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Are Sales Letters a Load of Bull?

By Marsha Maung

Oct 29th, 2007

My job as a sales letter writer sometimes suck! Especially the ones that requires me to write long sales letters. It’s not really because I hate writing sales letters but because my job, sometimes, requires me to write the sales letters in such a way that it hides the true meaning of things so that consumers fall for gimmicks and stuff. In fact, ahem, I’ve fallen for one such sales letter too. There was one website that tells me that if I paid $2 for an account, I could access everything within the website and all its tools and features unconditionally. Farfetched, yes, but it was a really good deal and besides, I was excited about all those benefits that they were talking about on the sales page.

Later on, I noticed that the $2 entitled me to 15 days access. I thought to myself, “Oh, I see. But hey, it’s not that bad. $2 ain’t expensive at all to get 15 days of access! It works out to be $0.13 cents per day”. I didn’t see anything about further payment or whatever on the sales letter….but maybe it was there and I didn’t bother scrolling all the way down the sales page to read it. Believe me, it was LLLLOOONNNNGGGG. The kind of sales letter that I write….really long with the real details right there at the bottom of it all.

15 days is a pretty short time because I didn’t keep count after signing up on the offer through the sales letter. I kept on accessing all the ‘benefits’ without counting the days. Now, some time later, I noticed that they billed me for $39.95 or something to that effect! My blood started boiling….for what? I’ve stopped going into the website because I figured my 15 days would have ended by then and have completely forgotten about the website. I didn’t really need it, I decided. And I mentioned nothing in the sales letter about not wanting to continue but I didn’t mention anything about WANTING to continue either! There was no warning, no letter, no email…nothing, zilch!

I checked the sales page again and I gave them a call and tried to argue my way through. Even with my ‘exceptional’ negotiation skill, the sales staff pointed out to me that once I signed up for the $2 offer, my account would automatically renewed unless I informed them that I didn’t want to. No warning and no emails will be sent to remind me after I clicked away from the sales letter page. As unfair as it was, I ‘signed’ the dotted line and gave in. They took my money and I never got to access the website again.

The reason why I am writing about this today is because I was almost hooked on again today. But I didn’t pay $39.95 for nothing….hang on a minute…that’s $41.95 (plus the initial $2) altogether. I scrolled straight to the bottom of the sales page and after the sales letter rambled on and on and on about all the free stuff, all the bonuses, all the benefits and all the proofs, there it was. Right there at the bottom of the sales page.

The sales letter offered an ebook package teaching you how to turn yourself into a photographer-millionaire in a matter of weeks. Another spin-off website with similar sales letter teaches how to travel while being paid. It’s all there in the ebook, it says. I am a writer and I would love to travel for free – so, it got my attention with all the photos of Bahamas and cultural attractions. The headline of the sales letter and first few paragraphs got me. I found myself saying ‘Yes! I want to travel’, ‘Yes, I want to earn 100,000 a week’, ‘Yes, I want to get paid to write and travel at the same time’.  I scrolled on and continued reading the sales letter…and somewhere toward the middle of the sales page, the first clincher came. You pay $1 for the access…..yes, but only for 30 days.
Sounds bloody familiar, if you ask me. *scoff*

‘This can’t be it. This is still too sweet a deal. Where’s the big one?’, I asked and continued reading the sales letter. Since someone obviously spent a lot of time writing that sales letter, I thought I’d humor the guy…or gal. It’s right there….right before you come to the dead end. You’ll have to pay $278 by the end of the 30 days! In total, the cost of that package and ebook is $279! Not $1, friends. And the balance will be automatically charged to you by whatever payment method your chose earlier. So, if you used paypal for the payment, they’ve probably pre-programmed their paypal account to demand that amount from you and paypal will automatically release the payment and at the end of the month, you’ll get the statement and go ballistic! There’s nothing wrong with paypal because if you read carefully, they would have warned you about following payment. But sometimes when we’re in a hurry to make truckloads of money, we don’t bother reading.

So, the ebook owner and paypal are actually doing legitimate things. The only thing wrong is the sales letter. Technically nothing wrong but it’s misleading….in a way. So, my advice to you folks out there is to read the sales letter right to the end before you agree on anything. Don’t click before you try to find the fineprint. In everything, there’s always the fineprint….so, read it and see if you’re OK with it. Nothing is as rosy and beautiful as the sales letter writer tries to make it sound. Just like me, the sales letter writer is just doing his or her job. But it’s YOUR job as a consumer to be cautious with whatever you purchase online.

When something sounds too good to be true, most of the time…..IT IS.

Marsha Maung is a Malaysian-based freelance writer who has been in the search engine marketing business for more than 8 years. Today, she spends her time alternating between being a mother to her kids and mother to her clients' websites and blogs! Now, she is a popular SEO blog content writer and service provider. Visit her website http://www.marshamaung.com for more info and if you want dirty personal details, visit her blog at http://www.marshamaung.blogspot.com .