Warrior Payments : Warning!
So today I want to take a look at the Warrior Forums newest addition the Warrior Payments system, but first a little background info to make sure we are all on the same page.
Just about everyone knows what the Warrior Forum is Im sure, its one of the most popular internet marketing forums in the world. Also most people know that the Warrior Forum was sold to Freelancer.com a few months ago. From the moment that Freelancer.com purchased the Warrior Forum they started making changes to it. At first it was small things like lowing the price of a WSO (Warrior Special Offer), or changing the the site design slightly. Many of these things that they did where met with some resistance but typical corporate mindset, they implemented them anyway regardless of what the forum users wanted. However just recently they have released their most major change ever. One that is a total atrocity for both product vendors and buyers. Let me explain.
If you know anything about the Warrior Forum then you for sure know about the WSO (Warrior Special Offer) section of the Warrior Forum. In this section vendors provide their products at a special discount price for the Warrior Members. (Well thats the theory at least but in truth many products are only sold in this section).
Traditionally one of two systems where used by the vendors for the payment processing. First there was WarriorPlus and then came JVZoo (which is also very popular outside of the Warrior Forum). However since purchasing the forum Freelancer.com has decided that they want to get into the payment processing and affiliate marketing business. The problem is that they have no idea what they are doing.
To start with from a vendors perspective the system is far to basic to really be viable. Having left out any real options of features that you would expect in a decent affiliate marketing platform. In fact this thing is so basic it just reinforces the conclusion that Freelancer.com has no real knowledge in this business.
Now we can be nice and assume (or at least hope) that Feelancer.com will get their act together and actually build a feature rich platform. However the lack of features is just the tip of the iceberg. You see there are some other real problems that effect both vendor and purchaser.
Perhaps the biggest one is lack of support or transparency. There is really no support what so ever. Their help section goes to Freelancer.com, their FAQ section goes to Freelancer.coms FAQ. Their submit a ticket system is the system for Freelancer.com. Honestly I could not believe it when I realized this. Who in the world creates a platform and does not even have a FAQ for that platform? Freelancer.com wants people to trust them with their payments but they cant even make a separate ticket system? It may seem minor but it shows a lack of effort or caring on their part.
Unfortunately it gets ever worse than that. You see when you try to check out the privacy policy for the new Warrior Payments platform what happens is your directed to the old Warrior Forum privacy policy, which at the time of this writing does not even have a reference to the Warrior Payments. Let me ask you a question. Would you want to give your PayPal email address to someone who has no TOS and no Privacy Policy? I sure would not.
If thats not enough it actually even gets worse. You see up until now I have only been talking about how poor the actual payments system is. But Freelancer.com the new owners of the Warrior Forum also want to get into the affiliate marketing business. To do this they are going to have a ‘pick of the day’ just like JVZoo and the W+ does. Now both JVZoo and W+ are headed by some very experienced and successful marketers. But Freelancer.com obviously has no experience in this space. So I was wondering how they would decide what products to promote. Well after looking into it some I got my answer.
While they dont come out and say it. It sure looks like one of their major (if not only) criteria is how much of a commission they will get. While there is nothing wrong with wanting to make money I have to ask myself. Do we really need another person (or company) mass mailing us the latest hype, garbage, and untested scheme just because its giving a high commission? I honestly dont think we do.
So to sum up the new Warrior Payments system, as it currently is, is a unprofessionally produced monstrosity. Honestly it looks like something slapped together in a couple of days by the lowest bidder on Freelancer.com. While its just a lousy system for product vendors the real problem is for buyers. With their non-existing TOS and privacy policy coupled with a desire to promote products based on how much commission they will get this is a real threat to people who want to purchase WSO’s.
I strongly recommend that all of my readers refuse to buy anything that uses the Warrior Payments system to accept payments (at least for now).
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
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Nice update on this third party platform you outlined. I am a little shocked that they listed a recommended commission of 80%…Is this saying that in order to be “considered” for the promoted “Warrior Daily Deal”, your product “should” have an 80% commission?
That’s sure what it looks like. Also makes it seem like the products they promote will be decided mostly on how much they will earn on them and not on the quality, usability and effectiveness of the product.
