EPN is giving me 72 hours to explain myself.

Status
Not open for further replies.
whodoesdo

whodoesdo

Wut.
May 2, 2008
50
1
0
Ok wickedfire, I need your help. My epn account has been suspended for suspicious activity. Basically I've been advertising my phpbay sites on Craigslist. I suppose it's against their (epn) TOS although I can't access it to be sure (since my account is susupended). I know it was reported by a competator that has been a pain in my ass for months.

I need the brilliance of wickedfire creativity to help me talk my way out of this one. Any ideas on what to say in my response to them to get them to release my account?

Here's the email:
Your account has been flagged by the network quality team for suspicious activity. Please reply to eBayPartnerNetwork-Quality@ebay.com within 72 hours with a detailed explanation of how you are driving traffic to eBay, including information on any third party agents that you are currently employing. If you are currently using any special promotional methods that require written approval per our Network Agreement, please include the approvals you have received along with your reply. All pending commissions have been placed on hold. Any payment will be made as per the Network Agreement following the completion of our investigation. We strongly advise that you discontinue your campaigns until this issue is resolved.
 


I'm interested to know if anyone has any answers for this as well. It's always a concern in the back of any slightly shady markerter's mind.
 
I would suggest blaming your competitor: say you suspect he's been advertising your site in shady places but you can't find out where and he denies it.
 
Since they are asking, I would assume they dont know (epn)..

if you run thru a redirect maybe they dont have a referrer, and if that is true, do what I LOVE to do....


LIE.

ps wtf does ebay care about where your traffic comes from? If your traffic is buying products on ebay, who gives a shit? Fuck..why is it so hard to do business sometimes...i dont get it
 
affiliatearmy said:
Since they are asking, I would assume they dont know (epn)..

if you run thru a redirect maybe they dont have a referrer, and if that is true, do what I LOVE to do....


Click to expand...


Nope no referrers, no live links from CL. That's what I need is a really good convincing email. I was thinking along the lines of saying I drive traffic through ppc. I don't know much about ppc though so I'm not sure I could be convincing.
 
whodoesdo said:
Nope no referrers, no live links from CL. That's what I need is a really good convincing email. I was thinking along the lines of saying I drive traffic through ppc. I don't know much about ppc though so I'm not sure I could be convincing.
Click to expand...
Just say you drive PPC traffic and get a little bit from SEO. Just tell them you advertise on AdWords, YSM and MSN only... you don't deal with the smaller search engines/advertising networks. You don't bid on any brand/trademarked keywords, only generics. Your display URLs don't have any brand/trademarked names either.
 
Say you're unsure of why your account has been suspended but that it isn't the first problem you've had with this website. Explain that you have a competitor who is trying, at all costs, to ruin your business. Tell them that he has been spamming people using your website as the referring souce and then filing a complaint against your website.

Then, explain that you have contacted their hosting company who has agreed to terminate their account unless they stop doing this. You have been in touch with them directly and they have agreed. So moving forward, you can promise that whatever caused you to get suspended will not happen again... at least from your malicious competitor.

Since your competitor doesn't exist, the malicious activity will stop as long as you do.
 
Say you bought the traffic on Digital Point...

Just be honest, in a shine the light kinda way...
 
keynes said:
Say you bought the traffic on Digital Point...
Click to expand...

That's what I always say when I run into problems, just mention these five things and you should be good:

"I recently hired a company to do directory submissions for me"

"they ended up using some abusive tactics without telling me or asking for approval from me"

"I'm working hard to resolve all the problems they have caused"

"I've terminated my contract with the company and will not be using them in the future"

"I'm sorry, it won't happen again"
 
I got the same email and action months ago. Just tell them your site URL and that your visitors are from natural search engine traffic. If your site is thin, they'll probably still ban it though.

Edit: My account was reinstated after I told them what they wanted to know (I wasn't doing anything shady though).
 
Well, hmm. It most likely was the competitor that's trying to sabotage your shit. Umm, I guess there's two ways to go about it: coming clean, or lying.

And it's pretty much up to you.. But if you're okay with a few white lies, write them with something similar to this:

"I recently received an email about my account being flagged, due to suspicious activity. I've always done my best to stay well within the guidelines and TOS agreements. I'm currently pushing traffic through search engines, through a redirect, as well as PPC marketing. I'm not exactly sure where the suspicious activity would be, but I have been having problems with a competitor lately, trying to sabotage every business strategy I try out. If you have any more details, please feel free to send over some more information, and I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have."

Best of luck bro.
 
Maybe set up some ppc campaigns, reply saying you do ppc, and give them a few keywords you are bidding on?
 
trigatch4 said:
Say you're unsure of why your account has been suspended but that it isn't the first problem you've had with this website. Explain that you have a competitor who is trying, at all costs, to ruin your business. Tell them that he has been spamming people using your website as the referring souce and then filing a complaint against your website.

Then, explain that you have contacted their hosting company who has agreed to terminate their account unless they stop doing this. You have been in touch with them directly and they have agreed. So moving forward, you can promise that whatever caused you to get suspended will not happen again... at least from your malicious competitor.

Since your competitor doesn't exist, the malicious activity will stop as long as you do.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I would do with EPN. This should be working as I know from some other people who were in the same situation as you are.
 
OP - Definetly don't tell them you were promoting on myspace. Tell them it was organic SEO and ask for a quality report. If its bad, tell them you will work to fix it.
 
I got the same email a few weeks ago and I was worried because I didn't want them to kick me out of the program since it's working so well for me. I basically told them the truth, that I get my traffic via PPC and gave them some keywords to prove myself.

I got an email back a few hours later stating that everything was cool.

So, you can probably set up a ppc campaign and tell them that you promote via ppc.
 
Ok I sent them an email so we'll see how it turns out.

If if they give me the axe, what then? I know there are ways to get new epn accounts (I've seen it on freelancer) but I don't really understand how that works...with the social security # and such...??
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom