The Shipping & Handling Scam, Part I
The shipping & handling scam is one of the prevalent scams within the infomercial industry. If you consider how much it actually costs to ship a product, these companies make a bundle by marking up the S&H costs. And, in a lot of cases, the shipping times are ridiculously slow considering how much is actually being paid to ship it. Most of the companies that have such horrible S&H fees and services do so in order to lessen the financial loss when a refund is initiated.
Most products that you see on TV infomercials have a “30-day Money Back Guarantee.” It’s crucial to note that the “money-back guarantee” essentially means that you can get a full-refund of the product cost (less shipping) if you return the product within 30 days (usually of receiving it, but sometimes the “trial” begins when shipped). That means that whatever you paid for S&H will not be refunded, and furthermore, you’re liable for the expense of shipping your product back. So in some cases, you’ll be out twice the cost of shipping!
And not only is the average cost of S&H extraordinary in this industry, but also the average shipping time painfully long. Take, for example, Scalp Med, a product “regrows your own hair”. If you order a 2-month supply, the package weighs a pound (2 2-oz bottles of Vitadil, 1 4-oz bottle of Nutrisol, and 1 8-oz bottle of Cortex Enlarger), and costs $18.81 to ship, with an expected delivery time of 3-4 weeks. They also offer priority shipping for another $9.95, which cuts the wait to just 10 days or less.
To put that price tag in perspective, if you went to Amazon and paid $18.81 for S&H on something that weighs about a pound, you would get either overnight delivery, or 2-day delivery. Scalp Med’s S&H policy is ludicrous, and it indicates to me that they probably get a lot of refund requests, and are trying to minimize how much they have to give back by inflating the cost of S&H.
Stay tuned for Part II, where I’ll provide a detailed list of the S&H policies of various infomercial companies. I’ll start with those whose S&H times are slow, and/or fees exorbitant, give examples of balanced S&H policies, and share some of the most exemplary companies out there.
| This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 7:58 pm and is tagged with infomercial industry, priority shipping, shipping times, refund requests, shipping time, amazon, shipping handling, scalp med, enlarger, money back guarantee, overnight delivery, delivery time, cortex, nutrisol, price tag, scams, perspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback. |
17 Responses to “The Shipping & Handling Scam, Part I”
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Last XMas a friend of mine found a GREAT deal. 2 great knife sets for $40! One for her, one for her mom.. perfect gift. She also purchased 1 knife block that was about $40. She put in your order quickly without really reading the screen, with me next to her not really paying attention either. The order goes through and we see her confirmation screen. Her $40 order turned into $120+! They charged her $20 for knife sets, and $40+ for the knife block. We were dumbfounded. Neither one of us even saw it written. So we went back and placed a second order that we did not plan on completing. We noticed one litttttttle spot that mentioned there will be a shipping charge, and gave a link that was the same color as the text surrounding it, and had no underline. So of course we missed it the first time! What sneaky jerks these people are. i am glad you wrote this blog up so others pay more attention.
Rip offs are all over the place. How many times have you taken an unscheduled lunch break or lied about the price of an item at a store that didn’t have a tag? Come on people. We rip them off and they rip us off. The dumber you are, the more they win.
Bob, your a moron, an idiot, and a jerk. You are part of the problem. “Its okay that they rip me off cause I rip them off” is insane. You should seek medical help. I cant believe how stupid you are, and how willing you are to display your stupidity.
First to Bob. I don’t lie about prices to clerks and when there is an incorrect price on an item, it’s always been in the stores favor.
As for shipping and handling: I had a job at a small mail order business while I was in high school many, many years ago. Part of the time I WAS the shipping and handling. At the minimum wage at the time minus the actual cost of the my salary (not even $4 an hour), boxes, packing, and actual shipping costs, the company was making over $50 an hour in pure profit JUST from the shipping charge. This doesn’t even include the mark up for the cheap **** they sold. So even IF every item they sold was returned (minus shipping and handling) they could still make a couple hundred dollars a DAY.
I’m amazed at how many scams there are online. I heard on the radio the other day about the Ever Cleanse thing, and was curious, and so I researched it up. So far, there’s no place that it’s selling here in my city, so I don’t want to go ahead and purchase it online.
Any types of cleanse you recommend that works?
Colon clense is a scam for the weak minded. Ask a REAL doctor and they will tell you the inside of your colon looks like the inside of your mouth, pink fleshy tissue. No **** stuck to the walls. Dont be so easily fooled.
The Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety infomercial claim to send you a free CD and what I got was a whole kit and big bill for $519! I called and ordered thinking I was just getting a free CD and all I had to do was pay for S&H. The person I spoke with was fast talking and mumbling. When I tried to call and cancel they claimed it was past my trial period and told me I couldn’t return it. They are slick and they cover their butt so they never get sued. If this woman in the infomercial, Lucinda Bassett really wanted to help people she would not charge them hundreds of dollars to do so.
So PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE! Do not call them for a free CD! This is a big scam they have going on. I don’t want others to get into this mess. I have more stress and anxiety now from them!
My friend and I bought the same coat, from the same company on the same day. She went with standard shipping, I paid the extra $30 for overnight.
Well, to make a long story short, I got my coat the same day she got hers! 5 days later!
They told me that it’s only overnight from when the package ships. Her shipped the same day and mine didn’t ship for 4 days. They refused to refund my money.
Jerks.
Does anyone know the best paid survey sites to join?
I’ve so far tried acai berry in juice, pill and sorbet format… yumm!
awsome auger – $28 for the product, $118 for shipping. Scammers. Cancelled the order immediately. They sent a cancellation confirmation email. The order arrived four months later.
I also got scammed by Awesome Auger for their $19.95 auger and drill. I was charged once for the auger, $8.95 for s&h and then another $7.95 s&h for the weed auger although both were packaged together and postage paid on one box. No drill. After three requests for explanation and satisfaction, I was told the drill would have required another $19.95 shipping! I was suckered into paying $41.84 for a tool I could have bought at Home Depot for probably $10.00. And I suppose no recourse.
I once ordered a product that claimed it would arrive within less that eght weeks–it took almost THREE AND A HAL months and only because we called the support.
Alot of the time you are paying for crappy false products that lie to you aswell. Right now theres an add on TV for a gym product thats shows you beforand afters only you can clearly see half of the pictures are tow diffrent people or have been photoshoped.
Nice piece of information. Thanks for sharing.
Hello Everybody,
This is Rob, Although I am not a scam victim, I think I have a few things to share with everybody that is looking to buy a TV infomercial product.
I work at a place where we receive customer order calls for TV infomerical products. A call center. Now during this ordering process the agent is forced to follow whats called “Scripting” that shows up for a product.
These scriptings are designed to offer you more and more and more products when you call in. Often leaving the customer with to total confusion. These calls are recorded and monitored for quality assurace purposes. And any scripting that appears on the screen and is not read to customers will result in a disciplinary action.
So keeping ths in mind we do our jobs no matter how confused or frustrated the caller may become.
Believe me, I come across plenty of callers who just hangup just because we refuse to stop offereing them more stuff when they say all they want is what they called for.
Is there any way you can get what you call for without having to go thourgh SERIES and SERIES of additional product offerings????
YES there is!!
When you call in to place an order, tell this to the agent before he even begins to place your order-
“I JUST WANT WHAT I AM CALLING FOR- AND IF YOU CAN’T DO IT – JUST CANCEL MY ORDER”
There you have it! This is magic statement that we wait for from a caller to by pass ALL additional offers that he/she has to go through to complete the order.
The reason why people feel they get scamed through the infomercial products is because they don’t understand the scripting the agents read. These scripts are very wordy and twisted in most cases it takes a moment to properly understand what it means.
For those of you who like don’t mind going through these additional offers, my honest suggestion is to “LISTEN” carefully what you are saying “yes” to. Feel free to ask the agent to repeat how many ever times it takes to understand what’s being read to you!
This is can keep you from getting “Gosh I was scammed” feeling.
Now as far as the shipping and handling is concerned I do agree that for most infomercial products its overly priced. So I would suggest that go with your GUT feeling. Think about how much a product might weigh( you can call toll free number for infomercial to check this out)
Check out how this product is coming through.. ups , usps, fed ex etc. Knowing the carrier, go on the carrier website and check out their prices per pound for shipping. And see if the S&H price is justified.
Well, that was my 2 cents of advice. Hope this helps.
Cheers
Rob
I saw an infomercial last night introducing the Ninja Prep blender. It’s also offered at http://www.ninjakitchen.com. What an awesome deal, right? WRONG! They offer buy 1 get 1 free but they charge you twice for shipping and handling. I’m sure the product comes in the same box. Even if the product is the best thing since sliced bread, we’re not stupid. $30 for shippnig & handling. No, Thank You. If it’s that good, I’ll wait for the product to hit the retail stores.
Video professor is another shipping scam. He says its “free” but charges up to 5 times the what the actual shipping cost really is. You can send a disk by media mail for almost nothing, but this scam artist charges #6.95. And blank recordable disks are only a few pennys, do the math.