How are "lifetime" commissions treated legally?

[Welkin]

Hi guys,

Does anybody know how "lifetime" commissions are treated legally? I know companies usually write in the terms and conditions that they could change pretty much everything but is it legal if at some point they change the lifetime commission status of an affiliate in regard to previously referred customers? For future customers I don't see a problem but since the company will continue to get money from the "older" ones that have been referred under the lifetime status it doesn't seem right if it stops paying commissions for them. Is such an action legally a fraud or it is just dishonest but not a legal issue?

 

[dompro]

I am not the lawyer, but there probably will be a clause that they can change the program policies at any time (for everybody including existing affiliates)

 

[Welkin]

I am not the lawyer, but there probably will be a clause that they can change the program policies at any time (for everybody including existing affiliates)

I don't mind the change of the policy for existing affilites but if it is applied to future customers. What I think is not right is changing the policy in regard to the existing customers (customers referred by the affiliate under the previous conditions) not the existing affiliates.

 

[RazorNF]

Well, it's likely as dompro has said, that there is probably something buried in the terms of the affiliate program that lets them change the commission plan on you.

And even if there isn't, any broken agreement could be a legal issue, providing the stakes are big enough. But realistically there's not much the small fries can do about it...

 

[Welkin]

I am sure there is always something burried in the terms that allows companies to change everything. My question is more in the way is it legally fine if they apply such a change also to already accomplished deals. An existing customer is actually a deal made in the past independently of the affiliate's eventual lifetime commission status. So by changing this lifetime status the company actually alters a deal from the past. And this is something that doesn't seem very legal to me but I'm not an expert in this field so this is just what my logical thinking says.