The Federal Trade Commission has joined an effort to alert consumers to online deceptive marketing connected to free trial offers that require individuals to cancel or opt-out of a recurring charge for future products or services.

The Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, David C. Vladeck, appeared at a press conference with officials from Visa and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) today to caution consumers about the free trial feature, known as a “negative option.” In a negative option feature, a company takes a consumer’s failure to cancel a free trial offer as permission to begin charging for the service. While many merchants use this billing process appropriately, others pre-check consent boxes, bury the details of the offers in the fine print, terms and conditions, and make cancellations or returns difficult, catching consumers in a cycle of recurring charges for products and services they do not want.

“Free trial marketing can be convenient for consumers–if the terms are clearly spelled out beforehand,” Vladeck said. “Legitimate marketers don’t hide critical information about costs or cancellation policies to get their customers to agree to future charges.”

The FTC, Visa and the BBB offer tips to online shoppers on how to spot deceptive free trial offers, and how to deal with unauthorized charges:

• Take time to read and understand all terms and conditions, so a free trial doesn’t turn into a costly purchase you didn’t intend to make.
• Pay particular attention to any pre-checked boxes before you submit your payment card information for an order. Failing to un-check the boxes may bind you to terms and conditions you don’t want.
• Review credit card statements when you get them for any unauthorized charges, and notify the card issuer promptly of any unusual activity or unauthorized charges.
• Try to resolve the situation with the merchant. If you’re unsuccessful, contact the card issuer immediately to dispute the charge.

Consumers who think they’ve been victims of deceptive marketing and who haven’t been able to resolve the issue directly with the merchant should call their card issuer to dispute the charge. They also may report their experiences to the FTC at www.ftc.gov/complaint or their local BBB at www.bbb.org. More information is available at www.visa.com/negativeoption.

The Federal Trade Commission is here to protect consumers against deceptive practices such as false advertising, identity theft, and other consumer related problems, and they fail. The FTC over the years has investigated thousands of false advertising, and other related consumer targeted frauds and always comes to a conclusion. So you would think that the FTC is doing its job. However I submit to you that they are failing constantly. They are not stopping the problem they are just fining the problem. I will bring you some case information and allow you to bring you own conclusion to this problem.

The Case of Donald Barrett

Donald Barrett, a prolific infomercial producer who owns ITV Ventures and Direct Marketing Concepts was fined $48 million dollars for deceptive advertisements and misleading infomercials. This would seem good right? However Donald Barrett still has over 20 more infomercials that are practicing the same things that he was fined for. However because they where not targeted by the FTC they are still allowed to run. These infomercials are fleecing consumers every single day for millions of dollars.

The Case of Kevin Trudeau

In 1998 the FTC fined Kevin Trudeau $500,000 for misleading and false statements in infomercials. Did this stop Kevin? Nope, in 2003 he was charged for violating the 1998 order for Coral Calcium Supreme and saying it could cure cancer. Move forward to 2004 and you see that he would pay $2 million and he was banned from infomercials unless they are for informational publications like books. So what does this clown do? He gets in trouble in 2007 for misrepresenting the contents of his weight loss book. So what does the FTC do? They fine him more than $5 million and ban him with this legalese.

“or any person acting in concert with him, from participating in the production or publication of any infomercial for any product, including books, in which Mr. Trudeau or any related entity has an interest, for a period of three years from the date of this order. “

Do we believe he has stopped? Hell no we don’t Donald Barrett and Kevin are close they have had business relationships for a long time. Why back in 2006 Donald Barrett and ITV Direct announced they had partnered up to market his Natural Cures books. He also helped Donald create ITV Ventures which was a MLM group. In December of 2006 ITV tried to close the public ties however the infomercials are still running they are still in bed. Wonder why they pulled the public plug in 2006? I guess more of the great fines are the price of doing business.

The Case of Jason Brailow

February 2009 FTC Fine Jason Brailow and a few other defendants in Acai Berry scams involving negative option billing. These injunctions where against JAB Ventures, LLC Jason Brailow, Terry Guthmiller and David Guthmiller in the case of Jason Brailow he was fined $7,803,425 and all but $610,000 was suspended for the inability to pay however they are still running around running the same types of scams today. (http://www.scamtimes.com/product-scams/crush-llc-crush-direct-response-tmp-nevada-scam-entity/ ) Terry and David Guthmiller where imposed a $2,532,014 judgment and all but $3000 was suspended due to the inability to pay. These clowns can pay because they are still ripping you off. So how do they get fined and then pay nothing really? Why are the consumers not getting the protection they deserve?

Other Cases that are pending:

John Beck/Mentoring of America, Grants for You Now, Cash Grant Institute, Mutual Consolidated Savings, Penbrook Productions, Classic Closeouts. But what will come of these cases? Jeff Paul is included in the John Beck programs however I just seen his infomercial in the past few weeks so they are still fleecing who they can. What do you think about these cases?

Conclusion

There are many other cases just like these that the FTC files a complaint fines the company and the company gets most of it suspended and continues business as usual. Why can the FTC not put these people out of business, why must we continue to deal with the same scams run by the same people over and over. Yet the FTC decides to fine bloggers $11,000 dollars if they do not disclose relationships between companies and reviews that are written. What about the Google related scams they have not gone after, what about the millions of dollars being lost daily by people being fleeced by the same scams that they have issued judgments against?

However we must continue to file complaints with the FTC because it is one of our only methods to gain some type of protection however I believe that the FTC needs to step up and quit being sissy’s and start putting people where they belong either in jail or out of business, these types of people seem to think the fines are the cost of doing business and they are making enough money to pay the fines and continue with the same deceptive practices they are getting in trouble for. Some of these people are still using the same exact scam that they got in trouble for.

Post your thoughts on what you believe the FTC should do in relation to what these and other cases. What is your thoughts on the FTC?