Originally Posted by **********

AWE's TOS says that they reserve the right to terminate any account due to QUESTIONABLE Marketing practices, or SUSPECTED fowl play, links or materials not approved by AWE, etc.

They are clearly stating the risk to potential affiliates, which is honest and fair. If you do something that AWE does not like, they will close your account, period. If you think about it, there's nothing wrong with this. They are protecting themselves just as any good business should.

AWE's acquisition cost for each new customer is very high thanks to the commissions they pay, but they are betting that they can turn a profit this way by keeping each new customer for a nice long time. This bet only pays off if webmaster affiliates advertise their product in a fair and honest way to consumers. If the ads were misleading or if consumers were acquired by fishy methods, it might result in lower retention or even chargebacks, increasing AWE's risk and causing them to lose money.

For whatever the reason, AWE saw "Advisor"'s methods as too risky, and chose to close his account. Completely fair under AWE's public TOS. If you are an affiliate and you plan to market AWE in a way that might be against their TOS, you too are taking a risk.

The question then becomes this: Was Brad acting on behalf of the company when he said what "Advisor" was doing was ok? I would say yes. Should AWE payout what was owed up until the termination date? Maybe... ! It all comes down to how their TOS is worded. If their TOS says they do not payout on suspected marketing practices, then no money should be or needs to be paid out if you upload the exact wording of the TOS. If this is not mentioned anywhere, then perhaps AWE should payout anyway just to close the matter and consider it a loss.