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.
5 Responses to 'The Shipping & Handling Scam, Part I'
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on September 24th, 2007 at 11:14 am
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.
on November 30th, 2007 at 2:51 am
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.
on December 10th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
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 crap 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.
on March 11th, 2008 at 10:32 am
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?
on April 30th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
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!