Zach Booker

Hey guys,

I'm about to go out of town for a little vacation, but I wanted to make a quick post that I think is really important first.

I've been into PPC for awhile now and have done, I think, very well. I only sell RFT's and of course there has been a lot of debate about this lately.

Whether there ethical....
Whether Google will ban them...
Whether you should even promote them etc, etc,

Now if you've followed all the threads i've kept to my story that you just need to promote the ethical ones and that saying all RFT's are scams is a huge mistake.

I'm not gonna lie, I always thought people were a little overboard with this whole RFT's are scams stuff.

I thought well maybe some RFT's over charge a little, but not a lot.

Anyway you'll soon see I learnt a valuable lesson today...

I sold two main products.

A colon cleanser and a resveratrol product.

I did about the same volume for each and each had a $32.00 payout. (I know i'm not a super affiliate! )

So all in all they were the same really, right?

Well not quite...

On my contact page I just put a little contact form which went to a Gmail account I never checked.

But for some odd reason today I did check that account.

My jaw literally dropped when I saw that I had over 100 messages from people. Some were full of anger, some were people telling me how they didn't have the money to pay for this, some saying they couldn't cancel.

Well see for yourself: Click to see the full image.

There were so many e-mails that I couldn't even go through them all.

I feel, literally, like a jerk, like an asshole, and really like a scammer.

I'm reading e-mails from a 75 year old lady telling me she got billed for 80 dollars when she bought these for her grand daughter. (Read the end of the post to see what I did for her and a few others.)

Maybe I don't have the balls for this CPA stuff because I honestly feel like the scum of the earth for even promoting this product.

You know I always used to argue, "Well they should read the small print."

Because did they read the small print? No.

Did they think it through? No.

Were they well informed about the product? No.

Does it say in the TOS that you'll be billed? Yes.

But should all that matter? Should people need to read the whole 'terms of service' to know that they're credit card is going to be hammered with charges?

I always say to promote what is ethical, well clearly this colon cleanser isn't ethical. Even though I made a boat load of money from it, it doens't matter.

Here's the thing...

Through all these 100+ e-mails I had only one about the resveratrol product.

Now remmeber I sold almost exactly the same amount. That means a ton of people are happy with resveratrol.

(The one e-mail I got was from someone saying they were really enjoying their free trial, which made me feel great.)

Most of the people reading this will not be selling hundreds of these RFT's, so what i'm about to say might not hit home as hard.

But coming from not having a lot to having, relatively, a lot from internet marketing is really something special. But when you see that your making hundreds at the expense of people who most likely don't have a lot either is something I felt very ashamed of.

Knowing that people, that very well could be my aunt or cousin, were telling me how they can't afford this bill really made me feel ashamed to be an internet marketer.

So the solution:

Now i'm going to go out and put 100 dollars on a pre-paid credit card and before I promote any RFT i'm going to use this credit card to try it out.

Ethical offers do convert and I'd really challenge anyone who does any REAL volume to buy your offers.

Walk the walk, i'm sure as hell not taking resveratrol but I will make sure it's not a "scam" before doing a campaign for it.

Oh, don't you love having a change of heart!

Zach

P.S- This doesn't just apply to PPC'ers. Oh no, this applies to everyone!

I know guys making hundreds a day with these RFT's who do it via ranking in the search engines.

Just know the **** you promote, guys.

Here's the e-mail that really hit home:

I went back through the most recent ones, including the old gal, and asked for paypal addresses if they have them.

I Paypaled Rod back 150 dollars, even though he got a refund eventually, and it honestly was the best feeling ever.

cypherslock

My thinking is sort of the same as when I used to get people wanting to cancel their XBOX live account because they weren't aware that it was yearly. READ THE TOS. It is the customer's responsibility to read things over and understand it BEFORE they put the cc details in. And honestly, it DOES say FREE TRIAL, so what would you expect....
That being said, it does fall to us not to mislead our visitors which I am sure some do. But if you're getting paid per action, how are you on the hook for a refund??

www.erikheyl.com: Fast article and blog writing (and setup), e-book writing and research with submission and syndication. Niche research available.

Zach Booker

I'm not on the hook for the refund, they just didn't know who else to contact.

