Marketing Lesson on Trial Offers
If you bought Matt Bacaks Retirement package for $1 recently you may have been mislead by his sales page…
here’s why and also a lesson in marketing using trial offers for everyone (including Matt)
It’s not the product – I still believe the product is good – it is the way the product was sold – the sales system which I’m apologizing about endorsing…here’s why…
First of all, I’d like to offer a public apology for endorsing Matt Bacak’s retirement package for $1 yesterday without checking his sales page more thoroughly as I should have and usually do before sending an endorsement email out for a product.
I’m usually very careful about fully reviewing products as well as the sales process before endorsing things. In fact sometimes I spend all day just reviewing one product to make sure it does what is claims, is not too hypey or overpriced for what they get and will help someone with their business.
I get asked to endorse products daily so we usually have to politely decline many products, even if they are good just because we cannot fit them into our schedule (our own business comes first always).
Many times people have so-so products so we give them a few pointers to improve on them and send them on their way as well.
And then we have the ones that just get deleted as they basically are no good or their approach was off for us.
So let’s back up and do a rewind here…
About a week ago Matt showed me a private login area showing all the videos from his seminars that would be in the $1 for everyone. The videos worked fine then and I watched a few of them and decided they could probably help people out – and at just $1 it is almost free.
Matt also told me that the $1 would go to charity – the Habitat for Humanity - I considered this a very noble thing of him to do as well so it made me more willing to help also.
He explained he’s have a OTO set up for people to get some of his other products also which is quite normal in online marketing for free and low cost offers. The customer can easily just say NO, I only want the free or low cost offer etc, so no problem there.
I’d also met him in person about a year ago in Atlanta and we had talked for a few hours over drinks so I felt good about him.
So I told Matt I’d help him get the word out and wished him the best on his launch. Things got busy as usual around our offices and I forgot about it until yesterday when it was time to send out the mail. The mail was set to go already so figured all was okay and was busy doing things on our business…
when suddenly I get an alarming email from a good friend of mine.
He asked me if I had promoted Matt’s offer said he was very upset with him. I asked why and found out quickly as soon as I saw the sales page that was posted for this $1 offer.
(Click Here to view the sales page and see for yourself)
First of all, it starts out a little too hypey for me, but hey, I just ignore those things anyways and skip on to the meat of the offer. So I scrolled down the page to find the order area and I was shocked at what I found.
It was asking everyone to put in their credit card details to get the $1 offer access and then had a ‘bonus’ of his newsletter for free – that’s it. No mention of rebilling on the order form area until AFTER the person has paid and they have you on autorebill.
This is quite shocking for most consumers and I imagine quite a few were pretty angry, in fact I know a few were angry as the emails from our members started coming soon after asking if we were aware of this etc etc.
So I reread the sales letter about 3 times and then I finally saw where it was mentioned, around the middle of the sales page it says included as a Bonus:
“A Free issue of the Internet Marketing DIRT Print Newsletter. The Internet Marketing Dirt is the newsletter I just started publishing a few months ago, and it is already being praised at the “best of its kind”, “better than any other newsletter on marketing.” And you get to try that out for free… if you don’t want to continue receiving it it’s simple and easy to cancel your $29.97 monthly subscription (you’re crazy if you cancel… but it’s easy to do, and up to you!).”
It was mentioned after the headline: “So Here’s Everything You Get For Just $1″
However, many people (if they read through the sales page) may have read over that and it should have been right on the order form as well.
Not to mention the sales page goes over and over again how they get this great seminar for $1 and how much money they can make etc etc.
In any case, it is the issue of FORCED recurring billing for another product just to get the main product with absolutely no options to just get the main offer is the whole point of this.
It could have easily been a TICK BOX option instead or a OTO after they have gotten the $1 main offer – which is the whole reason people are interested anyways.
It’s like going to a store and buying a book, when you get to the check out counter they say you get this free newsletter included as a bonus also. Great you say, but then they tell you your card will be charged $29.95 or whatever in 30 days. If you say, you don’t want to do that then you cannot buy the book – which is what you wanted in the first place.
It’s not good marketing – PERIOD
Start of Damage Control at midnight for me
I immediately emailed Matt and asked him why he was doing this without ANY mention of the fact that everyone was being added to autorebill for $29.97 his monthly newsletter since it was just a ‘bonus’ anyways and not even part of the main offer.
I pointed out to him that by LAW he must be very clear about this. A quick google search pulled up the FTC link about this which I sent to him so he could rethink what he was doing and correct his mistake asap – which he did.
I got a reply about 30 min later and he’d updated the sales page to say:
| Special Bonus: Tue, April 15, 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Okay – fine – that is the first step at least and as an experienced marketer he should have known that.
It is also MY FAULT for not seeing that before the mail went out so I totally appologize to everyone in regards to the autobilling issue. I couldn’t sleep last night from worry and was up until 4am talking with Matt and replying to others who were complaining.
If anyone signed up and would like to cancel your autobilling please contact them (info is on their sales page website)
Second Lesson Here
Even if you state why you need someone’s credit card and that they will be autorebilled the way this offer was structured was totally off.
The main offer is the package at $1
The autobilling is for a newsletter
Two totally non related products here
So what they should have done (and I told them this – hopefully Matt changes the page) is to put a simple TICK BOX under the $1 offer asking people to check ONLY IF they would like to get 1 month of his newsletter free and be billed in 30 days at full price as an OPTION only.
