I believe Joel made an error of judgement. That’s based on knowing the man for close to 7 years, having followed his style of marketing and buying many different things from him over this period.

To insinuate that if anyone believes his error was ‘unintentional’ indicates gullibility and a naivete equivalent to buying Brooklyn bridge is neither fair, nor true.

I re-state my belief that MOST people are good, honest, ethical… and only behave out of character under unusual circumstances, more often from errors of judgement than vicious intent to defraud and cheat.

All success
Dr.Mani

However, if you believe it was an unintentional error or a software problem, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you for $9.95 down.

You label this whole thing as basically nothing but a mistake.

Trust me. How the rebilling was mentioned, when it was mentioned, and where it was mentioned, it is clear this was no mistake. No, this was intentional unethical marketing.

Sorry if this seems like I am dissing a friend of yours or something, but I call them like I see them, and I think most others see it the way I do also. It is rather obvious after all, if you ask me.

Misato

You said:

“It takes people of your status and calibre to ‘get away with’ calling attention to this sort of stuff, so to speak.”

I very likely “get away with it” because my comments are about issues, not individuals. And they are motivated by wanting to share a lesson, highlight a wider problem, or even suggest ways and means so that readers can avoid getting into a sticky situation.

In other words, I try and focus on SOLUTIONS. And believe that people are innately and intrinsically good, ethical and honest – though they behave at variation from their nature under certain circumstances.

Sometimes, it’s an error of judgement. Other times, it’s getting carried away when testing or trying out new ideas. And very rarely, it’s a sign of desperation.

On very few instances, the motivation is dishonest… though such situations no doubt exist, they are few and far between. At least, that’s the way I believe this Universe works. And my favorite quote is:

“What You Believe Is YOUR Truth!”

All success
Dr.Mani

However I will stick up for Joel as we also talked and he said they wanted to make it an option but couldn’t get it to work technically until today. They have improved their system finally and is better now.

I will never promote forced recurring billing for anyone.

If it is part of the main offer like try our newsletter free for 30 days then you will automatically be billed $19.95 or something is fine if that is the main offer and what you are trying to sell.

But putting it forced on to another product you are selling at a low price – without giving the customer the option to NOT get the ‘free bonus’ and then bill them later every month is not cool.

Many times the customer totally misses that the ‘free bonus’ is in fact just a way to get them to give their credit card info so they can autobill them without the customer really knowing.

These things must be VERY CLEAR right on the order page the customer is looking at before putting in their CC info.

A friend of mine called forced recurring the dark side of marketing and I tend to agree.

This is what I think is probably going on. Many of the other gurus are probably counting on the situation that Dr. Mani found himself in.

I don’t think they are coming up with these ‘repeat billing’ products or services because they actually think that their product or service is actually worth a monthly expense.

I think what is going on here is yet another new unethical marketing tactic they’ve just discovered. I think what is happening is a ‘let’s throw as much as we can at the wall and see what sticks’ kind of thing.

In other words, they would normally bill once, but now they see they have nothing to lose if they trick their customers into a monthly committment.

They’ll put the ‘not so obvious’ mentions of a monthly expense in their sales letter, and count on the fact that a lof of their customers won’t even realize that there is a monthly expense.

And what if a customer does complain about continual billing? Well, no big deal. They simply cancel the subscription. They made the money they REALLY wanted anyway, in the initial charge, and they end up with some residual income to boot, so to them, it’s worth a shot and they have nothing to lose.

I am no phsycologist, but if you could read the minds of some of these internet marketers, I think this is what you would find.

Misato

It’s good that people with your status point these sort of things out, and other such things that go on in the internet marketing niche.

It takes people of your status and calibre to ‘get away with’ calling attention to this sort of stuff, so to speak. The newbies and unknowns can’t without getting a load of flak from every other internet marketing wannabe!

I the internet marketing niche could definately use more blogs such as yours which are willing to point out all kinds of things that go on in internet marketing, and not just the ‘feel good’ stuff or the politically correct stuff that always gets sugar coated and never gets real.

This particular marketing tactic is also not a new one. I think the first time I got a taste of the ‘forced continuity’, as you put it, was like about four years ago, by one of the gurus who is considered very respectable by many.

Like Stephanie said, this is also being done by internet marketers with very big names. What surprises me is not that they do it, but how many so called ‘newbie’ internet marketers still look up to and revere these internet marketers. Go figure!

Misato