Asia Century affiliate program: Scam?

James Ryan Jonas

Last year we wrote about Asia Century, a Philippine-based “make money online” program similar to Google Adsense and Commission Junction. Affiliates of Asia Century get to earn whenever a click, lead, or sale was generated through his site.

But as shared by Paul of the blog www.paulandrewpisig.com, supposedly this was not the case.

Paul emailed us about Asia Century and how they are allegedly not paying him the earnings he had already earned.  An excerpt of his letter goes:

Hi,

From the start, I was really hesitant to join Asia Century on their website alone, you would see they’re being unprofessional. They claim to be a foreign-owned company but they have typos all over their website content and links that do not work. It’s only because PinoyMoneyTalk.com and Yugatech.com featured them that made me join them. I don’t know if I’m just being a perfectionist or what. But in an online business, I believe that a company’s website always gives a first impression.

With regard to their e-mails to me, I got irritated and frustrated at first that I deleted all of their e-mails. I believe it was like more than 20 same e-mails telling me that merchant has no money to pay me. Good thing that another e-mail (just 1 e-mail this time) was sent to me.

Then I thought of seeking assistance to other popular bloggers like you to somewhat “expose” their wrongdoings to their members. I’ve been trying to contact them MANY times and asked the status of my payment. But I got no reply. I even tried to do long-distance calls (I live in Cavite City now) and called their office but all I got was: “The telephone number you’ve dialed is not yet in service”.

On my last screenshot, that is my business e-mail from my host. I decided to blur out other e-mails I received and only highlighted the last e-mail that was sent to me by Asia Century PH. I hope that’s alright with you.

If there’s anything else I may assist you with, please let me know. I thank you in advance for everything.

Sincerely yours,

Paul Andrew Pisig

——————–

Paul sent us screenshots of his Asia Century affiliate account and the email telling him the “Merchant has no money to pay for the affiliates.”

Based on the screenshots, Paul has already earned P2,325.05 as of December 2008. This is already way above Asia Century’s minimum payout so he really is entitled for payment.

But according to Paul, despite several follow-ups, he still has not heard anything from Asia Century about payment. They even sent him emails telling him that the “Merchant has no money to pay for the affiliates.” Not good.

In our case, we have also reached the minimum payout level last December and just waiting for notice about payment. If we’ll have the same experience as Paul’s, we’ll take out all Asia Century ads from the site and will start branding them as scam.

At this point, we’d appreciate any correspondence from Asia Century’s CEO Anders Barris or from any of their representatives to explain their side.

 

James Ryan Jonas teaches business management, investments, and entrepreneurship at the University of the Philippines (UP). He is also the Executive Director of UP Provident Fund Inc., managing and investing P3.2 Billion ($56.4 Million) worth of retirement funds on behalf of thousands of UP employees.