Thoughts on Marketing…

… pants on fire!

If I was more ambitious, I’d send that childhood chant to a few websites I visited today.

But I’d better begin at the beginning…

This morning at 6:23 a.m. my telephone started ringing. It took me a few seconds to wake up and realize what that noise was, so the answering machine came on. No one left a message, but the caller ID gave me a phone number.

So I decided to find out who had called.

Do you know that there are dozens of “FREE” reverse look-up sites on the Internet? One of them even gave me the initials of the person who owns that phone number. They all told me it was a cell phone in Palm Beach, Florida.

ALL of them demanded a subscription before they’d give me a name.

I don’t know about you, but if someone tells me something is free and then demands money for it, I’m not buying.

If the ad said “Reverse phone book – Find any name for only $4.95,” I’d do it if it was important. But when they lied to get me there, I wouldn’t consider it. And I also wouldn’t consider clicking on any of the affiliate banners on their sites.

Would you?

What do you think of this practice?