Complaint Review: Zazzle

I have been a artist with this Print on Demand Comany now for 12 years.   They have many unscrupulous actions against artists, customers, and affiliates, but most I would consider nothing that can be substantiated.  I am however extremely concerned with them affiliating their own products that their artists should be getting referrals for, by means of stealware.  They have hijacked links, added their referal codes to almost everything, and using redirecting to coax customers away from the artist recieving their referral.  It appears this started approximately 5 years ago, when they took away the artists Volume referral bonus program and almost immediately we started getting 3rd party sales verse referrals for items we diligently and some paid for promoting.  

I have even had items my family has bought with my referal code, direct to their check out cart come back as a 3rd party sale, and I not only lost the referral but now get only half or less of my royalty as it goes to the 3rd party.   We are not informed on who gets this sale from us, but 3rd party sales have increased for me and others to over 50 percent of our sales, some get no sales anymore unless they are a 3rd party sale as Zazzle seems to be promoting certain items that we are not also.

I and hundreds if not thousands of other artists feel that this is a conflict of interest for Zazzle to be affiliating their own products ontop of their already profits from our work.   If stealware is being used and its illegal then they need to be called on it, and have to show records on their affiliate sales , where they came from and pay back every artist they have hijacked their sales from.

I hope someone acts on this.  The owners are either unaware or a part of this.  Zazzle is huge why they need to do this to the little man who made them what they are to day just does not pass the smell test.

In ending, we are punished if we speak out on their forum, many banned for life.  Get warnings that we will lose our stores if we speak out, and as others here have posted are outcasted and our sales black listed some losing thousands of dollars a month overnight literally buy either having our designs and products dissapear or ranked so low after being best sellers no one can find them.    Maybe the owners care enough to find out what is going on or maybe they know, but someone needs to audit this company on where and how they get our referrals and how often.

Thank You