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Forced Continuity – Internet Marketing Trick
By Alan | September 15, 2007
Forced continuity is an old marketing trick used for years, most of us didn’t survive our college stint without signing up for the 12 CD’s for a penny “deal” from Colmbia House. You probably know how that goes, you get 12 CD’s for a penny plus a shipping and handling charge but you agree to buy a few more CD’s (around 5) within the next couple years. They “conveniently” send you a postcard for a lame CD offer of the month, you have a couple weeks to send the postcard back if you don’t you get the crappy CD plus an invoice for around $30 bucks (might be less now since my tango with them was circa 1992).
PodFtiness does that they offer you a “free trial” if you fork over your credit card but in the small print they kindly let you know that if you don’t contact them they will hit your credit card for $20+ per month. My wife didn’t catch it until her credit card statement arrived. Luckily she checks it every month so we’re only dinged for one month for a crappy service she didn’t like after the free trial but didn’t realize it was a forced continuity gimmick.
Now it looks like an Internet Marketer that I admired is doing the same crap. I found about it in this Warrior Forum post aptly titled:
Don’t fall for this IM Trick Like I Did
Some in the forums admire this forced continuity trick while some of us just think it’s a shoddy marketing tactic to squeeze an extra buck out of you. In the post above a fellow warrior ordered a $37 DVD without reading the entire 12 page sales letter which featured 2-3 lines about a “bonus” for a free one-month trial magazine which they will kindly continue to bill your credit card for $40 per month until you call them to stop it. It took the original poster in the thread month two months before figuring out what was going on. He didn’t even know there was this “free” magazine bonus. This well-known Internet marketer refused to refund the $80 since it was buried in his sales page and the buyer did not read it.
Forced continuity might be legal but it’s a low tactic that gives direct/Internet marketers a bad name. Anything for the mighty dollar I guess. As was mentioned in the above thread over at the Warrior Forum they lost a customer for life, one who spends thousands of dollars a year in internet marketing products all over an extra $80 bucks.
You can read the FTC’s take on forced continuity/prenotification negative option and it looks like the Internet marketer is doing it by the law but it still makes for a shoddy way to make money. Thus most folks outside the Internet marketing world view us as unethical, fast talking, cheating. It’s a shame.
By the way that post in the Warrior Forum has generate 120 responses and 2591 views as of this writing so it has struck a nerve with many people.
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