This most likely would make customers happier and also increase his $1 offer conversions anyways.
I guarantee hundreds if not thousands of people saw that offer only to leave disappointed or angry about having to be put on a rebilling process just to get the orginal $1 offer.
He could have had more sales and more happy customers by making things 100% clear and as options – not ‘forcing’ people into things.
I hope Matt has learned from this and I do hope some of the other promoters also can learn from this.
I know I sure have…I will certainly be even MORE CAREFUL about fully reviewing the sales process as well as the products before endrosements.
In closing I respect Matt for the fact that he did listen to my advice and take action on it (even when no one else seemed to be pointing it out to him) and I think he just made some honest mistakes here. I do not think it was his intention to deceive anyone or try to ‘cheat’ anyone from his original offer.
We all make mistakes and the important thing is we can learn from the.
I posted this somewhat ‘private’ matter here on the public blog for several reasons, none of which are to hurt Matt, in fact we will probably discuss this more today on skype.
I mainly wanted to explain and apologize to all my members – as a token for your lost time & money I’d like to show you where you can get some great ‘FREE’ info as well:
Click Here to Get Free audio podcasts
Click Here to Get a Free Starter Membership to D4M – Lots of quality info inside (Note: you will get a OTO after you sign up – you can just click the No Thanks button – then click No Thanks again and you can enter the Starter member area.)
But ALSO I truely hope this helps anyone in business doing or thinking of doing trial offers. It would be a shame to see similar situations happen to others.
If you are doing trial offers make sure you are VERY CLEAR about your offer, time frame, conditions, rebilling amounts and dates etc BEFORE you ask people to put in their payment details.
Keep your customers happy, provide great products and services and you will certainly succeed in business offline or online. (You can leave your comments below)
April 16th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
The only way to do some profitable marketing is to think globally and for the long run, with a customer centric approach. As Jeremy says, as soon as you raise confusion (not even mentioning hidden forced continuity) then you destroy part of your brand and you throw some negative messages to your market. Hopefully you’re one of the few marketers who takes care of their subscribers by helping them decode marketing tactics.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I was going to buy until I saw that the newsletter would be billed monthly. These things are often not as easy to “cancel at any time” as I have found out in the past – so I passed on the offer. Maybe I missed out on some good material but hey another guru will have some more on offer next time I open my mail box. Marketing needs to be less “smart”, more open and ethical these days to get my money.
April 16th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Thank you so much for posting this Jeremy – it is a testament to your integrity. I was one of those people who opted in for $1 and was quite surprised to find that there was an “auto-rebill” – another well-known marketer also does this online and I steer clear of them as much as I can.
I am thankful that I have a way to cancel because I could not find anywhere on his site where this was even possible. This set red flags up instantly.
Secondly, every time I tried to view the videos, they wouldn’t load…to Matt’s credit he did send an email out telling people that the hosting company was upgrading the bandwidth and that it would take about 15-30 minutes. I tried for the rest of the evening to actually get through a video – the furthest I ever got was 4 minutes and 43 seconds through one video.
Third, I was completely confused by the whole newsletter thing – not the price but the fact that he was releasing a newsletter at all because one of the emails I received from Matt stated it was his “retirement” gift.
If you’re retiring, why would you continue to give out advice as to what you are doing “now”? I don’t want to read about his golfing adventures – LOL!!!
None the less, thanks for the opportunity to vent a little bit and thank YOU for making this post – I’ve always enjoyed your products and services and this just further solidifies my trust in you.
Kristine
April 16th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Thanks for the notice – I didn’t realise what was going on – just that there were WAY too many upsell pages after the $1 offer – from a marketing point of view it would have been MUCH better to just do the $1 offer and then follow up – via autoresponder – Something like:
Day 1 – Confirmation of download link
Day 2 – Reminder to download.
Day 3 – An unannounced bonus download.
Day 4 – Would you like to buy…
Week 2 – Another free bonus
Week 2 + a couple of days – Would you like to buy….
Keep going with a mixture of free and chargeable items and you probably get just as much money without anyone thinking that you look a bit ‘hungry’!!!
Oh well, a lesson for us all.
All the best.
Robert Agar-Hutton
http://www.verbalaggression.com
http://www.protectics.co.uk
April 16th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Your update (apology) is right on. I’m pretty experienced in these things, but I missed it too. It was a generous offer, to be sure, but after about 5 offers, it’s easy to go into “copy blindness.” The offer was misleading if it leads to autobilling the way you laid it out.
When we make a third party offer at First Step Internet Marketing, or TomJustin.com, we are, like you, very cautious. But I missed that too. I’m glad now I didn’t promote it too. My reason was the multiple (at least 4 upsells).
You’ve created much good will by your notice, so thank you for that!
Regards,
Tom Justin
April 16th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Thanks Jeremy for such a thoughtful post. I saw the sales page and backed out instantly. Seems like the “powerful promoter” has burned his fingers and several other people’s too.
And I guess this is now another barrier of suspicion that I have to jump over when I approach experts to help a product.
Thanks for the “heads up”
Alex
April 16th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
It appears that Joel Comm is doing something very, very similar with his launch of the latest edition of his adsense book today.
Buy the ebook for 9.95 and then pay 29.95 a month for a newsletter I probably don’t want?
If I want to buy a book a I want to buy a book. Not a subscription.
If he is selling subscriptions then he should say so and sell the book as the OTO.
It seems to be a rather dubious practice that will make enemies rather than friends out of your customers. Would you buy again from someone that has fooled or forced you into buying something you don’t want?
