"Legitimate" businesses now find that they can only get money through this method.
I was going to send a friend a birthday card. All the sites from major greeting card companies claim "Free" service. In each case, one selects and fills out a card, only to be required to "join." Joining requires providing them a credit card number for the "Free" membership. The "Free" membership converts to an automatic monthly charge to your credit card.
The hope is that one will forget to cancel in that time and that the company gets a monthly charge out of a percentage of users who are too busy to have a system in place to cancel their membership. A smaller number will continue to be billed for months.
Pretty sleazy!
- The more places one uses one's credit card online increases the chance of theft of the credit card number and identity theft.
- Businesses that use this technique are admitting that their value and the experience are not enough to have people pay for the services.
- These companies are not upfront in their business practices. "Gotcha" policies identify that a company has no ethical or moral underpinnings. Their business model depends on taking advantage of people.
Just as we have the "Can Spam" law, a law must be enacted that requires any company advertising using the word "Free" must clearly add any restrictions and requirements every time the word "Free" is used. Even an asterisk leading to tiny print would be a clear enough warning.
