Are autoship programs unethical?

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invisible777

invisible777

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You know the type -- Video Professor, diet/green tea/acai pills, grant guides, mobile -- all hide in their terms and conditions that the consumer agrees to that they will be rebilled automatically after X amount of days.

Does anyone think autoships or autorebills setup in this fashion are ethical business models?
 


I think people react worse to it on the internet.
Girls gone wild, video professor, etc are considered by the public much more acceptable because it's on a traditional medium for the most part(TV). I have actually checked before. In most cases on TV the text is so tiny a lot of non hi-def TVs can't even make the text legible. No matter what distance you are from the tv.
I'd say online it's still pretty early for these products, and over time you'll see them start to be more forthcoming with their price and more 'ethical'. Same thing that happened to ringtones.
In the meantime, #1 priority is competing. If they're necessary to do it, so be it.
 
Columbia house anyone? been around since I was a kid. Get 12 CD's for free. Unethical? Do you think anyone believes they get something for nothing?
 
smaxor said:
Columbia house anyone? been around since I was a kid. Get 12 CD's for free. Unethical? Do you think anyone believes they get something for nothing?
Click to expand...


Yup, good example. Ditto with the Scholastic and Disney clubs I suppose "get 3 books/dvds free".
 
My parents got suckered into some booklcub for me while I was in primary school.
They were getting billed $50 a month in 1990s money, while I got 3 books by such amazing authors as R.L.Stine, and The Hardy Boys series because the first 3 were free! *rolls eyes*
Turns out that the school got a commission from it too.
So even before das intervebs it looks like forced continuity was a pretty standard business model.

I don't think there's anything unethical about it, provided you spell out that there will be a monthly charge after the first freebie sample and that people still need to pay for shipping or whatever.
It's only unethical when the additional charges aren't stated.
... Or when the merchant does the run around on people that are trying to cancel their subscriptions. In which case chargeback chargeback chargeback heheh
 
I wouldn't worry too much about if the billing is unethical. I saw a documentary a few days ago about how some pakis made millions of placebo pills in their basement and sold them on the internetz. One of the sites they used looked just like one of those "free trial" sites. So i wouldn't be suprised if at least half of all acai berry / green tea pill sites, sell nothing but placebo.
 
I think the internet is actually a lot more ethical than what has happened before when people ordered a product over the phone. At least online, most websites will tell you you're joining a continuity program. If a customer doesn't want to take the time to read it, that's their own problem. However back in the call center days, customers were often not told that they would be rebilled, or the agent said it so fast the customer had no clue what was going on.

Like smaxor said, you can't get anything for free. If you believe you can, then you get what you deserve.
 
unfortunately because of the cut throat nature of cpa offers, the more decieving the terms the higher the conversion rate. the higher conversion rate the more affiliates you can get to push the offer

Tony Montana: "Do you know what capitalism is? Getting fucked
 
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