Even if it’s all done upfront and legitimately I don’t like it and it will stop me buying anything that uses such practices. Just be honest and straight about it and offer the option to subscribe or not.
But I guess that would be less effective and make less money.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I did not see this, and now that I think about, Matt Bacak has pulled this kind of thing before. I called him on it once before, and he blew me off. I don’t think it is accidental, and it tends to give IM in general a bad rap.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Hi Jeremy
Thanks for being so open about it!
We are all human and we all make mistakes – and we have to trust that a “preview” of an offer, don’t change so radically, when it goes live, as here seen.
I think we could easily save the pain of being scammed for a lot of people, by always spitting out in public, whenever we are part of a mistake.
This will stop the bad boys very quickly and we will all be reminded about the importance of having a fair sales tactic.
It hurts all serious working marketers when ever a marketer goes dirty…So Lets us use our blogs, whenever this happens.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:01 am
I saw the auto-rebill mentioned *very-briefly* in relation to the newsletter when reading through the sales-page, and immediate red-flags went up !
Despite an initial curiosity to see what you’d get for $1, and what size the oto’s and upsells would be, there was simply no way I was going to type in my c/card details into a site which quite obviously was really just trying to scam people into parting with $30/month for a newsletter they may or may not want.
MB’s not a stupid guy, and it’s not an unheard of technique in offline direct sales, so I simply dont believe this was an “accidental” thing, kudo to you J for calling him out on it.
Anyway whatever MB was selling in his course, I’m no longer interested in it, simply due to the technique used.
Rob
April 17th, 2008 at 12:04 am
I commend your honesty about this situation. Quite frankly, after skimming the sales page, doing a doubletake about the monthly billing, and reading it again to discover that I really had seen what I thought I had, I not only didn’t sign up on his site but my estimation of and trust in you plunged. I’ve been affiliate marketing for seven years now, and I have one or two such “egg on the face,” situations in my own history, so I can understand how things like this happen. I appreciate that you clarified and apologized rather than just ignoring the issue as so many others have done in similar situations, and look forward to reading your emails in the future.
Diana Ward
April 17th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Hi, I’m in a hurry but I’d just like to draw attention to something that serves nobody, including people who might want to cancel their subscription for Matt’s newsletter.
Leaving people’s email addresses so unprotected online will sooner or later draw SPAM to that their mailboxes. And whoever checks the mailbox will have to fight SPAM to get to the legitimate messages from customers etc.
Maybe not so obvious, but there’s always a chance to make it right…
April 17th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Hi Jeremy
THIS STINKS!
Having got emails from several well known gurus about this Matt Bacaks offering
I checked the site out and found it too hypey and frankly I didn’t believe the story behind it.
Then I got an email from JP Schoeffel (thankyou) advising me that he wasn’t happy with this at all
for the reasons you have already mentioned.
I think this is an absolute DISCRACE to internet Marketing and he should not be allowed to get away with it!
regards
Graham in U.K.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:26 am
How much lower are Internet Marketers going to stoop? I think this is totally unacceptable and an undesirable development and I am seeing it being adopted by many so-called respected gurus in the internet marketing world. Shame on them.
These people obviously do not give a stuff about their customers, for them it is all about money, extracted in large sums as fast as possible. What about customer value?
I do not believe Matt Bacak’s story for one minute. Stay clear.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:46 am
Matt’s sales page was so full of ‘hype’ that it turned my stomach in the first place, but for $1, I decided to see what his ‘$5,500′ package was all about. I looked at all the ordering details carefully to make sure this was a $1 one time charge only, and was satisfied that it was. I went through with the purchase, and got even more nauseous with his 3 or 4 pathetic upsells. All I could think was “this guy is a total scammer”. I should have gone with my initial gut feeling. Thanks to your email today, I contacted them and requested to be removed from the auto-pay system immediately. They replied within a few minutes and confirmed they would. No apology of course. Thank you Jeremy for your honesty in this matter.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Hi Jeremy
yes I saw it pop up its ugly head
and thanks for your honesty its a nice change
in todays marketplace haha.
I am suprised you have not come across this
before however i am glad you have highlighted it
here on your blog.
I havce been contacted by many high level marketers
offering dvd’s or and even huge organisations asking
for a £2 trial membership for this and that that goes to
charity and trying to cancel well unless you use paypal forget it
and forget your cash too.
As Graham states above it stinks he is right irrespective
of where in the small print it is hidden in my mind it is
blatent misrepresentation and in effect dishonest almost
to the point of fraudulant.
Someone with a bit of clout should contact the payment processors
and get it stopped if for nothing else to protect their own integrity
as allleged business professionals we need more Jeremys out there
with your obvious courage and honesty protecting the future of
online business.
Take care Jeremy and know this (if it means anything:-)
i have been a menber of your list for a bloomin looong time
because of your quality of service and information today you surpassed
that and earned my/our respect for being you well done
Ron
April 17th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Jeremy,
many thanks for setting down Your foot for the little man!!
Cheers,
Pat
April 17th, 2008 at 1:49 am
I am relieved to see your e-mail and blog post about this, Jeremy! Your response shows clearly where you stand on the ethics of the way Matt presented this offer. I applaud your honesty and courage in expressing your views and allowing a forum for us to express ours.
