Marc Perkel wrote: > Generally I'm paid to protect my customers from fraud scams. Does > that include fraud scams that are advertised on TV? The > Experian/Free Credit Report is such a scam and I was personally > ripped off by them and I'm thinking about blocking their email. > What they do isn't any different than a 419 nigerian scam. > > Thoughts?
I can definitely relate. My $10 Titan Peeler is less effective than a rusty old pocketknife, and it somehow cost me $43 (had to buy two, shipping was about 2x the "cost"). Not only that, but I never saw the total price until the order had finished, and I couldn't cancel the order (even over the phone because it had "already shipped" despite that I called within a business hour of the order and despite that my "your order has been shipped" email was sent two days after that. Lesson: do not order through a website or phone number listed on TV. For anything. A quick web search for the product by name will easily find a reputable reseller (never mind those claims of exclusivity) that will give you a similar price on the same product. The search will likely also give you myriads of reasons to not buy the product/service (even from a reseller) and/or to go with a competitor. That said... I would not block these companies' email unless they fail to follow the rules of opt-out and the like. It may be seedy and even a scam, but if they're following the rules of responsible email, it's not spam in my book. Which is to say: keep a close eye on them and nail them hard when they fail to play by those rules, which I figure is quite likely.
