Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Beware of Free Offers

My wife recently learned to be very careful regarding “Free Offers” in e-mails. This is true even when the company or organization is one with whom you have previously done business.

This could happen with any company or organization, but in this case it was NewsMax.com.

We have a subscription to the Blaylock Wellness Report through NewsMax, which serves as the subscription handler. My wife signed up for this subscription using her credit card.

In November she received an e-mail from NewsMax that had a clickable link reading “Get It Free! Click Here Now.”

When she clicked on the link it took her to a NewsMax web site where a free radio was offered with signing up for the NewsMax newsletter. She exited the web site without doing anything further and then deleted the e-mail.

Two weeks later a package arrives with the radio and a notice that her credit card had been billed $ 29.95 for the radio and $ 5.95 for shipping!

When I called them they claimed that she approved the purchase by clicking on the “One-click” offer button. They also claimed that the e-mail had a notice at the bottom indicating that clicking on the link would authorize the credit card use.

No such notice is anywhere in the retrieved e-mail.

So Beware! Even organizations that you think are trustworthy are doing things like this.

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