Yesterday I ordered the $1 deal and was shocked to see on my post-purchase e-mail that there was a re-billing aspect. I went back to the order page and still saw nothing about any ongoing payment. Was I blind? Was it always there? Of course now that the page is changed, I can’t look at what I “saw” yesterday.
I was (and still am) very angry! I spent WAY too much of my day yesterday re-reading the sales page and all of the legal papers attached to it. More hours were spent running through my mind how best to deal with this. For the time being… I await MATT’s public response to this matter.
It is doubly disappointing to see that, although Matt has:
1.changed the sales page to be more obvious about ongoing billing his sales offer,
2.sent emails to his “customers” that the video problems are apparently being addressed,
He has said NOTHING about the original omission of information.
R
April 17th, 2008 at 1:53 am
That is indeed a fine marketing lesson for all; present and future marketers and consumers. I looked at the sales page before and after the revision to it. I saw the change, and was curious to how the change originated.
There is another marketer with a major example of ” well layered associated costs” also known as reading the fine print. He had a fine example of this the other day that happened to his wife and their business in an incident not related directly to this one.
That said, in the flurry of emails promoting the sale, I did take a peak, and said pretty much, not again, something for sale that then has a continuity program attached, yet I would not have expected that to be clear to everyone viewing the offer. In the middle of the promo emails, I received one email from a list that I am on pointing out the ” fine print”, thanks and kudos to that individual. He knows who he is! After more emails, I did notice later in the day, that the offer had been revised. So, I will congratulate Matt on that, in the midst of his being depricated on the topic.
And Jeremy, thank you as well, for the apology and the well-spoken explanation. All brilliant examples of how a community can continue to perpetuate ethics. As Mr. Schoeffel points to the individual brand and that brands market; so too can too much of that type of marketing cast a dim picture of large parts of an entire market, then creating more barriers put up by people who don’t trust marketing to begin with. So really, both sides of the marketing fence need to speak out and listen to each other.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:02 am
I’m afraid I had to laugh when I read this post (which in itself is great) and then went on to click the other link in your email which led to Joel Comm’s Adsense Secrets 4 which does the exact same thing! OK he does stay within the law and warn us that we will be rebilled but it doesn’t sound like it will be easy to stop the rebilling – it says you have to call, and doesn’t give you the number – who’s to know, it might be one of those toll free numbers that you cannot call from outside the USA – so it was kinda ironic … after you had made such a good point here …
Sorry but I won’t be buying Adsense Secrets 4 either, for the same reason.
Kerry
April 17th, 2008 at 2:16 am
I’ve been on Matt’s mailing list for quite some time and I’ve always been skeptical of him. He almost always seems to be involved in some sort of offer that appears to be somewhat underhanded. I stay on his list mainly to see what kind of new scam he’s promoting.
No I know that it’s dangerous to say something like this about a well know internet marketer, because a lot of other marketers will jump to his defense. But consider this – he’s been an online promoter for quite a while and according to what he says, he does a lot of business and he makes a lot of money.
There’s no way that I’d ever believe that this whole ‘continuity’ thing was an accident or he didn’t realize what was happening. I’ve got to believe that he knew exactly what was happening. After all, it was his website, his product, his offer, his shopping cart, etc. How could he not know what was going on?
This only further leads me to distrust him. I will stay subscribed to his list, only to see what other shenanigans he tries to pull on the unsuspecting public, but I will NEVER buy anything from him.
I hope that Matt has learned a lesson from all this – you can’t go around cheating people and expect everybody to just be quite about it. Hopefully, Matt will see a serious decline in his business and really retire (for good). Everybody would be better off without such flim-flam promoters.
Again, if Matt says that he didn’t know what was happening, I believe that’s just plain BS! It’s scammers like this that give internet marketers a bad name.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:47 am
I saw this as well, and it didn’t make me want the product less, but it made me wonder why Matt was doing something like this. He is an experienced marketer, and I would think that everyhing regarding this offer have been prepared and thought through at least a 100 times.
Therefore, I just thought it was some kind of a marketing trick. People won’t read the small prints, and they only see the $1, and then suddenly they get their newsletter each month without even knowing about it. Most people might continue to subscribe to it, because the newsletter is actually awesome.
Therefore, “nobody” will complain, because they receive a great product even though they didn’t know they had to pay for it
Anyway, it’s a great thing that you discovered it (or actually someone discovered it for you) and contacted Matt about it.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:16 am
I ordered a book (which was good), thought I had a choice in the bonuses & did not order the magazine. Got it anyway in the mail, think I found the website address in the newsletter (it wasn’t a magazine) & cancelled it. I couldn’t believe I’d been scammed like that by someone who I felt was trustworthy. This was a couple months ago. He believes in selling to make a buck, period.
April 17th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Hi Jeremy,
I really appreciate your apology so much. I did give my card number for the 1.00 and was truly bummed when it came back that I was signed up for auto-pay 29.97/month. I immediately cancelled. I hope I was not too sarcastic. I just thought I was duped, and should have known he wanted my card number. Anyway I feel a little bad because he’s probably a pretty good guy. And his material is probably good too. I have not even downloaded any of the other stuff that was suppose to be free thinking it probably wasn’t. THANKS AGAIN for the apology. By the way I do need help and I hope I can find it at SurefireWealth Knowledge Base. I’ll be logging in soon. Bye for now MP
April 17th, 2008 at 3:35 am
Always appreciate this kind of apologia in the market place. It confirms my general tendancy to not grab at launches with $1 trial periods!
April 17th, 2008 at 4:20 am
I noticed this immediately and decided against it.
