Vaonis Affiliate Program

Vaonis Scam – UPDATE July 15 regarding the Vaonis Affiliate Program – Warning to future affiliates: SCAM and AMATEURISM!

astronotrip.fr is a content website where I write about astronomy and telescopes. So, I applied to some affiliate programs to try and earn a little money by redirecting visitors to these telescope retailers — primarily while advising them.

It worked for a while, especially with Vaonis, where in June I “unofficially” sold a few telescopes and accessories. But problems quickly arose starting in July.

1/ They do not pay the amount owed

It’s been almost 4 weeks now, despite multiple reminders, and my invoice is still unpaid. And now, they’re giving me a ridiculous excuse:

"Regarding sales, we have to take into account order returns, which are processed within 30 days. Hence the payment and validation delay for each order."

But all the sales I’m waiting on payment for have already been confirmed, and they even asked me to send an invoice.

2/ Their general terms mention an 8% affiliate commission, but they are paying me 5%

I started at 5%, but I quickly asked to be raised to 10%, as a competitor (a distributor) offers that rate. Then, upon reading their general terms (I have screenshots, see image above), I noticed it stated “8%.” Of course, they corrected the issue, but that was there until yesterday (July 6). So my commission should be retroactively adjusted from 5% to 8%.

3/ A free Hestia telescope for affiliates:

“The affiliate will also receive a FREE Hestia telescope as a thank-you.”

That’s also stated in their general terms, so I requested to receive one… and of course, they avoided the topic, and I’ve still received nothing.

4/ Untracked sales:

I contacted them last Friday after placing a small order through my affiliate link, and surprise… no sale was attributed to me?!

Also strange: I recorded no sales in the last two weeks, despite generating more clicks than the previous period, when I had 10 sales. So this seemed very suspicious, and it became clear that they were “scrubbing” sales and taking advantage of free traffic to generate revenue for themselves while exploiting affiliates.

I also used a promo code when placing my order (why not save 10%?), and here’s what they replied:

"Using promo codes on orders that are not attributed to you is prohibited."

But they can’t make up that rule unless it's stated in their general terms. I had also asked them multiple times (on June 21 and 24) whether I could use a promo code, and got no response — which leads me to believe that they are simply exploiting the traffic generated without attributing sales.

Furthermore, their general terms only say:

“Promo codes may be allowed in the future, based on Vaonis’s discretion.”

That is vague and meaningless. Since their website has a promo code field, and they distribute promo codes to affiliates, this means they explicitly authorize them. Here’s an example of one:

Moreover, the terms don’t mention anywhere that sales using promo codes won’t count toward affiliate commissions. So they should retroactively attribute those sales to me.

Finally, I noticed that such sales (using a promo code) were previously credited to me. Once again, this rule change happened overnight, with no legal basis.

How am I supposed to prevent a user from looking up a code on another site? I generate the sale, but because some sites — for reasons unknown — are allowed to share promo codes, I’m penalized and don’t receive commission, even though I generated the sale.
That’s completely unfair and totally illogical!

If they don’t want customers to use promo codes, they shouldn’t distribute any… and why should some affiliates be allowed to use promo codes while others aren’t?
Again, that’s unfair and illogical — and even violates EU fair competition rules.

They’re penalizing content-based websites like mine in favor of coupon sites that add no value and simply post codes that people search for… even though it’s my site (or another) that actually drives the sale.

And now, they’re telling me: "We’ve put the program on hold to update everything."

I don’t know exactly what that means, but it seems the affiliate program is paused, so untracked sales go unacknowledged — and they haven’t sent any notification to affiliates. So again, they are cheating, not tracking sales, and getting free traffic.

I gave them a chance to correct the situation, but still haven’t heard back.

So I see only two possibilities:

Either they are on the verge of bankruptcy and can’t even pay affiliates who bring them sales,
Or they’re simply cheating and don’t intend to pay — in which case their affiliate program is a pure and simple scam.