He made $28 mil. off Ebay with a Simple Scam...
REALITY : The fact is there are some people who like to take shortcuts in this World to get ahead and to benefit in some way .
I think we all have probably been guilty of this to a degree. Some more than others.
But I would venture to guess many have not taken shortcuts to the extent of this fellow.
Founder of Digital Pointe Goes to the Dark Side
So who is this Dirty Affiliate Marketer? Shawn Hogan is the Founder of Digital Point, one of the biggest make money forums in the Universe.
Over a period of 5 years or so ,Shawn made $28 million as an Ebay affiliate.
Pretty damn impressive, huh ?
Here is what is even more interesting.....
Stuffing Cookies to Steal Millions
Shawn made this tremendous amount of money by stuffing cookies into every single person who visited any of his websites.
So if you or I went to Shawn's Site ,unbeknownst to us ,Shawn would automatically assign an Ebay Cookie onto our ID.
So when we left his Site and anytime down the road went and bought something at Ebay........well Shawn would get an Affiliate commission.
The implications of this were HUGE.
Shawn would get these astronomical Ebay Commission checks without sending them to Ebay through an Affiliate Link.
We are talking about hundreds and thousands of people going to Ebay , and Shawn got credit for them.
Ebay Encouraged Him to Do This ??
Mr. Hogan even had the gall to post on his blog that Ebay knew of this "covert" operation and actually encouraged him to keep on sending the Traffic to their website with his method.
Well, the FBI got whiff of this and in conjunction with Ebay set up a Sting and nailed Mr. Hogan and another accomplice.
Hogan could spend up to 20 years in federal Prison for this fraud. ( EDIT : he actually ended up spending 5 months in federal prison)
Just Don't Do It !!!
It goes to show that taking Shortcuts cannot only cost you money., but it can also cost you your freedom.
I have found that as an Internet and Affiliate Marketer myself, that in the long run
standing by your Product and your Name is so important.
There is no question there are some "dirty players" out there.
So pick and choose the one's you want to align yourself with.
The best,
Robert Andrew
(Disclosure : Original content from my blog)