When we moved to Texas a few years ago we knew we were in for a big change. My fiancé and I are both from New York and had never lived anywhere else. I got a great job offer near Dallas and I knew I had to take it. We really didn’t know what to expect when we got down there. We knew we would likely have a much bigger home and that the culture would be totally different. We were pleasantly surprised by Texas. We were able to afford a home that was double the size of our place in New York so that was really exciting. It was so nice to finally have space for all of our things, and also for our families to come and visit. We learned from some of our neighborhood friends that we also had the Power to Choose our home energy company. This was really helpful since we had no idea we could actually do this. It has saved us a lot of money since we moved down here, and that’s always a good thing.

My wife grew up in a large city and has always considered herself to be a “city girl”. I, on the other hand, grew up in probably one of the smallest towns. My parents would leave the doors unlocked with no fear. Everyone in the entire town knew one another and protected one another. It was a wonderful place to live. My wife wanted to move to Atlanta and in an effort to make her happy, I agreed. I never had Home Security ATL and was surprised to feel I needed it. However, I honestly felt I had to have it. I was scared when I would come home and would think someone might be in the house. I worried my wife would be home alone and someone would break into the house. I had all these feelings and fears that I had never experienced. I know most of these scenarios are unlikely, but I learned the most about big cities from television. In TV shows, it seems to happen all the time. I always say it is better to be safe than sorry.

I answered the doorbell this morning and expected it to be the installers that I scheduled on WWW.TexasElectricityProviders.com. It wasn’t the installers, but it was my sister who came to surprise me! I was so excited. My husband and I moved two thousands miles away from our families last year. He works a lot and I have been pretty lonely out here. I haven’t really met anyone or made any new friends. My mom has come to visit me once, but my sister has never been. She kept telling me that she was too busy with work and that she wasn’t going to be able to leave work to come visit me. She even brought all of her ski stuff. It turns out that she had planned the surprise visit with my husband. I have to say that having her visit and surprising me was probably the Chirstmas gift that I could have asked for! We aren’t going to be able to go home for Christmas because my husband has to work. Having her here before Christmas makes me feel so much more at home.

Why? Lately I have been burned by too many bait-and-switch one-time offers.

The scam goes like this. Marketer X (or Y, or Z, or whoever) creates a great sales page offering the secrets of some “highly profitable” marketing ploy for what is (in Internet Marketing terms) a reasonable price. Not suspiciously cheap, not too expensive. It sounds like a pretty fair deal. 

Mind you, Marketer X assures us that we will receive a complete step-by-step plan, including all the secrets of this particular type of marketing strategy (not just the first few steps or a vague, general outline).

So you pay, and then PayPal transfers you to a page where (instead of what you purchased) you are offered the real steps, the rest of the steps, the absolutely essential rest of the plan. It’s a one-time offer at this (ridiculously inflated) price, so you better grab it right now if you want to really know how to use the system that you already paid for.

Oh, and, of course, the rest of the system, the crucial stops needed for success, costs a whole lot more than the original “everything” you have already paid for.

Plus, if you fall for that, and pay the extra money, often what you get is just a little bit of vague nothing. Not only were you scammed into paying twice for what you were offered in the first sale, but what you get is not worth anything like what you paid for it. 

Either way, though, it’s wrong. Whether they hold back most of the information, or just scam you into thinking that they have, this is an extremely unethical process.

And I don’t care who does it. Don’t tell me that some of the big, respected names are doing it. Yes, it’s a fad. That still does not make it right.

To my mind, it’s fraud. Either you are selling me everything, as promised, or you are not. Clearly these people are lying on their sales page. Oh, sure, you can get a refund. Usually. But that still does not make it right. 

What’s worse, I think these guys are poisoning the well for all of us. When newbies get burned, they tend not to trust the next few offers they see. Some of them may never buy Internet information products again. That is a shame, and it costs all marketers business, not just the scammers.

So what about you? Have you been taken by this scam? What did you do about it? Did you confront the scammer?

Or do you think this is an OK business practice? Come on. Tell us. Inquiring snarks want to know.

I kept wondering why so many marketers, on line and off, cannot see how annoying some of their practices are and how much they alienate customers. Sometimes I contact vendors directly. I figure I’m doing them a favor. Other times, I just let it go. After all, there are plenty of other vendors to buy from. 

Remember, success is not measured how much traffic you get. Success is measured by net profit. And that is mainly determined by how many people you get to buy your products and by how many customers you get to return and buy more. 

Repeat customers are much more profitable. Needless to say, ticking off your buyers (or potential buyers) not a good way to create loyal customers. And I found so many little things ticking me off as a customer that I finally decided to blog about it. 

Not that you would do make of those annoying marketing gaffes… But it seems sometimes that people are so close to their own business, especially Internet marketers, that they just don’t see how annoying some of their practices are to customers.

So here they are: Pet peeves of buyers (or potential buyers) and things to avoid to keep from losing customers you could have otherwise kept.