>I like this post but “unscrupulous merchant” seems harsh for a company that may have changed their policies and didn’t realize they had to inform the referring agent of those changes.
Even giving them an extremely generous benefit of the doubt, I can't think of a way to describe them as anything better than "unscrupulous."
If it truly was an honest mistake that they forgot to tell affiliates they changed policies, their reaction upon finding out should have been, "Oh wow! Thanks for telling us! We owe hundreds of people money, so we'd better review our transactions and pay everyone what they're owed." But instead, they (as far as I know) only paid me and never informed any of the other affiliates.
Also bear in mind, that you can't just "forget" to tell people that you changed the terms of your business relationship with them. If I hired hundreds of employees by advertising a $20/hr wage, I can't just privately decide that their pay is lower and secretly reduce their paychecks until one of them notices.