A Fort Myers man says that he was scammed and that unauthorized charges were made to his credit card subsequent to his order for a the teeth whitening products South Beach Brite and Prime White. Both products are popular CPA offers that a lot of Internet marketers are promoting.

It seems that free trial offers make it easy to make money on the Internet as the payoffs to the marketer can be quite substantial. It’s not uncommon to see a $40.00 commission on a free trial offer such as this.

The problem comes in when the “unsuspecting” (i.e. did not read the whole offer) customer gets charged the full fee after the trial period has ended. So of course the next thing you know they get charged and scream scam. Such is the case with Steve Nance. He complained, as have may free trial customers have, that they were actually charged after the free trial period was over. Nance was charged $87.62 and went nuts.

Seems he called everyone and anyone he could until he caught the ear of a reporter willing to make a storyout of this issue. Hey I guess if you can make a national scandal out of someone hitting a fire hydrant and smashing up their Cadillac Escalade you can make a story out of someone being charged $82 bucks on a product that they ordered.

I guess Mr. Nance in an effort to have his teeth whitened did not read this information which was clearly delineated on the offer site:

We are offering you a Risk Free Trial period. By agreeing to this offer, you agree to our full terms and to enroll in a 14-day Risk Free Trial where you will receive a 30-day supply and, included at no additional cost is a subscription to the Healthier Living Institute e-book series (billed separately). Your credit card will be charged a total of only $4.95 S&H (non-refundable). If either product is not right for you, call 954-237-2690 within 14 days of your initial order for simple return instructions of your Risk Free Trial and owe nothing more. Then, simply return the product, even if it is empty. Otherwise, at the end of your Risk Free Trial you will be automatically enrolled into our Home Delivery Plan and your credit card will be charged $79.95 for the product and e-book series you received. 30 days from your initial order (and every 30 days thereafter), you will be sent a new supply and your credit card will be billed $79.95 plus $4.95 S&H. Please read terms and conditions for full details of this offer.

If I saw it then why are all these people crying scam and fraud? Well it seems that “consumer confusion” is to blame. The Fort Myers Press calls this type of marketing “negative option marketing” and feels it preys on unsuspecting customers. Well here’s the deal…if we as a Country are so stupid as to not being able to read what we are buying then we are in real trouble.

The company that makes the teeth whitener contracted with Epic Advertising (Azoogle) to promote their product. Within one week they had 2,500 orders. Then in one 4 hour period they had 2,000 orders alone! Yeah…CPA offers work and affiliates push them. You can make a lot of Internet money promoting these offers.

But guys like Mr. Nance make the deal not so sweet. They complain that they never knew they were going to get charged and then they complain that they were taken advantage of and then every consumer board they can complain to jumps on the scam bandwagon.

So listen, maybe with all of the new FTC guidelines taking effect, and with so many consumers feeling scammed, maybe pushing this free trial offers might not be such a good idea. What I am saying is that we don’t know these companies, we don’t know what happens once we promote the offers. All we know is we get paid and we move on to the next offer. We leave the sites up and snare as many customers that we can.

Maybe as marketers we need to promote products that help you find the quickest way to lose weight, or perhaps concentrate on kids gifts like Zhu Zhu Pets ..or perhaps push radio controlled cars like the Traxxas Slash, maybe then we’ll be looked at better in they eye of the consumer.

The consumer is always going to have a problem with somebody and in this age of social media the power of the Internet strikes both ways. Just as we can get the word out about an offer or product launch the consumer can get their complaints heard. I think we are going to see a lot more of this so just be careful what offers that you promote.

For every Mr. Nance out there I have to believe that there are many more real customers who aren’t trying to get something for nothing.