Rapid Satellite:

I'm sorry to report that Rapid Satellite has proven to be very dishonest with affiliates.

They have been proven to terminate affiliates without hesitation for no valid reason. 

This is the email they send to affiliates after they terminate the affiliate account. This email is always sent without prior notification.

'Dear Affiliate,

In order to comply with DIRECTV and efficiently manage our Affiliate Referral Program, we conducted a mass cleanup of the program. Your account was deleted for one of the following reasons:

1. No orders generated in the last 90 days.
2. You were already deactivated, but your information remained in our database.
3. You are a foreign-based affiliate. As has been communicated to you in the past, DIRECTV does not allow any foreign-based affiliates.

PLEASE NOTE: Many people had multiple accounts that were created in duplication upon signup. You may simply have had one of the duplicated accounts deleted and not necessarily your primary account ID.

If you were terminated for reason 1 (inactivity) and wish to become an active referral partner or maybe just refer your friends and family every now and then, then we welcome you to reapply for the program at www.rapidsatellite.com/signup.htm

We thank you for your past efforts and wish you well.

Regards,'

Let's investigate how many ways this is wrong:

1. They terminate all affiliates without paying commissions that are due.

Some people are waiting and relying on the rapid satellite check. These affiliates had faith that Rapid was a reliable program and that they would see the commissions earned at the end of the month. Now those same people will have mortgage payments bounce, will not be able to afford health insurance for that month, they will have to borrow money to buy diapers, food, etc.

2. Affiliates terminated without warning.

What about giving affiliates at least a 2 week warning. Rapid satellite gave everyone a 1 month warning to change text on websites to reflect directv having 4 receivers instead of 5. 2 Weeks or more would have give affiliates time to change links around. What happens now if someone has been doing a major offline or ppc campaign? These affiliates would be spending thousands only to have the traffic go to rapid satellite without compensation.

3. It states in the email that affiliates will be deleted after 90 days of inactivity.

I have a big secret to tell you. It takes all websites at least 4 months to get out of the google sandbox. That means it's impossible for a new site to get listed in google until 4 months, and that's 4 months after the site is initially crawled. Msn and yahoo are better with speed but it takes month to rank well. It's great that someone can take the time and investment to design a site only to be removed without notification. This applies to everyone including USA affiliates.

Do not promote Rapid Satellite, if they are willing to behave like this, it clearly indicates how unimportant individual affiliates are, and they have no qualms about stealing.