A lot of people who know me know how skeptical I am of IMers.
This type of thing just serves to reinforce what I believe to be a bunch of snake-oil merchants using a different medium.
It’s as a result of things like this that I can honestly say I can count the number of online marketers I trust on one hand.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:01 am
I commend you also Jeremy, however this was no “oversight” of Bacak’s. He is a serial user of this dishonest technique.
I fell for the free CD last January from him. The CD never arrived ($9.77) and he’s charged $29.97 THREE times to my credit card since (still continuing) which I wasn’t aware of was going to happen. He will not answer any communications, and my bank refuses to discontinue the charge or apply for chargebacks because I am travelling and not in my credit card home country. I am out $100 so far and it has not ended yet.
This is disgusting and from what I am going through, I currently see Matt Bacak in a very low light. Interestingly, you are the only marketer I’ve seen so far who promoted, who has done the right thing, and in your case, done it so well. But… it was no mistake by Matt Bacak.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:12 am
Thanks for being so honest, Jeremy. Another marketer brought up this same situation a couple of days ago because it had happened to him (with a different company). Stuff like this gives internet marketing a bad name.
Denise
April 17th, 2008 at 5:14 am
I was forewarned by another person that there will be recurring cost associated with the $1 but decided to find out what it was all about. Anyway, for a person starting out in internet marketing, the material is ok (not quite to D4M standard). But the ’staged’ upsell is annoying.
It just goes to show how a mistake can cost a business in this media. Damage control is more work than a planned product launch. Maybe he is in a hurry to go to New Orleans for his Habitat(?) contribution.
What will hurt him is the customer’s perception of his mistake. Was it an honest one or a deliberate one?
April 17th, 2008 at 5:28 am
I don’t know if the sales page had already been revised when I first saw it or not. What immediately turned me off to the deal was the fact that he doesn’t take PayPal. For $1 he gets credit card numbers that he can do anything he wants with.
I’ll give my card info to an established retailer, but to some guy I never heard of? No thanks.
April 17th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Shame shame shame… that’s all I can say. Somebody should drop a line to Habitat For Humanity with a link to his sales page and this blog to give them a heads up. He’ll just use them for a photo-opp showing what a great guy he is for charity – all to pave the way for some future shenanigan.
He really started losing me after the 3rd greedy upsell video – come on… that’s a bit obvious and almost insulting.
Thank you so much for your post and apology – you are a true business person with ethics, and have earned my respect and trust many times over.
April 17th, 2008 at 6:56 am
This ‘forced continuity’ strategy is getting more popular with the IM crowd.
They will offer what appears to be a great deal on something for a very small fee ($1 ‘donation’ in this case, to cover shipping costs for a ‘free’ CD), where the customer figures there is nothing to lose, and then they slip in a free trial of something that they can charge for every month. By the time you realize you are getting billed for it, you’ve spent a lot of money for something you didn’t want.
Even worse, no one seems to accept Paypal for these deals, but they want your credit card number themselves. There’s no way to opt out of the forced subscription up front, and without Paypal there’s no way to insure that you can immediately unsubscribe and be certain that you won’t be charged in the future.
While its easy to understand why they want monthly revenue instead of having to make new sales all the time, it’s interesting that they never seem to have a sales offer for the trial subscription by itself but have to rely on promoting something else and mislead people into accepting the free trial as a ‘bonus’ to something else.
I’m seeing more marketers that I once respected using this tactic and I’m fast losing my respect for any of them that are doing this. Thanks for taking a stand rather than jumping onto the JV bandwagon to promote this way of doing business.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:07 am
You are doing your best part in marketing. Keep aware…
Be blessed and success.
Isyaias.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Yet another grubby, underhand marketing ploy – it never fails to astonish me (although by now it should!) how many so called ‘Gurus’ claim they only to want to help people make money, which is the reason for their “insane” generosity…?
$5000.00 for his seminar…!!! who does he think he is kidding? – if Matt (whatever his name) is selling something for a $1.00 that’s ALL its worth! Who in their right mind would pay $30.00 for a newsletter??? from him? – (unless you want to learn how to cheat and decieve people out of their money.)
Jeremy I accept your apology for recommending this very poor piece of marketing and more than that I am pleased that you recognised it as such. But then you go on to recommend Joel Comm who is doing exactly the same sort of marketing…!
So many IM experts (so-called) simply peddle each others hyped up launches and worthless products as if they are doing us a favor!!?? No wander there is so much negative opinion of Internet Marketing.
All the replies to this blog post would suggest (to me anyway) that many ‘Gurus’ have no clue about genuine marketing themselves, let alone them trying to sell their knowledge to others – because if Matt thinks this is clever marketing he should be getting the idea by now that it is exactly the opposite.
And don’t we all hate the people who brag about how much money they earn to try to persuade us to buy their knowledge how to do it ourselves. Well don’t buy their knowledge – let me tell you how its done for nothing…
Hype up common known knowledge in a mis-leading (or even deceiving sales-letter) use underhand sales techniques (like giving some money away to charity – or whatever!) and then simply get other marketers who use similar tactics themselves to sell the thing for you….
But ask yourself one question is BIG money THAT important to you…that you will try to deceive, cheat and lie to people to get it…? If yes – good luck to you I hope you sleep ok at night!
For the rest of you I wish you good luck and eventual success – based on trust and GENUINE concern for other people.
Geoff B.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:01 am
“Only $1 and it’s all going to charity… aren’t I great?” Meanwhile his hand is sneaking out for the money you have in your pocket!
