Help. I've fallen into a strange negative-option deal, and I can't get up.
Big mistake! Yokel that I am, I answered an e-mail from an online marketer named Boca Java. What are they hawking? Coffee — coffee with exotic titles such as South Beach Rhythm and Palm Beach Passion and Coastal Costa Rica.
The pitch is semi-irresistible: “4 Bags of Freshly Roasted Gourmet Coffee & TWO FREE Stainless Steel Tumblers for only $12.95! THAT'S A $65 VALUE!”
I'm the naïf. I didn't give a tumble for the tumblers, but the bags of coffee seemed to be a good deal. It didn't occur to me that this marketer would shave quantities beyond the current scurrilous mode of packing 13 ounces in a container that used to hold 16 ounces.
Mea culpa. I hadn't asked, “How many ounces per bag?”…not that anywhere on the Web site was such information given.
Then came an online acknowledgment, welcoming me to the “Connoisseur Club.” Strange:
“Please DO NOT reply to this e-mail — BOCA JAVA will not receive your reply.” Hidden — and I mean buried — is the size of each package: 8 ounces. Yep, I missed it and found it only when looking with a more critical eye at another online pitch some days later.
In came the shipment. Nowhere on any of the bags of coffee was any quantity mentioned. Peculiar. Aha! On the “Packing Slip” was the admission — “8.0 oz.” So what had been an adventure, a borderline bargain because they included two strange stainless steel tumblers, now was a potential rip-off. Included was a folder headed “Boca Java Welcomes you to the Connoisseur Club.” Uhhh…inside are references to passwords and “next shipment delivery date” and — what's this? “It is IMPORTANT to note that when you join the connoisseur club (even when you join through a promotional coffee offer), you are set up in the automatic shipment system to receive the same coffees as your original order every four weeks.”
Red flags all over the place! I quickly sent an e-mail to the suggested online address, with this very clear message:
“Subject: Cancel negative-option shipments.”
My message was short and clear: “Please do NOT send coffee until I specifically ask for it. The negative-option technique isn't in order here.”
Back came an answer, the next day:
“HERSCHELL,
Thank you for your recent email. Your Boca Butler will have a response for you by the next business day. Thank you for visiting www.bocajava.com”
Sigh. A boilerplate e-mail came: “Thank you for contacting us. By taking part in the promotional offer, you were enrolled in the Connoisseur Club. As a member of the Connoisseur Club you have up to 90 days to make another order similar in size to the promotional order. The Club automatically defaults to 4 weeks. This order will fulfill your obligation with the promotional offer. Unfortunately, if an order is not placed within 90 days, your account will be cancelled and you will be charged a $15 inactivation fee for this service. You can view this at information at https://www.bocajava.com/faq_main.jsp#C3.
Gee, 15 bucks to get out. I called the Customer Service Number. A very pleasant young lady apologized for not specifying the amount of coffee in the bags…“but you did sign up. There's nothing we can do. Why don't you just order more at the regular price?”
And what's the “regular price”? Something like $25 per 8-ounce bag. No, thanks. Starbucks never looked so good.
See? I told you I'm a yokel. I suppose I could just refuse the $15 charge, because I charged the order to my Platinum Card. I'm puzzling over whether to just let the whole thing slide, because even writing about it is a nice purgative, and this certainly isn't the worst blind-side I've ever been hit with. In fact, the coffee is rather tasty.
But I'm concerned about what this and its parallels are doing to all of us as we evaluate unsolicited online offers. Here we are, in the midst of rousing attacks on spam. Here we are, when our own computers suddenly say to old-time online communicators, “Hey, however legitimate you were before, now you're spam.” Here we are, when our golden Web-geese are starting to lay just plain goose-eggs. And we're trapping the unwary in a game of “Gotcha!”
Everybody wants to get into the act. Here's a “Free $25 Best Buy Shopping Card.” Yeah, sure. Penetrate and it's one of those when-and-if-deals: “You must complete a sponsored offer (or offers) during Savings Register Rewards Registration…Each registration offer specifically indicates the number of dollars you will earn toward the gift card….”
And for the 3,000th time, the PGA wants to give me free golf “products.” Yeah, sure. I get one month free and then it's $24. In fairness, I can cancel. But what are the odds of getting freebies during that first month? Well, maybe. A tee is a golf product.
Some claims are laughable. A magalog for a supplement called Sun Chlorella says that after taking placebo pills for a month and then this product for two months, “Nearly 50 percent of the patients showed as good or better control of their blood pressure.” Translation, for those who bother to analyze: The placebo did better. More insidious is a headline claiming restoration of memory loss: “Patients show 68% improvement!” The text says, “68 percent of them noticed improvement or stabilization in cognitive function.” Analyze that clever juggling of “68 percent” between headline and text. Aaaaah…
Most bothersome is looking at deals like these and seeing how easy it could be to clarify without chasing buyers away. Having an enlightened buyer snuggled in the net certainly is preferable to having an enraged buyer tearing at the net.
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS is the principal of Lewis Enterprises in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He consults with and writes direct response copy for clients worldwide. Among his 27 books are “On the Art of Writing Copy” (third edition), “Marketing Mayhem” and “Effective E-mail Marketing.”
