It’s called ‘shaving’, when a sponsor that has it’s own affiliate program doesn’t credit all the sales you’ve made in order to boost their bottom line. Somewhere during the signup process, the software would somehow ‘lose’ your affiliate code. Almost impossible to see and therefore prove. This was a big issue during the ‘early years’, until some webmasters started doing test signups and noticed they didn’t get credit. At first those shaving sponsors blamed it on a software glitch or similar, until things reached a head in 2003 when someone posted a screenshot of the PIBCash affiliate admin showing shaving built in.

PIBCash blamed an ex-employee of editing the stats page html and adding in those columns. However early in 2004 the roof collapsed when a supposed disgruntled programmer at PIBCash left the affiliate admin system open before he left the company and some webmasters logged in and saw the shaving for themselves. They were shaving and lying about it the entire time. Original threads at
GFY – OMG PIBCASH WAS cheating like a mother fucker! >> Real PROOF ! <<
GFY – So.. PIBCash Shaves.. Sucks to be you!
Porno Junkies – DRAMA HERE! PIBCash caught shaving

It’s probable that many sponsors still shave, but besides PIBCash, proof is almost impossible to obtain and circumstantial at best. Watch your ratios and promote the best ones. Just know what shaving is and how it works.

Other interesting ‘proof of shaving’ threads:

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