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Look Carefully Before You Buy
April 18, 2008
It's getting rather hazardous these days for the consumer of Internet Marketing products. It looks like a lot of Internet marketers are taking the concept of "forced continuity" but running with the idea in misleading, and sometimes even blatantly fraudulent ways.
In the health field, one Internet marketer was recently arrested for his activities. And this About.com article provides a very good outline on the ebook portion of this marketer's business - you'll see how the forced continuity aspect of it was tucked away, and reading the comments, you'll see how a lot of consumers were scammed by it.
Dr. Mani has also posted about a forced continuity clause that was hidden in a bonus to a $9.95 ebook (Joel Comm's Adsense Secrets) he purchased. He had enjoyed the ebook, and recommended it to his list, only to find out later that his purchase of the ebook resulted in his subscription to a $29.95 per month newsletter. As he pointed out:
When I make a buying decision on a $9.95 product, that is ALL I am making. NOT a buying decision on a $29.95 per month re-billing subscription!
He's also upset, too, because he had recommended this product to his list. I can understand this, now that I'm dipping my toes into email lists myself. I treasure my list members, and I know they stay on my list because of the value of the information I give to them. To find out that I had inadvertently sent list members to a product that I recommended, that turned out to have a sneaky bit of forced continuity to it would be very upsetting indeed.
So if you've bought Adsense Secrets in the past, you should check to see if you're being billed monthly for this subscription. As for me, I will be reading the fineprint much more carefully from now on when I purchase anything. One of the reasons I like using Paypal to make my digital purchases these days is because it's impossible to be tricked into a forced continuity program. My consent is required for any subscription that's paid by Paypal.
As Dr. Mani noted, it's far better to offer your continuing subscriptions or membership products as an upsell. He also pointed to this post at Tony Blake's forum outlining some best practices Internet marketers should consider when contemplating usage of a forced continuity product.
One thing's for sure. Using this kind of hidden or misleading forced continuity clause in a product immediately destroys a marketer's credibility and reputation, at least in my books. It also gives Internet marketing a seriously bad name. It's sad, because marketing skills can be employed ethically and legally in so many ways to build a solid business.
Thanks to Jenn Dize and Carl Pruitt for their posts at E1KD about these two examples of forced continuity gone bad.
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Posted by BJ at 10:50 AM in Internet Marketing | Permalink
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