If you are an affiliate for reputable affiliate companies, you will be able to make money online without needing to worry about whether you are going to get paid by the affiliate company. When dealing with reputable affiliate companies you can also be assured the products you promote will give high levels of customer satisfaction, thereby ensuring you can earn a healthy level of commission.

Working with a reputable affiliate program will give you a problem-free way to make money online. If, however, you happen to pick an affiliate company which is less than 100% reputable, your career as an affiliate could become far from problem-free. I don't mean scam companies who set out to cheat you out of your commission or who fool you into promoting a worthless product. I mean the sort of company that will fill your affiliate marketing career with petty annoyances and waste your valuable time.

There are many reputable affiliate programs online. For instance, I am an affiliate for the Plugin Profit Site, SFI, Host4Profit, Clickbank, Commission Junction, Share-a-Sale and several others. These companies all pay me as soon as commissions are due. In fact, they are so reliable, I became too complacent about my monthly receipts.

One day I suddenly realised that another affiliate company I had been working for had never paid me even though I had been making sales for them for a few months, and they owed me getting on for $2000. I kicked myself for not keeping a closer watch on my receipts and, after that, I made sure I had a system to track outstanding commissions.

I thought I would probably have to write off the money I was owed by this company but, I emailed the owner to ask when I was going to get paid, and I was very lucky to receive the full amount owed almost by return.

The next month, everyone paid me apart from that particular affiliate company. This time two or three reminders were needed before the payment was sent. The following month, when I chased up payment, I was told a check had already been posted out to me. The check didn't turn up, so I had to wait while it was cancelled and a fresh check was cut and posted out.

Now it might have been true that a check got lost in the post, but that situation is one of the oldest stalling tactics in the book, so naturally my suspicions were aroused. It became pretty clear that I would have to chase that affiliate company for commission payments every single month. I could also see from my books that it was taking longer each month to actually get the money they owed me.

I don't know what the problem was; maybe the company owner was just disorganised but I did know that I didn't need the extra work and hassle of having to chase them for payment every single month. Although I liked the products that affiliate company offered, I stopped working with them. All the other reputable affiliate companies I work with can manage to pay commissions on time without any prompting, so it can't be terribly difficult.

When you are looking for products to promote, always check out the affiliate company to see what other affiliates are saying about it and avoid any where complaints seem genuine and large in number. There are plenty of reputable affiliate companies around, so you don't need to get involved with scams or time-wasters.