Is this how Matt earns his respect?
If he’s as experienced and respected as he says he is then there is no need to stoop to such an underhand trick. Just goes to show that many of the big names will stop at nothing to ’steal’ a few dollars off of their customers.
Reminds me of the time one ‘respected’ marketer told people to get a refund on a product they’d already bought so they could buy it again through his affiliate link – I canceled my subscription and black-marked him in my book and the same goes for Matt as far as I’m concerned.
Two lessons here:
1: How to lose credibility in one step – make sneaky underhand sales without telling the customer upfront
2: How to gain the respect of your clients – expose the truth
Thanks Jeremy.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Thank you for the apology (accepted) and especially for talking to this guy.
It is so very obvious when one of these big JV offers is coming through the pipe because all of the “gurus” send out the same stupid message without changing a word. I must have received 6 messages from 6 different “internet marketing authorities”-all within a few hours of each other.
This type of marketing, if you can call it that, has made me unsubscribe to most of these guys offers. Because it just underscores the fact that very few, despite their sincerity claims don’t give a rats butt about the people on thier lists. They just want to use the offer to get the 50% commission and as we see by this fiasco they don’t even read what they are promoting.
To his credit, I did receive a message from JP at Ethicash with a warning to be careful of this offer and why. He obviously took the time to read the offer and decided not to send it to his list.
So thank you again, Jeremy. You are an honorable marketer.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:56 am
That marketing strategy is nothing new. Another one of those ways Internet predators prey on the newbies. It’s the same thing as giving away “something for free” with a 1 month bonus on a membership that auto-rebills. And then you forget to cancel… Sounds familiar?
Ian del Carmen
http://FireballInternetMarketing.com
April 17th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Thank you Jeremy for your great post. This type of marketing is unethical and dishonest. I appreciate you taking the time to set the record straight.
This is an important lesson for everyone involved in Internet Marketing. Don’t do it! I appreciate you contacting everyone of your lists to inform them of this scam. I greatly respect your own honesty and integrity. That’s way I am a member of so many of your membership sites. Your email speaks volumes about the type of marketer you are.
Albert Grande
http://pizzatherapy.com
April 17th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Well a great lesson learned, for me anyway.. I will look more closely from now on at anything that I want to buy for any type of a sneaky plor.. If he would of let us buy through paypal I would have spent that buck to help habitat for humanity.. Pay pal is the best and easiest way to cancel any subscription.. guess I might of missed out on some great info..But I really want to thank you for letting all of us know!
Congrats to you.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Jeremy I appreciate your post. I feel as Albert does. I find it very disappointing to see people doing things like this but it does not shock me. I have been taken to the cleaners on more than one occassion by people. There have even been times when some of these same people have added salt to my wound by being down right rude. I wish that people were brim full of honesty, ethics, and integrity; but that is not reality. However we can all have our faith renewed when the people like Albert and Jeremy have products to promote on the net. As Paul Sanderson says ” hey another guru will have some more on offer next time I open my mail box.” I like to think that ethics are practiced a lot more than not; but then I am a pessimistic optimist.
April 17th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Unfortunately this is not the only one to come to light this week. When will these people learn that we are all not as gullible as they seem to think we are.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Jeremy
Right after and below your apology you go on to mention postitive things and promote Joel Comm’s latest version of Adsense Secrets.
Are you aware that Joel Comm is doing the same thing you apologized for promoting in Matt Bacaks Retirement package? Look at his Fast Action Bonus #3 below. You’ll see that once again the 1st newsletter is free but when paying for the book you are automatically subscribed to the newsletter and the onus is upon you to cancel it.
I find marketing like this lacks integrity, borders on deception and leaves a bad taste with consumers…. which affects us all.
This type of marketing is similar to what cable companies were doing years ago and received so much bad press about. It backfired for them and I believe will for these Internet Marketers as well.
**********************************************************
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If after the free report you decide it’s not worth ten times the subscription cost (which won’t happen because you will be blown away by the content in this report!), simply contact us and cancel your subscription at any time! Otherwise, you may continue to be in the Top 1% for the discount rate of just $29.95 every 30 days. Wait until you see the bonus that comes with your first edition!
April 18th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Over the last year I have seen more of this happening, but ususally they tell you that there is a mointhly charge for something other than what I wanted. I don’t buy into this.
Another thing that I have also notice are the so called gurus that make an offer and when you sign up for it , it becomes so spread out that you lose interest. I just cancel their stuff or simply throw their emails away without reading them, I mean all of them.
Maybe this guy did make a mistake and maybe he didn’t. I don’t judge him because I never looked at it anyway. But let this be a lesson for all when you seek revenge like this. you end up making yourself look stupid.
By all means cut the other guy off at the knees by giving the course away but do it for good business sense not revenge. I wonder if there might have been another option open, (like a lawyer?) or the threat of one. Or by accepting the challenge and making the course even better with more to offer for less.
Jeremy, I have been watching the way you conduct business as well as others for the past year. I was not so interested in the products or services, although they are great, but in the way of ethics and you are one of the few that I would have no problems recommending you to anyone, even my mother if she was still alive.
Congrates on your quick apology. You have gained a lot of respect in my book sir.
April 18th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Great post, and happy to see you get Matt’s attention. I see that Joel is following suit now, so I hope he reads that ftc link and makes it clear what people are really getting into.
