Deceptive Marketing in adult and mainstream
 

Welcome to the real world.. Deceptive marketing tactics
I felt since some of you are so against certain marketing practices in the adult realm It deserved its own thread

Have you ever purshased those great deals from mainstream with rebates.
example:the cell phone deal is only $99 after you send in your $100 rebate which most people don't.

AOL's free 1000 min. CDroms they send out to everyone

these are all forms of deceptive marketing tactics to get you to Purchase there products or use there services.

Examples
http://www.nctimes.net/news/012600/m.html
http://www.stretcher.com/stories/01/010625d.cfm
http://www.krqe.com/Global/story.asp?S=355290
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/Smartshoppin.html

Is it wrong or just part of Marketing

I call this thread welcome to the Real World

what are your thought on this?

I'm going to signup to PornKings!

Great thread.

Deception is deception..cheating is cheating.

It is always wrong!:(

I don't care if Jesus A. Christ does it..... Deceptive marketing....
** It's Wrong ** Period..

If you get the $100 by sending in the rebate, then it's not deceptive.. it's simply marketing strategy.. nothing misleading or deceptive about it...

If you actually get 1000 free minutes when signing up with aol then it's marketing strategy.. mothing misleading about it..

If they offer one thing, then deliver another, then it's deceptive..

Lots of main stream businesses have their marketing strategies, but the deliver what they offer, or they'd be hung out to dry..

It seems that the adult biz is the only one that seems to think it's ok to screw their customers in one form or another.. primarily because they know that Joe Customer won't go yelling too loud out of fear of people knowing what they've been doing..

Deceptive marketing tactics thats what this industry is all about sad to say.. With the exception of a few..

http://www.thestandard.com/article/d...1,6810,00.html

why are adult companies having to resort to deceptive marketing tactic?

Maybe because all of the free content that is out there who knows:2 cents:

Is our Porn4a buck deceptive because we give them a full month of access for a $1. we clearly state it's 1 month or 30 days that rebills for a full memebership. they have a full month to cancel if they wish to. but it gives them a chance to check us out without having to dish out a full membership price right away.
If a surfer can't afford a dollar trial membership for a month they sure can't afford anything else.
Kinda like Aol's 1000 free min deals.

what do you guys consider deceptive Marketing in the adult realm
the free trials?
what about TGp's with all the free conent Luring surfers in for a tease and trying to upsell them to a full paysite.

what do you guys think is deceptive?

deception is different than fine print ...On all of the AOL cd's I get it says X amount of hours for free for X amount of days,thats not deceptive...How are rebates deceptive? If you're a grownup with half a brain you already know how a rebate works,if you want it you send in your little coupon and you can expect your money back in a year lol... Deception is like having terms that only a lawyer or person of knowledge of the subject can understand... Face it,people are dumb and the adult industry takes advantage of it more than anybody...Accept THAT as the real world

Did you read those links I posted above I'm sure I can find deceptive marketing tactics on AOL and cell phone companies as well.

I understand you can't offer someone something and not deliver what they purchased
but we are talking about deceptive marketing tactics in luring consumers to purshase the product or service then deliver what they were interested in.

Because most of the pay per signup programs sites suck ass. There is no choice but to use tricky billing practices like blaring about a 3 DAY TRIAL then rebilling if the surfer doesn't cancel in 48 hours.

The amount of free porn has nothing to do with the fact that most paysites suck balls. :)

A nice example would be Crescent Publishing



http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/11/crescentstlmt.htm

Show me an example of an adult company that is cheating surfers that doesn't have the fine print.

Sufers are grown up and most people understand nothing is free
so they read the fine print if they don't who's fault is it.

don't forget the check box routine,"want some more porn?! leave this box checked" BAM $50 extra charge... whats the new word for it? ah yes crossbilling

Step 5:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Congradulations! You just signup up to the best affiliate program on the net!


congratulations.

Roger, why did you start this thread, the other one was handling it pretty well.

I posted on page 4 of that thread, and I'm not going to re-post it here.

There's a vast difference between deceptive marketing and a lazy consumer.

Roger I don't understand you on topics like these,are you defending yourself?,the industry? shady business tactics? or all 3?...It's hard to see where you're coming from

the surfer understands its a trial so whats the problem?

It's supply and demand
cut off the free air or (porn) and surfers will pay without trials

so you think sites should just have a full price membership no trials?

personally when i buy a car I like to test drive it first

Without deceptive marketing, the whole ball game would be changed and LESS money would be made by porn site owners.

Xpics another fine example

Very true.. Some porn companies won't understand what they did wrong when Visa say's NO more for you. You see they have done it so long they really believe it.... nothing wrong with it.. So what does the DUMB surfer do... Charge back.., So what does Visa do... Get's pissed... So what does the pay porn site do..... go's down the street and start's all over, doing the same old same old... So what does Visa do.... fuck the porn business... we don't need'm... This is not AOL... AT&T...SBC.... or Pacbell... it's the porn business.... you know shows people fucking.... And guess what? There are one hell of a lot of people that really don't like us *** AT ALL *** and that's a fact...

