When is Free Not Free?

I don’t know how long it has been happening for but there is a recent trend where someone will offer you a free DVD with some valuable information. The trick is you need to pay for postage,which I guess is reasonable to expect.

To cover the postage you are usually asked to provide credit card details. Here is where you need to pay attention. Don’t get excited and just jump to the end of the sales page and go to order.

Read everything. Somewhere on the page there might be some text lurking that is something like this:

“That’s right, you get an entire month free to put all the material in the DVD and the magazine to use in your business. After your free month I will automatically charge you the same low $37.97 price I extend my preferred, long time clients. ”

I have to admit I made the mistake of not paying attention with one of these offers. When I received a second DVD I soon realised  what was happening. I then asked to have the subscription cancelled using the orders email address that came with the order. That seems to be my next mistake.

In the mail a month later there was another DVD and magazine. I was not impressed. I then went to the website promoted on the magazine. I found the contact us link…clicked. It did not work. Hmmm. Was this link not working by design or by error?

Anyways I clicked on a link that showed my the sales pages again and funnily enough it worked. I then found the information I had missed before. You know, that text I mention above. It also had in very small print an email address to contact to cancel the subscription.

I have now emailed again to ask for the cancellation.  I also checked the order form again to see how prominent the text about the membership was. It is listed as Bonus #2. It is something easily overlooked.

Have you had this same experience? Or do you pay more attention than me? I have learned my lesson, I hope I have helped you avoid the same thing.

What do you think of this marketing tactic?