"Wanna Buy a Watch, Sucker?"

How many unsolicited telephone calls do you get a week from hucksters trying to sell you warranties for the car you sold months ago, or try to sell you health insurance which you don’t need?  I am constantly plagued by these accursed companies and recordings which always seem to come right when I am on a conference call or deep into something that requires total concentration, which is completely destroyed with the ringing of the phone.  I remember a time when as a consumer I got to make a choice to buy.  If I needed something, I would choose to go shopping for it and I could choose where to shop.  Now, we are all bombarded by advertisements and intrusive people and machines that vye for out attention at all hours of the day from all directions.

Maybe I am more sensitive to it because I am involved in internet advertising now, and am acutely aware of the flow of spam into people’s email boxes.  (My junk mail folder is always the most full when I download my mail.)  I am really sick of it!  All these unwanted messages trying to get purchase in my head—there is no more room for it!

Then there is the constant flood of offers that pass before me for all this ‘free’ trial stuff.  What you don’t realize until you have been stung a few times is that they automatically start billing you a ridiculous amount of money for services you never wanted. 

I was stupid enough to sign up a few months ago for a free trial to get some teeth whitener, being told that I could try it for two weeks to see if it was working and then make a decision to get more of it.  Right!  After I signed up and gave them my credit card “for verification”, I just happened to read the terms and conditions page and discovered that I had just signed up to be charged $89.95 per month for teeth whitener until I cancelled.  $89.95!!!
When I immediately called to cancel, they told me it was too late to stop the order and that I would have to return the package before the end of the two week free trial in order to avoid the first monthly charge of $89.95.  When the package came 10 days later, I had to Fedex it back to them in Omaha before the deadline, so it cost me $25 just to do that!

Now there is Facebook.  I signed up and have been amazed at the contact with people from my past that suddenly occupy a part of my life.  I really like that, however this morning I got a spam message from one of my ‘friends’ on Facebook.  Actually I don’t think it was my friend, but rather one of his ‘friends’ that decided to poach his ‘friend’ list to send out a spam offer. 

Like a real schnook, I followed what I thought was trusted advice, and wound up having to spend an hour undoing a commitment I had somehow made to pay Ireel $35 a month for the right to watch movies on my computer.  Of course it was supposed to be ‘free’, but needless to say, it wasn’t.  Only this time, there was clearly deceptive advertising.  The charge was never even mentioned and was hidden so that you couldn’t see it until after you had signed up and given them your credit card for ‘verification’!  

I don’t know about you, but I am sick of this crap!  I am bombarded all the time by offers that I don’t even want to see or hear.  Vendors lie to me about what the real costs are and try to hide the obligations with deceptive advertising and outright twisted truth.

Is there a solution?  I can’t think of one, but add this constant annoyance to the credit card fees and usurious interest rates the banks are charging us, and you have the foundation for what could be a consumer revolt of monumental proportions.  I don’t know how it will manifest, but there are a lot of angry consumers out there who are tired of being beaten up by money grubbing snake oil salesmen and cigar chomping greedy bankers.