute etc
Might seem crazy, but in my eyes it is good customer service and makes me a low risk to Paypal ….
Anyhoos going off on a tangent, PayPal are not what they were in the old days with the Horror stories, as with everything if you stay on the right road then you will be fine ….
I think ClickBank would have to look at the costing if they did something for WSO’s given the automatically percentage they take off each transaction etc for commissions as well initial startup costs , but I think it would be something I would consider to keep right ….
I need to grab a copy of the WSO Domination me thinks
Speak to you at some point John
Cheers
John Thornhill
March 15, 2012Some excellent advice there Tommy, cheers.
John
Robert Corrigan
March 15, 2012Hi John,
some valid points here, PayPal have been ruffling the feathers of lots of eBook sellers for some weeks now, by warning them about the content of their offerings, effectively censoring the books that they can sell. They blame the banks for this but were adamant that they would not process payments of any seller and terminate there account if they did not abide by PayPal new dictates.
Lots of Indie authors saw their books removed overnight and accounts terminated. PayPal has now decided that they were too heavy handed as some publishers abandoned PayPal as their payment processor. They did this U turn following petitions from sellers, and other organisations that campaigned in particular SmashWords.
Just goes to show that as you said you can operate in good faith and still come a cropper.
Cheers
Rob
Robert Chenery
March 16, 2012Hi John
What a very informative post.
Although I havent done any WSO’s yet I have heard about PayPal being a bit sceptical about them and banning accounts. This article has just made it totally clear to me why.
The great thing here is you are also providing a soloution to the problem for anyone actually offering WSO’s or thinking about doing them in the future. This is something I have been considering doing myself.
You probably know I am on your Partnership To Success program & really enjoying the course I can highly recommend it to anyone thinking of getting a mentor.
I would just like to say this to anyone reading this comment. This is what John Thornhill is all about.
Being honest and ethical and trying to keep himself and everyone he teaches the right side of the line.
Regards
Robert Chenery
John Thornhill
March 16, 2012Thanks for that Robert, I appreciate it.
Noel Cunningham
March 16, 2012Hi John,
I read the post on the Warrior Forum and to say it got me a little worried would be an understatement! I launched a WSO and everything worked fine with Paypal – no problems but nearly everyday I’m reading a thread about someone who’s had their account suspended…
There’s only one way around this – Don’t use Paypal for WSO’s! Period.
I already have WSO Domination and the method you explain about using Clickbank makes it the next logical step in any product launch. Sure, launch it as a WSO on the WF but do it through Clickbank and have peace of mind…
It’s not worth it if you mess up your Paypal account because you ran a WSO with it…
Good advice – I’ll definitely be taking it on board. Thanks John.
Regards – Noel.
Glen
March 17, 2012HI John,
Just a bit off topic if I can….
Can you tell me what software you use to design your site (besides this blog)
Do you use blog platform for all your sites, or do you use a HTML editor like Dreamweaver?
–Glen
John Thornhill
March 19, 2012Hi Glen,
If you click ‘copy this blog’ at the top of the page I walk you through everything.
John
Glen
March 21, 2012HI John,
I’ve been through WSO Domination, in particular I’ve gone through the setup process for doing a WSO using Clickbank.
If I have say a $5 WSO, and there is an upgrade to a software product for say $77, I can’t figure out how that can be set up in one Clickbank account.
Lets say I set up the $5 WSO to be 100% commission for affiliates, and the upgrade 50%, commission for affiliates, then that can’t work with one Clickbank account because they only allow one commission % per account.
So does that mean I have to open a new Clickbank account for the $5 WSO, ( 100% commission) and then open another Clickbank account for the $77 (50% commission)
And that also means affiliates have to get two affiliate link so I’m completely confused
I there an easier way, or is opening two new accounts the only choice. Or am I missing something else.
–Glen
John Thornhill
March 21, 2012Hi Glen,
If you use ClickBank Affiliate Master you only need 1 ClickBank account. I walk you through everything you need to know in phase 3 of listing a WSO.
John
Glen
March 21, 2012HI John,
I saw that clearly, but I cannot see how it can be done when there are different % of commissions being paid fro the WSO (100%)and to the upgrade (50%).
From what I can understand, Clickbank only allows one commission % for all products in any Clickbank account, and I can’t see how that can be changed by using CAM
–Glen
John Thornhill
March 21, 2012Ahh, I see what you are saying, your frontend products must all be the same commission up to 75%
However, upsells and recurring billing products can have different commission rates, so you cold have the frontent set to 75% and any upsells set to 50%, you set the upsell commission when you set the flow up.
Hope this helps.
John
Craig Pullman
March 23, 2012Hi John,
thanks for your valuable information. I use my PayPal account to make purchases also. It would be very embarrassing to have it limited and it could do untold harm to your business. I read somewhere that if you are planning to do a big launch (WSO, Giveaway etc) that you should let your payment processor know (especially PayPal) in advance so they are aware of your activities and your trading does not look ‘suspicious’. Most people want to trade with integrity so forewarning your payment processor will definitely add to this.
Regards,
Craig
Malcolm Charlaw
March 28, 2012Hi John
Yvonne and I are about to start “phase 2″ of your PTS programme, which we’re both enjoying. So it is onto product creation time.
I have heard about issues with Paypal over the years and this post is a timely reminder that caution is needed.
Would it not be a good idea to phone Paypal up, have a chat with them, explain what you are doing and what you hope to achieve, thereby reducing the chance of your account being limited?
By asking for a note to be put onto your account so other members of staff can see, is this not similar to going to a standard bank. Discuss with them your plans, especially if your account is a business one, and see how things go.
I take onboard what you say about Clickbank, and, recently, I think JVZoo are good option as well. I know you’ve been looking into them recently from the webinars.
Thanks again for a great course and looking forward to the next part!!
Kind regards
Malcolm Charlaw
Vincenzo Nola
May 22, 2012Hi John,
What an excellent blog article and an eye opener!! I reading your blog more and more due to immense number of golden nuggets of valuable information to guide oneself in building an successful and sustainable online business.
Glad to be a partnershiptosuccess student.
Thank you again!
Vincenzo Nola
Bitcoin Rocks
October 19, 2012Paypal really sucks, it is such a pain in the butt. I cannot wait until Bitcoins take over paypal.
[…] to John Thornill for bringing this one to my […]
[…] know my good friend (and part time boss man) John Thornhill recently did a post about it, and how he prefers to use clickbank with his CBAffiliateMaster software for his […]
[…] own looking about this. All you have to do is some honest searching and you will find what you need.As someone involved in Internet Marketing by now you have no doubt heard of the Warrior Forum. At th…that expansive. The most popular section of the forum, by far, is the WSO (or Warrior Special […]
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