Here's what made that offer terrible:

1) They re-billed just days after the consumer ordered. (meaning they didn't really get to try the 'free trial')

2) When the consumer tried to cancel they couldn't get a hold of anyone so than they had to go to their credit card holder to cancel.

3) They kept being re-billed over and over.

4) When they finally did get the product it was ****.

Now what made the resveratrol one good is pretty much the opposite of those four point.

1) They didn't re-bill until you got your package and were able to try it however long it was for. ex: 14 day free trial.

2) They have a great bunch of American workers who man the telephone 24/7.

3) They only re-billed once a month as the TOS states.

4) They actually do have a manufactoring team who also makes resveratrol pills for local stores etc.

The consumer didn't do their homework, true.

But they shouldn't be treated in the manner they were because of that.

PLUS I guarantee they'll never buy another 'free trial' again where as the resveratrol people might.

Zach

cypherslock

Ah thanks Zack! Its just like Mike Hill said in CPA Tsunami (seriously go to the page and input your email, the video is PURE GOLD and will be what I get into once I've got my own product - and he doesn't spamvertise you either), give people enough time to actually GET the product in the mail and try it (so 21 days at least).

www.erikheyl.com: Fast article and blog writing (and setup), e-book writing and research with submission and syndication. Niche research available.

Zach Booker

Yeah dude I already did, lol.

Mike is the man! Best freebie video I have ever seen.

Zach

yukinara

so, how to distinguish between good and bad apples? Free trial offers are there everyday, and people are promoting them a lot, so how can we check to see if they are legit or not?

J Phelps

Thanks Zach. Being able to sleep well at night is so underrated in our society.

Zach Booker

Read the whole post and than look for the bold word "Solution".

Zach

Thumoney

I wanna say some things about it ... If you promote RFT (Risk Free Trials or better read Re-Bill Free Trials) you have to live with putting this on your conscience. It's a certain degree of ignorance. You only see it really if you see the response like you did in your email-account. For the argumentation that the customer is responsible, here is the ugly but simple truth: If all the customers would be so responsible and would understand the system of RFT, there simple wouldn't be any because nobody would buy anymore. So the whole concept is to trick the dummy customer into the "free" mindset and then come from behind and bill him, and bill him, and ...

So there is really no rationalization out of it. I like the point made about making sure that the offer is good and review the practices of the company selling it. It's the least you can do. So your solution is an improvement to the whole system. But I have the feeling that at least 90% of all RFT products are really crap. Because nobody cares about the customer here. Maybe you can prove me wrong, if you tested some, I would love to here it (PM me plz!).

I'm not sure if those RFT systems can stay for long, because anything that is a problem in the eyes of society (and that system is) gets wiped out eventually. I'm pretty sure this will happen to the RFT system on the long run, too.

Thumoney.com - Master Affiliate Marketing with PPC - incl. the Thumoney Insider Mailing List

Zach Booker

I PM'ed you, bro.

What would be great is to find out what RFT's people like Mike Hill make, he's super legit.

So than you can feel good about what your promoting and his **** converts big time.

But than if he gives away all his landing pages people will just ripe them off.

So there's no real solution except for testing yourself, over the next few months as I go through more I may make a list.

You are right in that I would've had no idea people were so un happy with the colon cleanse RFT. I just assumed everyone loved it, which of course wasn't true in the end.

BUT here's the thing. Hustling is good and fine I know this whole MMO thing seems impossible sometimes, but if you make 10 grand from one offer and 10 grand from another but ones 100% legit than why not promote the legit one?

And your are right again that if we don't start taking what we do seriously and start thinking about what we promote RFT's will be dead in the up coming years. (Will take awhile though, a suckers born every minute.)

Zach

Thumoney

I also saw some responses to sales I made and in my eyes there are two things any RFT company can really do wrong: 1. is making a bad product and 2. is not caring about the customer.

Unfortunately too often both seem to be part of the game plan. If you see how difficult it is for some customers to reach the company or (of course) to cancel their trial, you know they build on the "short term" business.

I like to share a small vision here, because the re-bill system is not the problem. People are willing to be rebilled, IF the product they get has value.