Everyone loves the income from continuity programs, but without the customer’s consent, it is risky business.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I was one who fell for it, used your email link to request cancellation of autobill, received a confirmation they received my email. This morning I got an email saying I will not be billed. Happened pretty quick, so I’m happey enough. If I like the newsletter, I may re-subscribe, but not until I read the Free copy.
Thank you for the warning & help & your integrity.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
[...] prompted by this post (thank you Jeremy), http://www.surefirewealth.com/blog/marketing/marketing-lesson-on-trial-offers I just went and got the $1 offer using the new PayPal Secure Card. I’ve been meaning to try [...]
April 18th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
hey guys…c’mon now, let’s take a deep breath here….
i’m not a fan of forced continuity either, but let’s not impugn the reputation of any single marketer who is just doing the same thing that all the big boys are doing.
Yup, I”ve been presented (and accepted some) forced continuity offers from Joel Comm, Stephen Pierce, Ryan Deiss, Armand Morin, Rick Raddatz, Tellman Knudson, Armand Morin, Mike Filsaime, Nitro Marketing, Joe Vitale, Gary Ryan Blair, Joe Polish, etc., etc., etc.,
For that matter, decades ago (my god, am i really that old already??) I remember subscribing to CDs, book of the month, and magazines under a “get this free cool clock radio if you give us a try for a month…after which, if you don’t cancel, we’ll start billing you.”
So to me, this isn’t as much an issue of how sleazy or scammy the forced continuity is, but rather “how safe we’re made to feel, before we do the deal”
For some, Matt’s sales and marketing approach will be too aggressive. That’s cool. You just click off the offer page and make an empowered and responsible choice that the offer’s not for you.
And yes, for my taste, those constant upsells/downsells after the registration was something I’d rather not endure, nor would I prefer to do to my customers. But again, I’ve seen the same process followed by some of the above named marketers.
But hey, for a buck, I was willing to click the “no thanks” button three times in a row to get to the videos which are pretty decent content.
For me, the real issue here is trust.
For example, I have noticed my own response to forced continuity offers and realize that my resistance and “fear” of taking action goes down when:
a) i know, like and trust the marketer;
b) the offer is presented clearly and without too much hype;
c) the forced continuity option is clearly presented and instructions for cancelling are clear and simple
We go to great lengths to make people feel secure that their privacy will be protected when we ask for an optin. As responsible and honorable marketers we would do equally well to do everything possible to reassure the client that they are just as safe to take a chance on our continuity offers.
To that end, I agree on all the lessons learned here about how forced continuity offers may be received by my valued clients, and choices for presenting such an offer in a way that delivers value, builds trust, and honors the client.
I suggest these are lessons we can take away even without impugning reputations.
After all, doesn’t our choice to participate in character assassination ultimately speak to our own character? We can begin knowing how to honor our clients by practicing honoring our colleagues and our selves as well.
Lou
April 19th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Lou, I agree with you completely.
I think it’s way over the top to start throwing around some of the perjoratives being used here.
The newsletter part of the offer is CLEARLY explained in the copy.
If you don’t want it, you cancel it.
Exactly what part of that is dishonest?
If you as the consumer don’t take the time to understand what you’re buying — is that the marketer’s fault? The part explaining the newsletter is in the same type face as the rest of the copy, so you can’t claim the “fine print” argument.
I hope each and every person who was so quick to pile on Matt will take the time to go back and see the facts for themselves.
A clear, level-headed look at the facts will show that while you may or may not like the “forced continuity model” Matt has used it with every possible bit of integrity.
The newsletter is explained on the sales page, the thank you page, the landing page, and in the thank you email. There is also a big yellow sticker on the first (free) issue reminding you to cancel if you don’t want to be billed.
I don’t think that plus $1 is too much to ask in exchange for trying out the newsletter.
And I especially urge you to go back and ready Lou’s last two paragraphs.
Ray
April 19th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Jeremy,
We definitely have something in common: I follow my principles above all else… and if I had a strong enough belief to write the post the way it was portrayed, my so-called morals would not permit me to take ANY affiliate payouts from Matt. Furthermore, I would abstain from receiving the RECURRING PAYMENTS from this campaign.
Nick
April 19th, 2008 at 11:38 am
I was going to comment about Joel Comm’s offer but I see Reg has already covered it very well.
I guess now that everybody has jumped on the bandwagon of passive recurring income such as with membership sites, etc., the latest trend is to get that recurring income by burying “free” newsletters or “bonuses” that actually lock you into a monthly fee somewhere deep in the lengthy sales page. And of course all you have to do to cancel is “contact them” somehow. I’m sure that ain’t easy.
Obviously it has become more critical than ever to carefully inspect every word of every seemingly great offer to look for deceptive ploys. This is a deliberate attempt to take advantage of the consumer. There is no excuse for this unethical practice, and I suggest that anybody who runs across an ad of this type immediately unsubscribe from the seller’s list (if they are on it), and post a warning on every forum they belong to.
I’m not too sympathetic to the marketers who promote these products either (and there are many of them). Either they are partners in the seller’s duplicity, or they simply haven’t examined the offer they are promoting closely enough. What happened to the advice of trying out every product before you promote it? Or at least making sure you are thoroughly familiar with it?
HMPH!
April 19th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
[...] I will be watching carefully to see how he reacts to all the criticism than has been levelled at him over the past few days. And this comes in the wake of a similar storm of protest that arose over an even sneakier was of implementing forced continuity by a guy called Matt Bacacks. Jeremy Gislason made a post about this in his blog, which you can read here. [...]
