Got a piece of direct mail the other day from an outfit called Listingcorp.com. It looked like a bill — $65.00 for “Annual Website Search Engine Listing”. My blog address was listed at the top. For a moment, I figured I must have signed up for it and forgot. Maybe some kind of free trial?
Then I looked at the bottom, where it said, “THIS IS NOT A BILL. THIS IS A SOLICITATION. YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO PAY THE AMOUNT STATED ABOVE UNLESS YOU ACCEPT THE OFFER.”
At which point I got pissed. The “Invoice” approach got me to open the envelope, it’s true. But as soon as I saw the disclaimer, I realized that they’d put one over on me. And I had no interest in considering their offer. In fact, I’m shredding it as soon as I’m done with this post.
If you have to admit the deception on the same document as the deception itself, maybe you shouldn’t try to deceive. I’m just saying.
Couldn’t agree with you on hating this kind of crap any more. Just had a similar situation that I ranted about a few days ago: http://brettduncan.wordpress.com/2007/01/31/mens-journal-auto-renewal-auto-rejection/
What good comes out of tricking someone to buy what you sell, especially these days when it’s so easy to slam them for the whole world to see?