After months of debate and research, the Pacoima Ranch Mall is now officially closed. Mall staff became aware of a serious problem during the Christmas 2000 - New Year 2001 season when several merchants registered over 3,000 clickthroughs each on special discount and free item with purchase links, yet same merchants claimed no one had bought anything. This seemed highly suspicous and probably an outright fraud as at least 1% of clickthroughs on such discount and free item with purchase links make a purchase immediately to receive the discount or the free item. An additional 1-2% will return later and make a purchase. Two merchants were disciplined at the time by being evicted from the Mall. Both have since filed bankruptcy. Because of the high standards the Mall insisted on, it is assumed that any merchant who cheated the Mall would also cheat surfers. Misleading or deceiving surfers is grounds for immediate eviction. Several merchants in the past were removed for similar problems. The Mall promised to be and remained a secure shopping environment.
With the previous holiday season a near bust in sales over the cheating of several high-profile merchants, sales returned to normal during the late Winter and early Spring seasons, though the Christmas rush sales made a serious dent in the annual figures. In June 2001, sales once again took a deep dive. The offending merchants were removed, and all parts of the Mall were carefully scrutinized for quality and ethical merchants. Many former merchants were removed, with dozens of new ones added in to a totally recoded and regraphicked Mall. In October 2001, sales came to a virtual standstill. Thousands of clickthroughs were registered, yet no one was apparently buying anything. 5,000 clickthroughs yielded a single $60 USD purchase. With the holiday season (Christmas 2001 - New Year 2002) upon us, the Mall scoured the web on each merchant to determine if they were being accused of unethical behavior. Because all such reports were initially found on borderline "fringe concept" sites, and only involved a single problem (the WhenU SaveNow network), it was felt that the Mall would be left intact for this final holiday season, with extensive research to be done after the holidays. Merchant ethics, product returns, privacy and customer service policies were carefully scrutinized and several merchants were evicted over murky clauses in said policies.
Beginning in February 2002, the Mall staff extensively researched all affiliate networks. This research yielded our ground-breaking story, Affiliate Fraud. As virtually all merchants in the Mall were implicated, the Mall staff attempted to contact each merchant to determine their position on this scandal. With those merchants known to be actively involved in the scandal, staff also requested them to clarify their position on predatory advertising and affiliate link redirection. The WhenU (SaveNow) network makes extensive use of predatroy advertising and achieved the "cheat" part of it's illegal repackaging of commerce by redirecting affiliate links so that they appear to originate from within the WhenU (SaveNow) network. Surfers are unaware what is happening and only notice the discount. That an illegal commerce tactic was used isn't common knowledge, it just happened to be true.
Of the dozens of merchants contacted, only three actually responded. Two claimed to not be involved, but a fresh install of one of the many freeware programs that also installs the WhenU (SaveNow) virus proved they were still involved. A repeat install 60 days later still showed them as part of the network. The third merchant felt that who they associate with was their business, not ours. Since their association with a thief causes money to be stolen from the Mall (and deceives surfers), it was felt that made it Mall business.
After a great deal of debate among Mall staff, surfers and friends of Pacoima Ranch, all decided that the best thing to do would be to close the Mall. A placeholder page is now emplaced where the Quick Shop (Holiday Express Shop), Pacoima Ranch Mall, and Bazaar Boutiques pages used to be. All internal links will be removed over the next few months. Placeholder pages were envisioned so that the 1000's of external links pointing at the Mall from outside Pacoima Ranch would have a place to go and see why the Mall closed. These placeholder pages will be left as is for an undetermined time, though probably removed (so that a 404 is created) sometime toward the end of 2002. Mall staff is being reassigned to the PacRanch 2002 project, were their help will greatly speed things.
The notice now posted at all Mall pages is this:
Thanks so much, it's been fun! Due to a recent scandal involving virtually all of the merchants at the Pacoima Ranch Mall, we opted to close the mall. The depth of this scandal is beyond anything we have ever seen before. Cheating on sales approached 100%, with some merchants reporting thousands of clickthroughs, yet no one bought anything. We doubted it when we spotted and still do. Many merchant refused to back up their figures - most simply ignored our requests.
To our many loyal surfers, we thank you from the bottom of our heart for helping us by buying from the mall. We may revisit the idea of offering quality, mall-environment shopping again in the future. Obviously, we will have completely different arrangements with merchants and a strong anti-cheat clause with real teeth to it. It is your mall staff's opinion that affiliate shopping networks will all shortly cease to exist over this scandal.
No surfers were taken advantage of in any way by the scandal, the cheating was between the merchants and the mall.
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