A blatant lie.

You are right Di. Such tactics are unacceptable. The worse thing is that even after you unsubscribed from such service they keep sending you emails.

Gotta love the wording - free by paying - duh!

Some people are just stupid, do they really think they are giving their business any credibility. Lying so blatantly is not going to do them any favours long term.

I hope as you had to opt in that you have now unsubscribed from this unscrupulous markers list?

What a silly person, looks like they are going to learn the hard way!

A couple of sources I use for free images are:

Icon Search Engine | Iconfinder
and
Compfight / A Flickr Search Tool

You need to check the license terms for images but there's some great stuff available.

No sign up required

I am with you 100% on this Di, to the extent that I now usually avoid things that are given away 'free' on here.

I won't say what the last thing I clicked on here that was advertised as free, but it involved 3 different sales pages, numerous exit pop-ups,sign ups to 3 different lists, another sales page - to which I then lost interest, deleted all the opt in emails I got that I just signed up to, and vowed never to bother with that person again.

Now I accept that I will need to sign up to a list or see a sales page or 2, but numerous sales pages (some not even remotely linked to the product I was after), numerous list sign ups, numerous exit pop ups, and numerous new tabs opened in my browser is simply too much.

Dictionary example of a "bait and switch."

It probably meant " free to look".

I also come across such liars daily. They don't know the value of business,they just want fast cash.

That's messed up. Then again, I am not surprised. I am sure if they snag the wrong person, they would be looking at more than just a few complaints on some forums. Karma is real and it definitely sucks to be under the hard wheels of karma.

People who can sleep at night knowing they are lying to people to make money most likely will not succeed. They may make a little money for a while until people start to catch on to their lies.

Honesty is key and the willingness to help people is also key. Being honest will take you further than you can imagine.

Wish you luck,
Jonathan Smith

after you've paid $97 you get instant free access

unfortunately more and more people are taking unethical approaches to marketing! its very sad that people resort to that sort of thing!

What we need to do is educate the people who promote this crap.

Tell the list owner the reason you unsubscribed, show them the link to this thread. They were probably just following a "system" without actually thinking what they were doing.

Someone at the top is making a lot of money off daft people, very very sad state of affairs.

*Puts on boxing gloves* Who's pissed you off Di? Joe Robinson will take care of them for ya. Assuming they aren't overly muscled. I have a face to protect here.

There's a lot of this, and similar crap, going on now. I'm not sure if it's more prevalent than before or I'm just more aware of it now but it's pretty annoying! I get real frustrated when I see relatively well known IM "guru's" starting to do stuff like this too, with so many mimicking their every move I shudder to think how much these tactics are becoming the norm now.

The truth is, bad people are everywhere.

That is the reality. We need to accept that and move on.

I wonder how hard for that marketer to tell the truth!

Seriously, I find it hilarious and pathetic :rolleyes: at the same time.

Gives a whole new meaning to 'Pushing the free line' doesn't it.

Unsubscribe and move on. Makes you wonder how much success that person is (or isn't) having with their tactics.

I certainly see more of this type of thing from forums. I'm on a few good quality lists who don't pass on this type of rubbish, thankfully. You just have to feel sorry for them really. They may make a fast buck initially but they won't build a business on this type of bullsh*t.

I thinks those are the marketers who don't know any thing, just starting out and just want money in any way they can get it...
silly

I really don't like those cheap tricks that some marketers do, like your experience. Surely there are other techniques to sell without annoying all your customers by posting crappy links that just doesn't give you what they were promoting.

I agree do people really think thats going to make people buy their stuff?
Just dont even open their crappy emails

Ugh! I've gone through this before as well. So frustrating! Especially when it's something that you're really interested in. Hopefully this person will catch this thread, or others, and learn something!

While this thread does seem to point out a marketer who is
just an idiot, it also reminds me of something that I think
is almost as bad.

That's putting a new subscriber (or customer) through up-sell,
cross-sell, down-sell, and just-say-no-20-times hell... before
you give them the freebie that they just signed up for.

