Sleazy Marketing Practices

It seems like there are a lot of sleazy marketing techniques being foisted upon us by well known companies these days. This is nothing new but it seems like there's more of them and they are becoming more and more devious and less and less ethical. Some of what was once the domain of fly-by-night hucksters has found its way into major corporate America.

I've had two just today which prompted this thread. One came from Nova Development, the company that markets Parallels virtualization software and a handful of others. They keep sending me spam that says, "This email is sent to you by Nova Development because you have requested to receive information about updates and special offers." Excuse me, but NO! I didn't request, "to receive information about updates and special offers". In fact, I specifically asked that I NOT receive this crap when I first purchased the software years ago by specifically opting out. What's worse is that each of their spam emails arrives with an unsubscribe link that is cumbersome to use and that they completely and repeatedly ignore.

That was this morning. Then the afternoon mail arrived with a letter from Chase Bank where I've had a credit card for several years. The letter pointed out that indeed I do not receive any marketing material in the mail from them because I have, in the past, asked that they not send me such stuff. The letter states that if I would still prefer not to receive marketing promos I will now need to fill out the enclosed form by "completely filling in the oval beside EACH category" that I "do not" want to receive junk mail for and am presented with a lengthy list of specific categories and furthermore if I don't do this by a certain upcoming date I will begin receiving marketing material for ALL the categories.

Of course, they could have simply provided a single oval that would cover all of them but they want to make this as time consuming and cumbersome as possible. They've made these ovals unusually large so that unless you have a felt tip marker handy you'll be at this for awhile. The ovals are almost the size of a dime if stretched into an oval. And there is the implied threat that if you do not "Fill in the ovals completely" they might view that as an opportunity to ignore your wishes. I've seen and filled out many optically scanned forms like this before but NEVER have I seen one with such large spaces to fill. And get this!.......After I spent the time muttering to myself and filling out the stupid form I discovered that the form is too big to fit into the envelope they provide!

The thing about all this is that somewhere within both of these corporations is some executive or perhaps a whole nest of them whose job it is to think these techniques up and make the decision to implement them! Someone has to make the decision to lie to their customers and say to their faces, "you requested that we send this crap to you", all the while knowing that you didn't. Someone has to make the unethical decision to offer an unsubscribe link that does nothing. Someone has to design a cumbersome and time consuming form to fill out that many folks won't bother with or throw away without reading because it looks like junk mail. And someone has to make the decision to send along an envelope the form won't fit in!

And the pundits and talking heads on TV don't get what the Occupy Wall Street movement is all about? Do they really think that people have unlimited tolerance to being disrespected and mistreated on every level?

I would be curious to hear about similar experiences and stories other CPFers have to tell.

I think some legislation required them to review these choices with their customers, I got a similar thing from Citibank regarding privacy choices, what information they share, and what types of sharing can be restricted.

I called a number to opt-out, and the automated system asked me three questions total. Annoying yes, but it only took me 10 minutes to do it for three accounts, so it's not even worth the time to complain about it.

Robin24k said:

I think some legislation required them to review these choices with their customers, I got a similar thing from Citibank regarding privacy choices, what information they share, and what types of sharing can be restricted.

I called a number to opt-out, and the automated system asked me three questions total. Annoying yes, but it only took me 10 minutes to do it for three accounts, so it's not even worth the time to complain about it.

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I am aware of the required privacy notices that you are referring to but that is not what I am speaking of in my post, it is an entirely different thing. The form I was asked to fill out by Chase is solely about marketing preference choices (junk snail mail and email) that I had previously made known to them but they would rather send me anyway.

I feel your pain. If you want some catharsis, visit the website "The Consumerist". Lots of holding companies accountable there - often once something hits there, the company involved jumps to rectify whatever the issue is.

Another bank related pet-peeve for me is the always advertised "6% interest on your savings account!*".... *on your first $500 dollars.

Just blatant sleaze as far as I'm concerned.

What we really need is a new law which prohibits sharing your information from one business to another ( including their "associates"), unless you specifically opt-in. I'm tired of having to send in the same forms every single year to opt out (and you often still aren't opted out of everything). Opt out should be the default, not opt-in. Not just for junk mail, but for phone calls.And speaking of sleazy marketing practices, we need to look at telemarketing again. The do not call list is routinely ignored. I've put our number on the list about 5 times, yet still receive calls from businesses I've never dealt with. Telemarketing just needs to be banned at this point, plain and simple, because any attempts to regulate it are doomed to failure. That especially includes all the calls you receive towards election day (why these are exempt from the do not call list is beyond me).

EZO said:

And the pundits and talking heads on TV don't get what the Occupy Wall Street movement is all about? Do they really think that people have unlimited tolerance to being disrespected and mistreated on every level?

