Originally Posted by eVandals

VII. Conclusion

Affinion, Vertrue and Webloyalty use aggressive sales tactics intentionally designed to mislead online shoppers. These three companies exploit shoppers‘ expectations about the online purchasing process to charge millions of consumers each year for services the consumers do not want and do not understand they have purchased. Hundreds of e-commerce merchants – including many of the best-known, respected websites and retailers on the Internet – allow these three companies to use aggressive sales tactics against their customers, and share in the revenues generated by these misleading tactics. While Congress and the Federal Trade Commission have taken steps to curb similar abusive practices in telemarketing, there has not yet been any action to protect consumers while they are shopping online.

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This thread title is misleading. The staff report consists of explaning upsells, post transaction passing, and 3 of the large companies who have been doing it since 2004 and mostly filled with the aggressive behavior of those companies. Nothing about clamping down on the continuity model and/or the "death" of rebills.

The regulations on forced upsells has been happening for some time now. You couldn't get closer to an "unauthorized transaction" because the consumer has no idea that they were forced into a secondary membership or product along with the one they signed up for. In my opinion that should have been eliminated a long time ago, or never allowed to be done because it sheds a negative light on people who run continuity but do it the right way.

A company running a continuity/rebill model does it the same way any other business does, they bill them. It bills their credit card, and it shows up on their statement. Whether the customer knows they will eventually be billed in 14 days or a month or whether it's a quality product the customer will like, or whether the customer will get angry and dispute the charges is entirely up to how the company is run. However the way banks look at transactions it's the same exact thing, a transaction. If too many disputes or complaints arise the processor/bank see the company is running a shitty business and start to investigate. Completely logical.

Netflix, myfax, ringcentral, telecoms and other companies who run continuity are not going away. Companies who have confidence in their product/service can afford to take a loss and offer free trials in order to gain a strong customer base who will grow over time are not going away.

I know your thread is probably going to get more views because of the OH NO, SKY IS FALLING title, but it makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about.