Yes, I know that if you force them to read an offer or two
before giving them the freebie, that you WILL increase your
bottomline.

I also know that many, especially newbies, will fill out the
form, and then when taken to a sales page, they will just
close the window and go look for the email.

A lot of your customers who buy things will do the same
thing... they will not understand that they can just scroll
to the bottom of that up-sell offer, and find the link to
download their purchase or gift.

I find that this practice leads to a lot of customer service
issues, and complaints.

Again, I know from looking at the numbers, that this practice
does often add substantial short-term profits.

For freebies, I actually often take a different approach.
Admittedly, I have a large enough database where I don't need
to really worry about building it.

However, with a freebie like a piece of software, I now prefer
just giving them the download, and then when they go to use the
software, I ask them to register it... which is a perfectly
"normal" thing to do, and that gets them in my database, where
I can follow up "as approprite."

Slightly off on a tangent, but food for thought.

Willie

I got accused of bait and switch tactics by one of my subscribers which is something I would never do. What happened was I arranged an ad swap with someone and he must have switched the offer.
So sometimes it is not always the fault of the sender.

Au contrair,
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public"
--H. L. Mencken

Then that guy/lady has absolutely no business sense.

Anyone that treats their prospects that poorly wouldn't
have a particularly great business philosophy...I now,
too, wonder about the content he was offering.

I mean, it would have been FAR smarter to at least warm
up his/her leads immediately after the opt-in... Granting
the DL is fundamental.

Winston Tian

What ticks me off most about this kind of crap is that you end up wasting your time for nothing. That's not cool.

Marg

This has to be the worst sales tactic. I'd be surprised if he got any sales.

Customers definitely don't like being misled much less lied to outright.

The owner obviously is out there to scam a quick buck and has no vested interest in making it a long term business.

They could at least give a small free graphics package away and upsell to the complete graphics package. Much more sales would result since the value of upsell is demonstrated in the free package.

It happened to me once and that also from a very well reputed IMer. He/she has a very nice website with lots of videos and contents.

Thats 90% of online marketing and sadly enough a lot of people are dumb enough to pay the money.

As chance would have it after reading this thread I received an email from well respected person on this forum with the following title "get our new software FREE! First 50 people only."
I really ain't interested in someone else's software because I create my own, but hey it's free, so I clicked the link. Guess what, you can get it for free if you buy SkyBuilder One Year License for $997.00 for one year.
Now I guess my question would be, are you still pissed if some really well-known guru sent you this bu-shi? Or are they an exception and can be excused to get away with this crap?

That sounds pretty lame to say the least. At the end of the day, you walked away a winner by not fueling these bad marketing practices with your money.

As the income retreats for that individual, it will only be a matter of time before we see a thread pop up saying "HELP - My Subscribers aren't buying from me!"

Hmm, I wonder why?

1000% with you on that, they trap you with small prices And try to maximize once you push the button.
I hate OTO's period.

yup lots of IM people are just retarded like that lmao.

I've seen a few marketers do exactly that, the only thing that changes seems to be the degree of the lie. Once a week the same marketers have the product that will change your lives email. I cant really complain too much, I'm the one thats still on the list.

Maybe they sort of meant to say "free bonus" when you buy...????

Lately I've stopped subscribing to anything except things I REALLY REALLY want because of just these kind of tactics... The plus side of that is I am definately not wasting as much time from my own curiosity impulses

The good news... eventually, all this crappola just makes the good guys look REALLY good and even more trustworthy, so bring it on...

I could not agree with the OP more..

There are some forums such as Warriors who have a growing list (suitably titled) of these types of marketers who are giving themselves and the industry a bad name by their shameless tactics. The list does a good job in naming and shaming (with positive proof attached to stop baseless accusations) with submissions going through the forum moderators first to avoid any spurious issues.

Maybe something the mods here may think about? I realise it will be a lot of hard work, but what price a bit of self policing?