I am cheesed off and resent receiving emails from businesses that in the past I have held in respect but which now resort to false and misleading advertising.
Here in Australia, as backward as some people think we may be, we have strong laws against what is effectively bait advertising. In other words, advertising something everything storewide for $1, however when you arrive you find that you can only get the $1 on certain products and you must first pay $80-$100 on another product first.
If the advertisement stated that policy, no problems. Everyone is forewarned and you know there conditions attached.
This last week I have received numerous emails from a leading writing software supplier advertising everything storewide for $1. When you go to buy the product you want – that is advertised at $1, they charge you $79. Not only that, they auto click an addon for another $20 – again, not the $1 storewide.
It is no wonder that people distrust online advertising, particularly email advertising. Furthermore, whilst I don’t condone the activity, these tactics feed more ammunition to those that try to justify the illegal copying of software. One of there arguments has always been – ‘if software providers are going to rip us off, they cannot complain when we do the same’.
It’s Christmas and people are trying to buy goods online and save money. False ads like these are like a White Smoke screen to lure you in the door. If you don’t watch what you are doing, you will find $100 on your credit card instead of $1.
Has anyone else had any similar happen to them?
Hey Les
For the most part, I don’t trust anything I get in an email. Email marketing is the worst form of marketing online I think.
Personally I hate it!
You know, the false advertising happens more this time of year I think. I guess many of the companies hide the fine print hoping that you’ll be so frustrated in the store or afraid of making a scene that you’ll buy anyway.
I don’t know if email marketing is the worst form of marketing online, but i do think it is the least honest. It still goes on because they still convince people to buy their stuff or give them money. I haven’t seen much of an issue this year in the stores because i think the businesses are hurting enough where they are forced to be honest.
I agree, email marketing is totally dishonest. if more people would follow the “if it looks too good to be true it probably is” mentality then for the most it might decline.
What ticks me off is when a free trial for a product is promised, requiring only shipping, but hidden in the small print is a clause which automatically deducts a much larger monthly fee from your card, unless you actively opt out. And then to make matters worse, some scammers make you call a long distance number just to opt out, making the process even more difficult. Absolutely dishonest.
You know, the false advertising happens more this time of year I think. I guess many of the companies hide the fine print hoping that you’ll be so frustrated in the store or afraid of making a scene that you’ll buy anyway.
I don’t know about this particular promotion, but I bought Whitesmoke during one of their sales. I bought the general version, which was marked down as 75% off, and came with 2 additional profiles (I got Creative and Business – they came with a multilingual dictionary), so I ending up paying $99.95. So far, Whitesmoke has proved to be nothing but helpful – has fixed grammatical errors I surely would have missed. So maybe they had some particular promotion that turned out to be misleading, but for me personally, I ended up happy with the product itself.