There are tons of free offers these days. Here are some precautions, which i have gathered. Few things are totally free. Free of charge indicates no contract, cost-free, nada, nothing! Not long ago I offered a “free” ebook on beginning an online home business. To acquire this ebook you needed to give me your email address. Therefore I imagine in a way that it was not totally free, since you were required to give me something in exchange for it. That item would have provided me the authority to send you email routinely about home-based business information. Personally I think it was a reasonable trade, and not a misleading one at that. But that’s not exactly what this particular post is all about. It’s about stretching the truth and baiting customers.

Not too long ago I received an offer from a well-known Online marketer who I think sells some very respectable products. The offer appeared to be that this individual was giving away a new product for just $5.00. This product sells for more than $100 so this ended up being quite a bargain. I was thinking, at the time, exactly what does this person mean? Why would anybody offer this product for five bucks when the item had been selling for more than $100. The simple fact was it wasn’t. Not even close. The actual “special offer” was permitting me to be able to try it out for the $5.00 and following the initial tryout period I would immediately be charged the regular price in regular installments because it was a subscription product, which unfortunately took some digging to find out.

You have to give him credit for originality however it appeared to be the classic “bait and switch” tactic. A number of you could say I had been pretty naive to think that the product was merely going to cost $5.00. The actual fact remains that I never really believed that the product was being offered for five bucks, however I’ll bet there were a number of that did and were quite taken aback when they discovered the installment on their credit card monthly bill.

Personally I believe that the present global financial slow-down has resulted in loads of entrepreneurs to defer to some tried and tested hard-core internet marketing maneuvers that border on being unethical.

This is, certainly not, a judgement of trial offers for the reason that it’s not. Point in fact, I have personally purchased products and services from Internet marketers which clearly point out that the initial trial offer timeframe is $X but that the final cost is $Y after the tryout. This can be a terrific strategy for both product seller and for the product buyer for two main factors. First, it’s good for the seller since it encourages buyers to do something for a nominal price for a specific time-frame. Second it’s good for the purchasers because they get to measure the product or service inexpensively just before they in fact must purchase it. There’s nothing wrong with this particularly when it’s spelled out plainly in the sales page. It’s really a win-win scenario.

My pet peeve is that in many instances whenever marketers are offering to you subscription based products they cover up the real monthly membership with an inexpensive first month only and once they’ve got your card number you will quickly get the “real” cost in your card statement before you know what’s truly happened.

Tha harsh truth: Study everything twice before you buy. If the numbers aren’t there in the sales copy either do not buy it or email the actual product owner and ask the question. Generally if the offer is reputable the seller will answer your pre-sales query straight away. Otherwise, don’t even bother.

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