Start Reading Those Privacy Policies!!!

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased a new IM product (which shall remain nameless to protect the jerks). The product was not even so-so - it was terrible. It's been reviewed here in the appropriate area, so others are of the same opinion.

However - I am now starting to wonder if the 'product' which had a great sales letter, a great story, and a pretty decent launch with some LARGE 'names' recommending it was really even the intended moneymaker of the whole scheme?

The product was weak, to put it mildly. And if you attempted to leave the page a couple of times - the product dropped from $49 to $7.99 (which is probably where it should have been priced).

But here's where the real moneymaker apparently comes in - it was used for lead generation - and by that - I DO NOT mean for their own list for upsells.

Within a few days, I started getting hammered with calls - all calling to say they were calling 'on behalf of XXXX" but then went on to pitch a totally different 'opportunity'. The calls have come as early as 7am - and as late (and annoying) as 10pm Sunday night.

I finally blew up at one guy that would simply not shut up and he told me that I had agreed to accept offers from this company's partners when I bought the product - and so I went back to read the whole Privacy Policy - and boy, is it a doozy!

It is massive and pretty much gives the company the ability to do anything want with your info including 'sharing' your details with their 'joint venture partners':

However, in instances where our company and a partner jointly promote our Services, we may provide the partner certain personal information, such as the name, address, and username of persons who subscribed to the Services as a result of the joint promotion for the purpose of offering you other products and services.

Considering the poor quality of the product, and the sheer volume of calls that I am getting - I would have to suspect that this product may have been thrown out there just to generate leads and little else.

While I understand that TECHNICALLY this method is legal - in practice - this was handled horribly, and you can bet that I will be checking the privacy policy of everything that I buy in the near future - and I won't be buying anything from the folks that launched this one - and in particular, from a couple of big names that I now know put this together.

This was an irresponsible use of a customer's details. One or two calls I can handle, but 5+ per day?? Especially when they were all using the same script??

This is beyond marketing and into harassment, and sure isn't going to get me to buy anything else from any of the parties involved!

I don't normally rant (I think this may be my first here, actually!) but this has really been a huge waste of time this week and I don't want to see anyone else here get hit!

Melody