I was cooking last Saturday night watching Colin & Justin on French Canadian channel “Canal Vie“, and saw one of my black baroque candleholders, in the “After” part of the show, of course!
If Colin and Justin like it…
GiftOsphere.ca has an new advertising banners system. After seeing and comparing affiliate advertising methods online, we opted for buying an independent software which we could adapt to our needs. It’s actually an affiliate program that we use mainly as a banner managing system.
For those who are sensitive about the image or the branding of their website, it’s a great PLUS to be able to see the actual banners beforehand, which is not possible when you deal with a advertising network. Also, our program offers commissions based on a percentage on sales. This could prove very lucrative for particular websites, depending on the type of visitors they have. Furthermore, the banners can point on a page or a section of the website in particular. So if a website owner wishes to promote a particular product or section (i.e. kitchen products, fashion accessories, etc.), its possible and we can provide a particular banner look, size or product link.
It’s simple: for each visitor that clicks on a banner and make one or more purchases, the website owner receives a commission of 5% of the invoice total (before taxes and shipping fees). When a visitor clicks on the banner, the system puts a cookie on it computer, and tracks all purchases made within 1 year of the initial click. After the cookie’s expiry date, if the visitor clicks again, there will be a new cookie, and so on. Each month, the website owner will receive a payment by check or Paypal.
You can see examples of banners right here.
The inscription takes a few minutes, then all one has to do is to copy/paste some code in the web page, and wait for money to come in!
Do you like GiftOsphere.ca? Send this article to anyone you know that operates a website. This could bring her/him some nice dough! 
I made a special order for a friend yesterday. She wanted to offer a gift to her son’s teacher and to the taxi-bus driver.
Sometimes people ask me to make a special gift basket with different items that they pick up from the catalog.
Here, I added a reusable and ultra light shopping bag to a 6 pack of apple candles (the apple is often associated to teachers) and wrapped it all with natural raffia.
When renewing my stock of MP8 clothes-line hangers, I was surprised to learn that there will not be any new cargo arrival nor stock production in any near future, because it seams that the patent owner has decided not to renew the production. I don’t know the reasons behind this, but still I purchased the balance of the lot, i.e. 32 packs of 3, beige.
So if you’re still hesitating about purchasing these wonderfully useful clothes-line hangers, don’t wait anymore, because these are the last ones on the market…
I had another attempted fraud on GiftOsphere.ca. That’s not new… and I blogged about it before, but what I DON’T UNDERSTAND is why it’s so complicated to report a fraud. I lost at least 30 minutes on the phone with many people, with no result…
Contacting Mastercard
The attempted fraud was made with a MasterCard. Not knowing where to start, as any good webgirl would do, I started with their website. I could find nothing regarding this particular situation, so I called the general number for Canada. There was the usual “Please press one, Please press 2….” I finally spoke to a real person, was transferred a few times, and winded up with a “fraud specialist”, who told me there was no central telephone number to report an attempted fraud with a MasterCard on a website. He told me that I (ME?) must call the bank that issued the card, and report it myself. I don’t have the full 16 digit credit card number that was used, but he still can give me the 1-800 number of the bank.
Contacting City Bank
I called the 1-800 number that the guy at MasterCard gave me. Since I don’t have the 16 digit number of the card, I can’t enter it… so I pressed “0″ quite a few times! I said I wanted to report an attempted fraud on one of their client’s card, and was told that they couldn’t do anything without the full 16 numbers. I said that I had the date and time (to the second), the amount. Even with that, it seems, they CAN’T do anything… (or won’t?)
I was told that I (me again) have to contact my online banking provider, and ask them to retrieve the full credit card number from their system, and then call City Bank again.
Contacting Psi Gate
I called my online banking provider, but all the lines were busy for about 15 minutes. Then I pushed the hanging-up button by mistake… and that was it for me.
This reminds me of an old Astérix movie with “the nut house”
To conclude:
1. Nobody wants’ to hear about an attempted online fraud
2. Someone will soon receive his monthly statement, will have tons of problems, but will never know that some honest e-commerce owner has taken time to try to warn him, but that his credit card issuing bank didn’t care.