Just saw this GREAT Article from a very cool website called “Marketing Vox”.
It seems that a little over 250 MILLION dollars worth of “Shady” continuity income has been made by companies like Classmastes.com, FTD, PizzaHit, and about 450 other retailers that do business online.
Here’s a direct quote from the article:
The report details purchase procedures in which consumers rarely realize they are signing up for a monthly club membership while buying seemingly unrelated products, such as movie tickets, plane tickets, or flowers. This is because the additional purchase is couched in deceptive offers for coupons or savings and does not always require th consumer to re-enter credit card information, the Commerce Committee said.
450 Retailers
There are about 450 retailers that have used the three companies’ services, including household names such as 1-800 Flowers, AirTran Holdings, Avon.com, Classmates.com, Continental Airlines, FTD, Fandango, Hotwire, Intelius, Movietickets.com, Orbitz, Pizza Hut, Priceline.com; Restaurants.com, Shutterfly and US Airways, according to the report.
All together, 88 e-retailers have made more than $1 million through partnering with Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalt, and 19 others have made more than $10 million.
The full article is here:
http://www.marketingvox.com/senate-sniffs-out-shady-direct-marketing-045539/
After you read it, come back here and let me know how you feel about these seemingly “Mainstream Companies” and their involvement in these sorts of “Undisclosed Continuity” programs.
Sound off!
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