Comments on: The Webloyalty Settlement: A Great Graphic Lesson in Marketing Practices http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/08/28/the-webloyalty-settlement-a-great-graphic-lesson-in-marketing-practices/ Business + Technology in the Exponential Economy Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:54:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Leigh http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/08/28/the-webloyalty-settlement-a-great-graphic-lesson-in-marketing-practices/comment-page-1/#comment-80507 Leigh Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:19:13 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/?p=39378#comment-80507 I, too, am a victim of this company through buying from Vistaprint. Stupid me ordered from Vistaprint for YEARS for different businesses, personal use using different credit cards.. this scam goes back SIX years on SIX credit cards to a tune of more than $1,000!!! I reported this fraud and scam to 30 different state and federal organizations and NOT ONE responded... our MA AG's office completely useless... won't even return MY CALLS!!! IMHO consumers have NO rights, no protection and get NO response from these organization that were created to PROTECT US! BOOOOO!!! I, too, am a victim of this company through buying from Vistaprint. Stupid me ordered from Vistaprint for YEARS for different businesses, personal use using different credit cards..

this scam goes back SIX years on SIX credit cards to a tune of more than $1,000!!!

I reported this fraud and scam to 30 different state and federal organizations and NOT ONE responded… our MA AG’s office completely useless… won’t even return MY CALLS!!!

IMHO consumers have NO rights, no protection and get NO response from these organization that were created to PROTECT US! BOOOOO!!!

]]> By: Miramon http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/08/28/the-webloyalty-settlement-a-great-graphic-lesson-in-marketing-practices/comment-page-1/#comment-77982 Miramon Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:17:02 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/?p=39378#comment-77982 "Clear in the fine print" my ass. And who the hell is going to read something probably marked as spam sent by a firm they don't know they are doing business with? Seems to me a legitimate ecommerce company would have to be stupid to sign up with a "loyalty" firm that will be extracting money covertly from their customers. Can you imagine anything less likely to breed brand loyalty than the sense you have been screwed over? It doesn't matter whether there is a revenue split of the hidden fees or not. The real e-commerce company must know that every last consumer who actually bothers to look at their credit card statement will go ballistic when they see these charges. And will they blame Webloyalty? No, they will blame the e-commerce company. If Webloyalty was making money from fees paid to it by the host company, there wouldn't be a problem. But business practices like this, whether marginally legal or not, are clearly unethical. This no better than those "free ringtone" offers that used to subscribe customers to a monthly ringtone subscription service when the offer was accepted. When you boil away the attempts at legal buffering, what's left is a hard kernel of fraud. "We will now bow our heads in payment." “Clear in the fine print” my ass. And who the hell is going to read something probably marked as spam sent by a firm they don’t know they are doing business with?

Seems to me a legitimate ecommerce company would have to be stupid to sign up with a “loyalty” firm that will be extracting money covertly from their customers. Can you imagine anything less likely to breed brand loyalty than the sense you have been screwed over?

It doesn’t matter whether there is a revenue split of the hidden fees or not. The real e-commerce company must know that every last consumer who actually bothers to look at their credit card statement will go ballistic when they see these charges. And will they blame Webloyalty? No, they will blame the e-commerce company.

If Webloyalty was making money from fees paid to it by the host company, there wouldn’t be a problem. But business practices like this, whether marginally legal or not, are clearly unethical. This no better than those “free ringtone” offers that used to subscribe customers to a monthly ringtone subscription service when the offer was accepted.

When you boil away the attempts at legal buffering, what’s left is a hard kernel of fraud.

“We will now bow our heads in payment.”

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