Beware Of Free Trial Offers
Monday, January 5, 2015, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
We all like free trial samples, don’t we? You probably have seen them in warehouse kind of clubs or just your local supermarket that you visit on a regular basis. More often than not, these “free” items come with hidden catches, later turning into some good chunk of your hard-earned income.
The Better Business Bureau recently highlighted one company that alone generated well over 2,000 complaints this year from consumers objecting to charges that followed supposedly free trials.
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What can the problem be with free samples?
The deal for some free samples is that you must sign for them.
You give them your credit card number and possibly your address before you can get those samples.
We are all suckers for something free. We don’t think and don’t care whether we should give them our credit card number.
Why would you want to give them credit card if it’s a free sample? Nobody thinks about that at the time.
And the fine print or the terms of the deal, who gives a shit? The thinking is “I will deal with it later” if you are able to think anything at the time.
Once you give out your credit card number, what do you think would happen? You guessed it. You get charged in your next bill.
Sometimes you get it on a recurring basis every month. In many instances, it’s pretty hard to stop it.
You are out of money, sometimes more than $100 a month. All because you signed up for something that wasn’t supposed to cost you anything.
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What should you do?
Don’t give them your freaking card number. That’s what you should do. If the sample is truly free, why do they need your card number?
No matter how many reasons they give you, don’t listen to them. How can a scam be successful?
Think about it even though they don’t want you think about it.
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Verizon offers free channels…
These free samples can be offered by so-called legitimate companies, some nationally renowned ones.
I give you the example of Verizon. The company had bad service for a couple of months in our home. They fixed the problem and gave us three free months of some premium channels that we never asked for.
I received the bill a couple of days ago. Three months had passed so Verizon charged us for the premium channels.
The problem is that at the time of the free offer, Verizon distinctly told us after three months the channels would be automatically disconnected. I know now that was a big lie.
As a matter of fact, three months ago, I wanted to make sure I heard them correctly about the automatic disconnect.
I was told “This is the age of computers. Our database can do that. All we gotta do is put the expire date in front of the premium channels in the customer account and the computer would do the disconnect. That was a lot of bull shit.”
In a Nutshell
For free samples, just don’t give out your credit card number. You think you would save a couple of dollars. Instead you can potentially lose hundreds.
