Affiliate Disclosure
Plain English, because the point of a disclosure is that you actually understand it.
How this site will make money
Two ways. Display advertising, served automatically, which we do not sell directly. And affiliate links, which are the subject of this page. Neither is live yet.
What an affiliate link is
When we use one: an article links to a product or service sold by another company, and if you click that link and buy something, the seller pays us a commission. You pay exactly the same price you would have paid otherwise. The commission comes out of the seller's margin, not your pocket.
We intend to work through the affiliate networks CJ (Commission Junction), Rakuten Advertising and Awin. When a merchant partnership is actually in place, this page will name it, and the article carrying the link will say so.
How you will know
Any article containing an affiliate link will carry a disclosure box above the first link, not buried at the bottom. Affiliate links themselves are marked in the page's code as sponsored links. If an article has no disclosure box, it has no affiliate links in it.
The rules we hold ourselves to
- No advertiser sees an article before it is published. Not our affiliate partners, not anyone. They have no editorial input and never have.
- Commission does not decide coverage. We write about what matters to our readers. Most of our articles carry no affiliate link at all, because on most stories a product link would be a forced fit — and we would rather leave the money on the table than insult you.
- We do not sell to frightened people. If an article is about a scam, a fraud, or a benefit somebody is at risk of losing, it does not carry an affiliate link. Reaching for a reader's wallet in that moment is not something we are willing to do.
- We do not promise outcomes. No product we link to will make you money, protect you from all fraud, or guarantee anything. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Why we tell you all this
Partly because the Federal Trade Commission requires clear disclosure of affiliate relationships, and we intend to comply with that in substance, not just technically. Mostly because a site that writes about check fraud and then quietly earns a commission without saying so would deserve exactly the trust it got.
Last updated: Tuesday, July 14, 2026. Questions: contact us. Our full editorial standards explain how we source and verify what we publish.