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eHarmony’s Free Trial: For Dating Blindly Only*

eharmony large We have all seen the TV commercials for eHarmony, an online matchmaking service, with psychologist Dr. Neil Clark Warren. He touts the free personality profile offered on his website that matches you to potential mates based on 29 key dimensions of compatibility.

With 12 million members, surely your match might be among them. So it was great news to read their newspaper ad about 10 days ago promoting a free weekend to “try eHarmony for free.”  “All weekend long you’ll be able to communicate with people you’re matched with for FREE!”

Buried in the “help” section was a “special notice” sure to disappoint many:

*MOUSE PRINT: “FastTrack and Photos are only available during the free weekend if you are a paid subscriber.” [website 11/17/06]

So, if you find the person of your dreams on paper, you will have no idea what they look like. Pardon the shallowness, but looks do matter. Now, since it is “free communication” weekend, you can simply ask for a picture, right?  Not exactly.

“Free communication” is a term of art used by eHarmony, and refers to an anonymous, structured communication system (“guided communication”) that uses sets of pre-defined questions that can be sent to the potential love of your life. You must go through four stages of “guided communication” before you get to more “open communication.” You cannot use “Fasttrack” that bypasses the canned questions and permits more opened-ended, but anonymous emails.

So, it appears you neither get to see nor really communicate instantly with your matches during the “free” weekend. For that, you need to subscribe to eHarmony for fees ranging from $59.95 (one month) to $251.40 (year).

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Big Brother: Little Print*

big bro1 smallNothing is more popular these days with young people than “texting” — sending a text message via a cellphone. Capitalizing on this trend, most reality shows on television have built in this kind of interactivity into their programs. American Idol popularized “text voting” for your favorite singer,  and millions of people participated for free (except for whatever usual charge your cell company imposes for sending a text message — typically 10 cents).

Other reality shows have jumped on the bandwagon, but have turned texting into a money making machine for the networks and the program. Take CBS’ Big Brother, for example. The ad above has been running on each episode of the show over the past couple of months, inviting people to text the word “FAN” to 99888. Those who do are promised pictures of the cast, ringtones, and alerts about the show. Does being a “fan” cost anything?

*MOUSE PRINT: “$5.99 per month subscription fee billed through your wireless phone bill.”

There is no oral disclosure of the price during the commercial, and as you can see, even magnified, the mouse print price disclosure is almost unreadable. CBS does notify you when you make the call that there is a charge, but funny how clear disclosure is missing from the ad itself.

Had CBS been using a 900 number as the means of triggering this information service, federal law would have required oral price disclosure in the commercial. But, the 900 number rules were written before the advent of pay-per-call services triggered by text messaging, and thus CBS’ non-oral-disclosure falls through the cracks.

big bro2 smallIn addition to the “FAN” commercial, Big Brother also supers on the screen this other invitation to part with $5.99 a month, twice during each show. There is no price disclosure oral or written, but viewers are invited to go to the Internet “for terms.”

Though the net is widespread, not everyone has access to it, and while some people mulitask, most folks watching television are not sitting in front of their computers at the same time. Thus, disclosure of the price is again masked.

If the networks can’t make reasonable and clear disclosure of the price of text games and text services, the Federal Trade Commission needs to step in to update its pay per call rules to include this now pervasive form of advertising of pay services.

 

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NetZero: From Only $4.95*

netzero smallNetZero wanted MrConsumer back as a customer (do they know who they are dealing with?? ) and sent me a postcard offer with a fabulous price — $4.95 per month (click on picture on the right to see the entire offer). There is an asterisk after the $4.95, and one would have hoped that would lead to the catch: only if you buy a computer for everyone in your family, only if you sign up by no later than yesterday, or only for the first two months of service, etc.

Their mouse print on the postcard reads: “Additional phone and live technical support charges may apply. Special pricing not available to all members. Service not available in all areas.” [NetZero offer received 6/30/06.]

Okay, nothing (seemingly) bad there. But, when I visited their website link for this offer, that’s where the real catch was lurking.

*MOUSE PRINT: “Up to 10 Hours only $4.95 per month.” [website 6/30/06]

netzero 10 hours

It is unfortunate that a company that goes to the trouble of sending you a personalized offer, does not include one of the most important details, even if only in the mouse print. Instead, they force the reader to go to a website to find the catch.

One test of deceptiveness is to measure how far away from the original claim the asterisked disclosure is. A fine print footnote in a print ad is often considered too far away from the headline. But how do you measure the distance from the $4.95 postcard offer in my hand to the disclosure only found in cyberspace?