Same deal with all the mainstream companies offering there red tag sales etc.
and uping the price so you think your getting a good deal.

do you pay full price for everything or do you shop around for a good deal. either way you pay

Oh jimmyf, jimmyf, believe me when I tell you the truly bad guys are more than aware of what they are doing wrong. They don't fall down in disbelief when Visa kills their merch accts, they laugh at how long it took and go find another one... *sigh*

Wouldn't it be funny if the car dealership told you you could test drive the car for 24 hours...

...and then you found out that if you still had the car in 16 hours you were going to be charged $30,000?

Gee in this state we have what's called buyers remorse. You buy something major or something in certain categories (like people that come to your home and sell you vacuum cleaners), you have three days to get your money back, no questions asked.

One could say that's a three day trial with a cancellation option.

Good example LOL
I don't think anything like that would happen again.
at least not with companies using 3rd party billing

Yip Kimmykim I've seen you post it soooooooo many time's.... Visa will get tried one day...

Its a free trial and they can cancel it before they get billed
and they are notified thru email about it.

Or if they could read they can just uncheck it or check it

can you read?
Special Offer to New Members!!!
Click here to signup for Membership to File Safe Guard software that hides your files for you. Free Popup Stopper software included! - PC Download for $59.18. This is a One Time Purchase and Does NOT Renew Automatically.

or

Special Offer To New Members!!!
Click here to signup for a 5 day No Charge Membership to Mega Porn - No Charge Five Day Trial Membership. After 5 days, Membership renews automatically at $6.95 every 1 month.
Click here to signup for a 4 day No Charge Membership to Adult Flics No Charge Four Day Trial Membership. After 4 days, Membership renews automatically at $36.19 every 1 month.

whats miss leading about this I know I can read?

It probably is happening, we just are not hearing about it.
they were using there own merchant account at the time.

That was one of the biggest scams if not the biggest in online porn.

Credit card users have chargebacks. *shrugs*

I no longer feel bad for sites that have high chargeback ratios since it's very possible to run a site with low chargebacks.

Paysite owners have been doing shit things for years and blaming the crappier and crappier conversions on all sorts of things from evil consumers who chargeback to TGP's and the "TOO MUCH FREE PORN!" whining.

Not once have the paysites looked at themselves and said, "ya know...our sites are shit and with all our fine print we've done nothing but teach surfers that signing up for a site is a good way to get fucked."

*shrugs* Oh well. One day all the tricks will be gone or VISA will just dump the whole industry and the people who caused the problems will be the first ones whining about how mean VISA is.

I doubt it will happen again and if it were we would know about it.

again,with these threads are you defending yourself? the industry? shady practices? or all 3? ... seems like anytime somebody has something negative to say about questionable "moves", you snap back with a smartass response

Do you work for Scores cash? just curious

Yep, they will, and as I see it there's only one way for them to put an end to it. Well, two perhaps...

One is to can all high risk on the internet, gambling and such is just as much of an issue as adult, and it's in the same high risk, just a different SIC code.

Or make everyone use a couple of third parties, that are policed basically by Visa and stand to lose everything if they allow any nonsense. This is a pretty viable option I would say, given that audiotext went thru the same shakedown and that's how it came out...

Nope.

Just trying to figure out if you guys understand what you bitch about all the time.

I don't need to defend myself or our business we do everything above board we offer $1 trial for a month nothing shady

as far as the industry goes I sure there are some shady people
but so are some surfers and most know they can get away with not paying 0 tolerence rule and no sig.

Its not a smart ass remark you should think about what you say before you post it. that's all some will see your side to things and some will agree with me. Most of the big sponsors use cross sales
and if it wasn't for them you would have no where to bitch because they advertise on these boards
No biggy it's a free forum

I don't get it?

If someone did a trial on a site and got billed before the time allowed they can just chargeback or credit it.

what your point

I'm trying to figure out where you guys get all this false information from about all this deceptive marketing
don't you think the sponsors have more to lose if they did illegal activities
the 3rd party processors monitor the sites for deceptive marketing
or they could lose there merchant acount.

and yes I think surfers are alot more savvy and because of all the free shit sales are down. it's not the sponsors who are shaving
you can easily test them out in many ways to see if they shave.
just use your credit card

rebates piss me off. i never base my buying decisions on rebates. i consider them a bonus if i do buy the product.

Damn a bonus

I think I might have to try the rebate thing out on a site
charge them $50 for a membership then give them a rebate
of $49 if they send us a signiture of the purchase

I wonder how many people would send in for there rebate or just chargeback?

It would still cost them a $1 for a membership but I get $50 up front to invest before I send them a rebate check 6 months later.

And they will just consider it a bonus

I wonder if it would work what do you guys think?

and its only a few who make it to the top of the mountain:glugglug

Nice sig

What's the use of fighting when you're not willing to learn...

Kimmykim have you noticed.. your post have gone RAT over someones head.:Graucho 2 funny