Man, I'd sure hate to have a product with lots of "try AFTER you buy" charge backs. Looks like vendors with lots of refunds will have to pay extra money.

As part of our ongoing commitment to providing high quality products to consumers, ClickBank is adjusting certain fees relating to refund and chargeback rates for ClickBank vendors. These changes will affect a very small number of ClickBank vendors, and will not affect affiliates.

Beginning October 17, 2011, vendor accounts with a refund rate at or above 15% over a rolling 60-day period and/or chargeback rate at or above 1% over a rolling 70-day period may be subject to additional fees or penalties.

To help you avoid fees or penalties, we are adding a clear indicator of your current rolling 60-day refund rate to your Account Home page so you can easily track your refund rate and take action if necessary.

As we begin to implement this new policy in the coming weeks, affected vendors will be contacted individually before any additional fees are applied to their accounts.

Click here for more information.

We are committed to supporting our clients and end customers, and these changes are part of our commitment to keeping affiliate marketing profitable and sustainable for years to come.

I think CB wants good products and none of the crap that's been popping up lately, especially the ones with push-button wealth and stupid videos.

It looks like they've changed the announcement and added some important bits:

For vendors over the 15% refund rate threshold, ClickBank may opt to retain our transaction processing fee on any subsequent refunds, rather than returning the processing fee to the vendor as we do now. Vendors with refund rates significantly higher than the 15% threshold may also be subject to additional processing fees on refunds and additional penalties including removal from the Marketplace or account termination. Vendors with chargeback rates over 1% may be subject to additional fees on subsequent chargebacks.

About time they started doing something like this though. There's way too much crap on CB and getting rid of it will benefit all proper vendors.

Now it's of course the question of whether they're doing it to actually clean up the marketplace or only to increase their bottom line (let everybody stay, just make the guys with high refund rates pay more). Time will show.

chargeback rates over 1% may be subject to additional fees on subsequent chargebacks.

I think the addition above is an indication of CB trying to increase revenue. If you sold $1,000 worth of widgets and had a 1% refund rate, that equals $10.00, you'd be subject to paying fees. That's NOT good. Who in the world is not going to have at least 1% chargebacks, even if they are subsequent? That's just about everyone who sells on CB.

Originally Posted by mp3man

I think the addition above is an indication of CB trying to increase revenue. If you sold $1,000 worth of widgets and had a 1% refund rate, that equals $10.00, you'd be subject to paying fees. That's NOT good. Who in the world is not going to have at least 1% chargebacks, even if they are subsequent? That's just about everyone who sells on CB.

Not really. Payment processors and VISA/MC alike are EXTREMELY strict when it comes to chargebacks, and if CB's overall chargeback % would be over ~2.5% then they would simply lose their merchant privileges.

So this bit (trying to get rid of vendors with high chargeback rates) makes perfect sense.

Seeing how anyone can request a refund from any purchase at any point during the following 60 days, it wouldn't surprise me if every vendor had over 50% refund rate. I know people who have bought a hundred different items and requested a refund every single time, and received them aswell.

Originally Posted by Kujis

Seeing how anyone can request a refund from any purchase at any point during the following 60 days, it wouldn't surprise me if every vendor had over 50% refund rate. I know people who have bought a hundred different items and requested a refund every single time, and received them aswell.

This is a little bit short-sighted as the vast majority of buyers do not request a refund, even though they have the option.

If the odd fraudster requesting a refund pushes your refund percentage over the allowed 15% then this is a good indication that your refund rate is already too high to begin with.

I have been in this business for a while and I'm yet to see a quality product have a refund rate higher than 5% - and it doesn't matter the slightest whether it's a low- or a high- ticket product, sold via ClickBank or directly or whether the refund policy is conditional or no-questions-asked.