How will we know if they are using their payment system ??
You will be able to tell by the purchase button. The button says “powered by Warrior Payments” under it.
As always Brett, thanks for the heads up!
Dean
Having been a member of Rent-a-Coder, and used Odesk, I can confirm Freelancer depends on ‘the network effect’ as their answer to everything.
Why improve when you just buy growth? *facepalm*
They show no visible effort to improve Freelancer itself… Their flagship asset. A snowball in hell has a better chance than WF does of being better under their ownership.
My only advice is to not waste your time shouting into the wind with them. They (as WF has started to see) just don’t care about improvement. Unless you can hurt their network, remove a large block of users, they won’t budge from what I’ve seen then do over years.
IMHO, YMMV.
WF whas a scam before…. freelancer.com only proved to be stupid and buy the shit so the scamming can go on. I share wso for free on alot forums just because its all BS.
Well thats a huge generalization. For example I have done several WSO’s. In fact my Tab Engine software, which has sold over 1000 memberships and has gotten praise from just about everyone who has used it, was a WSO at one point.
Are you saying that you give away illegal copies to WSO’s for free on other forums? Really if they are so bad then why give them away? Also why go out of your way to break the law and steal from people? Honestly dude that’s about as lame as you can get.
So agree, Brett…..there is no excuse for that crap! He’s certainly not hurting WF with his behavior….he’s hurting the product creators….
Yup, that guy is one of the more stupid examples of the trolls and scam artists that gave the WF a dodgy name.
To openly admit to sharing products illegally is just piling stupid on top of stupid.
Please add whatever email address he used to as many buyers blacklists as you can, please, Brett
Sorry this is not related to the the article, but how did you do the opti-in on the bottom of the webpage. Very nice.
Do you mean the ‘Share To Download” bar/button? Thats a plugin I wrote.
Hey Brett,
Thought I’d add my own experience with WF payments (even though I haven’t used them). And this is weird… I recently listed a WSO days after the “big announcement”. First of all, the new way of posting a WSO thread takes you directly to the WF payments system to create their buy button (almost implying that you HAVE TO use them to list). Not very user friendly but I understand that part, they want you to use their system…
But after I figured out how to post the thread without using WF payments (I’m using JV Zoo), I started getting affiliate requests to promote the product through WF payments!? WTF?
This concerns me a bit… because how are they gonna pay out an affiliate if they’re not collecting the $$? Are they just gonna screw an affiliate out of a commission if that affiliate promotes the WSO? Very strange stuff there…. Hope all affiliates reading this stay clear of using their affiliate system to promote too, because you could be promoting something you will NEVER see a commission on!!
Just thought you guys should have a heads up on that one… Thanks again for the posts Brett, you’re the man!
Hey Marc.
How did you post a thread without WF Payments?
I’m trying to launch a WSO but I have not figured out how to do so without the WF Payments system…
Thanks in advanced.
Use this link:
http://www.warriorforum.com/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=17
I suspect they will move to the Amazon system where they own your customer list and email them direct, with no commission to you. You will build their list, then they will up their fees or charge you for listing products.
WOW, you were plenty mad when you wrote that one! When the WF was sold, I just quit going there anymore. I figured as much but that over 80% commission request and possible newbie screwing is way over the top.
Just like Ello is starting to take off with ??% of Facebook users, you can do the same. Get the good ole boys club together and leave them with nobody except freelancers trolling around for a quick buck.
All WSO propositions I ever got from the warrior forum have turned out to be scams.
Furthermore, Freelancer – the recent new owner of the warrior forum – itself is a scam run by assholes. They’ve set up the sales conditions in such a way that once registered, you cannot get rid of them anymore. You end your registration, but they still charge you 97$ annually in such a way that Paypal cannot refund you !!
DON’T REGISTER !!
Hey Brett,
The link you referenced above is now pointing to the 2nd page of the Warrior Payments WSO creation tool. Just trying to verify if that is still how you bypass Warrior Payments?
Appreciate you.
I dont believe you can anymore.
Thanks Brett.