I don't know if anybody here knows the computer game World of Warcraft. It is literally a subscription model, a re-bill, that helped the company Blizzard to make hundreds of millions in sales a year. And people like to stay in that subscription because they have fun playing the game, they want to be re-billed. Because they continuously get the value for their money (I think it's about $15/month).

So the real task for any product creator is to make a great product. If those colon cleanse products would be cutting edge and would really help - which is possible, although much more difficult to achieve than just putting some placebo pills into a bottle and selling them - then the whole RFT would be pretty great on all sides: for product-owner, affiliates AND customers...

Thumoney.com - Master Affiliate Marketing with PPC - incl. the Thumoney Insider Mailing List

ChrisBa

This can be a rude awakening for some..

Robyn8243

Zach:

An interesting wake-up call...I think this ties in with a lot of your recent posts, most notably about Yahoo not allowing these offers.

Free trials with rebilling have been around since before the internet and it
is definitely a legitimate business model.

If I recall correctly (haven't read it in a while) free trials are mentioned in 'Scientific Advertising' which was written in 1920s. Credit cards and rebilling did not exist, but the concept of try before you buy is something that has proven effective for companies with legitimate products.

Unfortunately, any time a certain product becomes 'hot' like Acai, and now
Colon Cleanse, the scammers come out in full force. It is not difficult to have your
own 'brand' created to enter in the market.

I am huge believer in consumer responsibility. Consumers have to take a certain degree of responsibility for what they sign up for.

However, in most of these cases that are causing all the consumer complaints, there is an intent to deceive from the outset. I don't think the issue is that people are not aware that they are signing up for a free trial...the problem is that they are not getting their trials until after the trial period expires, and beyond that these companies make it impossible to cancel. And even after consumers jump through the advertiser's 'cancellation hoops' they still continue to rebill. In all likelihood, these companies are selling inferior diluted products as well, but admittedly, this is just my guess.

That is why you probably saw a huge discrepancy from your promotions. One was a legitimate company and the other one of the bottom feeders.

I personally had this 'impossible to cancel' issue twice myself, although not with health products, and ultimately I decided to stop hitting my head against the wall, and just took it up with American Express. In one case, where after I initiated the online cancellation process, I continually came to an error page at the next step, I remember having the most ludicrous conversation on the phone with the advertiser whose employee told me that he could see that I tried to cancel 7 times, but since I did not get to next step (the error page) it was TS on me. Then he told me I could go back and try it again...they don't let you cancel by phone. Called AmEx and told them what happened, and I got my money back. From what I understand, people who use debit cards are most likely to get screwed the worst.

It really is too bad, because legitimate companies who are truly looking for new customers to try their products because they are good products that people will voluntarily buy again and again are going to be hurt in the end.

I mentioned in another thread that affiliates should be concerned with these scams
because whenever consumers are hurt on a continuing basis, the government usually
steps in and over-regulates in a way that screws legitimate business. The scammers who have zero interest in following rules and have no morals continue to make money, while legitimate businesses suffer.

I mentioned your Yahoo thread, because without doubt this new rule arises from the
proliferation of consumer complaints. When consumers complain to government about a fraudulent offer, they are asked where they saw the ad. Whether it is a magazine or on a search engine, whoever is hosting the ad becomes a part of any investigation, disclaimers not withstanding.

Before I choose to promote an offer I will check to see if there are huge numbers of complaints. Unfortunately, that is not a fail proof method. As a practical matter what happens is that when complaints get to a certain point as to affect profitability, the scammers simply start a new company with a new name, and start over.

In my opinion, if the affiliate networks were smart, and looked into the long term future instead of only worrying about bigger profits today, they would begin doing their own due diligence, and would refuse to deal with advertisers who make a habit of screwing
consumers.

There are plenty of good products to promote with the recurring billing model, and
hopefully if the networks (who are in a better position to determine legitimacy before putting an offer out to affiliates) start regulating themselves, we won't see more restrictions on the whole model from advertising networks or the government.

One last thing...if you promote a fraudulent offer, you can be held accountable. If you are a minor player, in all likelihood you won't be a target, but any affiliates who are raking in profits from the promotion of scam rebill offers are taking a huge risk. When the government starts cracking down "I didn't know it was a scam" won't cut it.