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It's not just mistreatment and disrespect. It's also the fact that I'm tired of being treated like my time doesn't matter. I'm tired of getting calls to do surveys, or being asked to do surveys when I go to a website. I'm tired of wasting time with opt-out forms. I'm tired of receiving packages of flyers thrown on the lawn like litter. All these things don't benefit me one iota, yet they make me waste my time dealing with them.

regarding your Chase Bank account, I think I'd call their customer service number and give them some grief over this. Let them know that if they keep this nonsense up, you're taking your business elsewhere.

Some businesses have ethics, and some are rather devoid of ethics. The hard part is figuring out which is which, because the unethical ones are surprisingly good at keeping people from getting info! For example, there has been some effort to allow people here in Illinois to find out which doctors are being disciplined or fined for bad practices, but the AMA (I think) has been successful at maintaining laws that keep this info private. So much for the free market, eh?

Steve K.

Steve K said:

regarding your Chase Bank account, I think I'd call their customer service number and give them some grief over this. Let them know that if they keep this nonsense up, you're taking your business elsewhere.
Steve K.

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Good idea! Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll try that.

jtr1962 said:

What we really need is a new law which prohibits sharing your information from one business to another ( including their "associates"), unless you specifically opt-in. I'm tired of having to send in the same forms every single year to opt out (and you often still aren't opted out of everything). Opt out should be the default, not opt-in. Not just for junk mail, but for phone calls.And speaking of sleazy marketing practices, we need to look at telemarketing again. The do not call list is routinely ignored. I've put our number on the list about 5 times, yet still receive calls from businesses I've never dealt with. Telemarketing just needs to be banned at this point, plain and simple, because any attempts to regulate it are doomed to failure. That especially includes all the calls you receive towards election day (why these are exempt from the do not call list is beyond me).

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I couldn't agree more jtr1962, and you are right about being treated like our time doesn't matter. In fact, now that you mention it I got a call just last night......

Caller asked if I want to help "to supersede the gun laws in Vermont". I ask, "Whom do you represent?" Caller avoids answering my question and asks me another question, apparently related to banning firearms. I ask, "What do you mean by 'supersede the laws of my state' "? This guy was a bit rude, unresponsive to my questions, sounded poorly educated and not particularly articulate. He spoke with a heavy ethnic accent and although I consider his ethnicity to be otherwise irrelevant, his command of the English language and way of expressing himself did not make for a good impression. Perhaps he was calling from another country. I put the phone down and let him ramble on until he realized no one was listening.

For whatever it's worth, Vermont has some of the most liberal gun ownership laws in the country yet has one of the lowest per capita rates of violent crime, if not THE lowest, of any other state. In any event, whatever side of this issue one is on, we Vermonters don't take kindly to outside political interests who want to "supersede the laws of our state".

Obviously, this call was from one of these groups that engages in political push polling.

Vesper said:

I feel your pain. If you want some catharsis, visit the website "The Consumerist". Lots of holding companies accountable there - often once something hits there, the company involved jumps to rectify whatever the issue is.

Another bank related pet-peeve for me is the always advertised "6% interest on your savings account!*".... *on your first $500 dollars.

Just blatant sleaze as far as I'm concerned.

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Yeah, there are a number of good sites like that out there. The Consumerist is one I'm not familiar with and it looks good, I'll explore it further, thanks. Speaking of bogus interest rate offers, the same Chase Bank credit card account I mentioned in my previous posts sent a promotional offer with a recent monthly statement. It said in VERY large bold text, "Sign up to Earn 20% More on Your Cash Back Rewards for the Next 3 Months!". Sounds good until you stop to think it through. They are paying a 1% cash back bonus on purchases and so an additional 20% would bring it up to 1.2%. The account has a limit of 300 dollars annually in cash back rewards anyway, so assuming you could max out your cash back rewards the 1.2% wouldn't matter anyway. They are blatantly making the assumption that consumers are just gullible idiots.......and some executive gets paid to think this stuff up!

Your mention of interest rates just reminded me of another tactic by credit card companies. My mom gets offers all the time for balance transfers. It sounds good until you read the fine print. They'll say no interest the first 6 months or year in huge print. And then the fine print hidden somewhere within 10 pages of legalease mentions a 4% or 5% "balance transfer fee". It's easy to miss seeing it. Most also have a clause where they say if miss a single payment, you get charged interest on the entire balance from day one. Sure, they're not charging you interest for 6 months or a year because they're getting all that interest up front the minute you transfer the balance (and hoping you miss a payment so they can charge yet more interest). The sad part is lots of people fall for this, have 5% added with each balance transfer, and often get stuck with 20%+ interest on top of that.