Investigating the people behind those sketchy flat-stomach ads.

For example, the flat-stomach ads are primarily a front for acai berry scams. The acai berry is especially popular thanks to endorsements from Oprah and Rachael Ray, so scammers are feasting on its potential. It’s gotten so out of hand that Connecticut’s attorney general is expressing outrage over the acai scams. Some acai berry vendors are legitimate, but they’re crowded out of the marketplace by all of the scammers who are willing to pay high commissions to their affiliates.

I should note that affiliate programs are not, by definition, scams. The most established is Amazon’s, which pays sites a commission for referrals that turn into sales. (Both The Big Money and Slate are affiliates.) The affiliate programs are tainted only when the end program is a bad seed.

The Middleman

Now that the affiliate program has been created, the scamming vendor still has a problem of outreach. Few will know it has an affiliate program, since few know the site exists in the first place. And thus, as happens in every efficient market, a middleman enters the fray.

Here, the middleman is called an affiliate network, and they’re basically the equivalent of temp agencies. They have job boards that wannabe affiliates can peruse. So anybody interested in linking to acai berry products can find all the acai vendors on the job board. When an affiliate signs up via the network, the network is entitled to a cut of the commission. Everybody wins! Except, of course, the scammed consumer.

As middlemen, affiliate networks are uniquely positioned to cut off the scams from reaching wide audiences. Within the industry, there’s a split taking place. In one corner, there are those who want to elevate the craft to be a more professional environment. But on the other side are networks willing to lend their services to any cause. It’s usually easier to peddle scams than accountability. Trip Foster, chief marketing officer for affiliate network Advaliant, told The Big Money that the space is so unregulated that the tainted networks can get away with peddling bad products. Advaliant screens its vendors and affiliates to weed out the scammers, he said, but that doesn’t mean everybody will.