and the second one has tagged the referral to: aff27237
So, that would be pretty concerning to me as I can’t find any place in the http stream for the pipe linking code that associates the referral to your affiliate account.
… on the issue of url encoding and invalid characters. As Ted said, it really should be fine. You can use any character in a URL as long as it can be URL Encoded. The whole point of url encoding something is so that there will NOT be a mistake. If a ‘funny’ character is NOT url encoded that’s typically when the side effects and other mishaps occur. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think the tracking is failing only because they’ve used pipe’s in the linking code. If they have an inexperienced programmer building the tracking, then it would be possible that they don’t know how to handle the url encoded parameters, but that would be an extremely rookie mistake… so not sure why the issue.
So what’s it all mean??? … my two cents is that the first linking code with the pipe does look like the tracking is failing. I just don’t think it’s because of the pipe… but rather bad programming.
I bet you a gazillion bucks that TYPE IN TRAFFIC goes right to the whores door and the pimp don’t get a cent! 
OK, bit of a joke there, we are not whores and pimps, but there is a lot of change happening on the backend of programs with the rapid advance of technology..how many “You should change your links” emails have you had lately?
How many of you change your links and DON’T CHECK THEM OUT?
Aha, yep I was caught in the same boat, it’ll be cool, just swap and forget. So far I have had to have dialogue with nearly every entitiy after trying simple tracking issues.
Just FYI, Ignore at your peril.