April 19th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
It is an old model I agree but it’s all has gotten too out of hand. I just checked all 5 things that I signed up to over the last couple of months and 4 of the 5 had a forced continuity built in to it. The only one that didn’t was D4M which as we can see from Jeremy’s comments would thankfully never happen. Joel & Matts were 2 of the 4 that did. Another I signed up to had a 60 day refund Guarantee but only 28 days to cancel the forced continuity newsletter subscription which wasn’t made clear either. So I got caught for a subscription payment on that one. Ive asked for a refund out of principle, just waiting on their response.
The trust is restored somewhat in my eyes if even after you forget to cancel you still get a refund on request. The problem is with so many offers carrying these its very difficult to remember which what and when to cancel each. If you cancel immediately then the marketer doesn’t get a chance to give you a trial copy product (which is what he wanted). But if you leave it you risk forgetting.
Of course we need not worry about Matt Bacak ever doing this again, because this is his retirement campaign so he’ll disappear into obscurity and settle down to a happy retirement. HA HA!
April 20th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Hello All,
I’ve realized a couple of things after reading all the responses here. 1) More people than I would have suspected get sucked into these type of things primarily because they don’t ‘fully’ read the salespage.
2) There are a lot of people who are pretty unhappy with this type of underhanded promotion, and that will cause a lot of marketers to think twice about pulling this in the future (hopefully).
Due to the promotional emails and hype at the beginning of his salespage (plus my own pretty unhappy response to a book of his I bought a couple of years ago), I knew there had to be more than meets the eye, so I read the letter closely and decided NOT to go for it for 2 of the reasons stated previously (No Paypal and I wasn’t interested in the newsletter anyway).
I’m also pretty unhappy the way he and Russell Brunson actually promoted this thing. By most appearances, it was ‘pushed’ as Matt was retiring, until you read the letter enough. The whole “I’ve been ripped off so I’m retiring this product” line was a bit much. But also, I was very unhappy the way RB would let you get his bonus ’special call w/Matt’ if you kept the newsletter 30 days. It was like a ‘forced continuity into a forced continuity’. What kind of BS is that?
And as far as a few comments about ‘how clear it was in the letter’, all I can say is Bunk! I’ve learned to know that the longer the sales ‘letter’ (those 35+ pages of nothing buy text hype(rbole), the more you need to scrutinize everything. This material wasn’t up front and center, and add to that the fact it ‘appeared’ to be a ‘minor’ bonus, many would tend to skip over this to quickly get to the ‘alleged’ gold…a $5500 class for $1. That should have been the FIRST RED FLAG!!
Which reminds me, what’s with all these marketers lately (imho, p*ssing off their old customers) who last year sold an exclusive product for $1, 2, or $MORE Thousand dollars , and this year it’s part of some hyped up new product as a bonus or package, at a substantial discount from the original single product’s price?
MeThinks, somebody got ripped on the last go round. I’m just glad I didn’t buy a famous package from MF called BM, only to see it at $1000 less this year as part of another package. Or KW ‘killer’ deal at $497 with last years $997 product thrown in. PLEASE. IM is changing too fast? This is true, next year you can get the ‘must have’ package or product of today, for a couple thousand LESS!
April 21st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I have to agree with Ray Edwards. Obviously, this little ploy to obscure the facts and the law has yielded a bit of buzz, but apologizing because the alarmist few among us can’t read has me convinced I need to take screaming lessons. I think that premature act deserves an apology.
Some of the folks oh so quick to judge need to revisit the sales page and actually READ IT this time. Then, take a visit to the FTC’s site. There is nothing illegal or unethical about what Matt did.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:04 am
Yep, I didn’t see it coming, suddenly billed $29.97 on 12th March, and have deleted all correspondence or it went to spam so am now trying to at least unsubscribe. Now trying to find where I can unsubscribe or a site to do this.
Tks for picking up on this. I appreciate that using smoke and mirrors is not against the law, but it can be misleading to average Joe who isn’t wised up.
Andy.
April 20th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Well I got caught on this one as well… I usually watch for the catch on trial offers but I missed this one. Problem now is I am having trouble cancelling the news letter! I have tried twice with no response. Who do I need to contact. Got charged again today!
Thanks for the great work in getting the situation out in the open.
Allene
May 13th, 2009 at 5:53 am
I got taken by Matt Bacak’s Dirt also. Quite frankly its extremely disappointing. I have absolutely no idea what the 29.97 is for that I was charged. I don’t recall seeing that a charge would be applied to my account after a period of so many days. Most of what I do as countyfairgrounds.net is to help people AT no charge across the country . I have very very little cash. Yes, I have been looking for a way to make some and I thought this program for a dollar would help. It seemed real. I have complained to PayPal. Also, there is NO phone number to contact them and complain. I want to point that out. Their charge was not the only one on my account today – there was one from Google Chest – at least they left a phone number. Guess I will have to cancel my PayPal account.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
I have been getting Matt Bacaks newsletter for over a year and can no longer afford it. I can’t find anywhere to cancel my subscription and it keeps coming off my credit card. We are all out of work and absolutely can’t afford to keep paying. Is there any addresses or phone numbers where I can cancel this. Seems like this could be a case for tThe Attorney Generals Office. I did get a few pointers from the news letter but it costs too much.
IKR
May 21st, 2009 at 10:28 pm
How can I cancel my subscription to his news letter?