Robyn

ChrisBa

rebills are a legitimate business model/practice however there are many scammy ones which do not fully indicate the terms of service and make it nearly impossible while users are in the "trial" period..

Zach Booker

I guess the point through all this i've been trying to make is simply that the average guy or gal isn't a marketer.

They don't know what Adwords is, they don't what cpa offers are and in all likely hood they think they're getting a 100% free trial just because the company is nice. (That may sound crazy, but it's absolutely true.)

Consumers should be more aware, yes.

But is that an excuse for us to take all their money to "teach them a lesson"?

I agree with Robyn that the CPA networks can much more easily choose to only allow the legitimate offers in. But when they're making tens of thousands per day from these Government grant offers etc it's hard to take the ethical stand.

I'm just trying to draw awareness to the fact that there are legit RFT's that convert and can make you a boatload of money.

Zach

ChrisBa

I don't think we(affiliates) are even teaching them a lesson, I'm willing to bet the same people will opt into several rebills during there lifetime. I don't think it's necessarily right, but the best thing I think you can do is educate yourself and people around you to read the fine print on everything!

If rebills bothers you as a marketer - there are tons of other products you can promote. You could even try turning the traffic you used to rebill around and try promoting other health care products.

Zach Booker

Congrads on your 200th post.

People aren't going to ever read all the TOS before choosing to spend the huge amount of $4.95.

Why not stop promoting **** so the consumer doesn't have to worry about it?

Sooner or later the FTC will start cracking down on not where the traffic is coming from. Eg: Adwords.

But they'll crack down on the offers themselves, and that's when it'll get messy.

Re-bills, as I have said, don't bother me. Ones that don't give you a chance to try a product and than bill you for hundreds of dollars without letting you cancel do.


Zach

Robyn8243

Zach, I do think that most consumers are aware that there is a continuity aspect to most free trials...but they expect and deserve a fair opportunity to try the product and cancel if they don't like it. I mentioned one of my personal cancellation challenges above...my second one, every time I called they gave an option press 2 if you are calling to cancel, and I would be on hold for 40 minutes to an hour and then when a person came on the line, we magically got disconnected. Did this twice not counting times I got tired of holding and hung up(and I work from home...imagine dealing with this when you have a job) I then tried to talk to a salesperson by not pressing 2. When I said I wanted to cancel, salesperson was rude and told me I had to use the special cancellation line...(where apparently the training consists of pressing the disconnect button) again I opted to call AmEx instead. This kind of BS is what makes consumers mad...the FTC too. And it is simply not right.

As to your other point on lost profits:

Well when it comes to the government grant offers, I'm not sure how many, if any, were legitimate...I looked at a few and while I admit I was tempted because of the buzz, my gut feeling was that it would not be a good Karma move. But with a lot of these health offers I wonder whether the networks and even affiliates are making a considerable amount of money more by dealing with the scammy companies, as opposed to simply promoting legit. companies.

Take ACAI as an example. There are many legitimate companies selling ACAI based products, but because of the handful of companies who engaged in shady tactics, there is now a reluctance by many consumers who are afraid of being ripped off. Acai is still selling, but how much better would it be selling without the consumer scandals? How much more money, if any, was made by promoting the scammers, as opposed to just promoting legitimate advertisers who give consumers a fair trial and allow people to cancel in a reasonable manner.

There are many legitimate companies who use free trials who are being hurt because of the proliferation of the scammers. Not just because consumers are becoming more wary, but because of restrictions on advertising like what just happened with Yahoo, which I think will only increase.

Unhappy consumers are a lot louder than happy consumers.

I have to say I find it somewhat disturbing that there are people here who seem okay with scamming people as long as they are making money in the process, and they are out of reach of FTC. I guess nobody ever taught them: do unto others.

As you have pointed out Zach, there are many legitimate recurring trials that people can make money with and still sleep at night. Hopefully those opportunities will remain available and won't be lost as the result of the BS.

Robyn

dunno

"Just wanted to say that my 16 yr old daughter ordered this nature cleanse we tried to cancel but no one called us back . my 16 yr old used my credit card with out my permission and I'm now charged 89.00 and really can't afford it . please e-mail me back so that I can resolve this matter soon."

A lot of people pretend to be underage to get credit card payments reversed.