How many times have you actually read the ‘Terms & Conditions’ page that you agree to every time you sign up for something? I’m not here to lambaste anyone. It’s a simple question. I’ll start.

I pretty much never read them. Hey man. I’m only human. The only time I actually give them a once-over is when I’m signing up for something that requires my credit card information. You won’t believe some of things you’d find tucked away in there. Things like negative option billing offers that could cost you a lot of money if you’re not careful.

Negative option billing has been rearing it’s ugly head a lot on the Internet lately. Here’s how it works and why it sucks. You order something for “free” or for cheap (think “Just pay shipping & handling!”) but with your order comes a monthly subscription to one or a number of services. Regardless of whether you use them, or even know about them, you’ll be billed on a recurring basis for enrollment.

A reasonable person would ask, “Why not just not sign up for those services?” Because these subscriptions are usually hidden deep in the ‘Terms & Conditions page’ and thus you have the basis for this post.

Two Years of Loral Langemeier

I first covered Loral Langemeier and the Millionaire Maker Books nearly two years ago. Her business is still up and running and the complaints are still rolling in. Here are some recent horror stories I’ve received.

I am SO ANGRY!!!!

I am late into this. This morning I looked at a credit card statement because I wanted to pay off the card. I don’t really look at this account often because I don’t really use it; just autopay each month at this point. I found some charges for Loral Langemeier, $67.00 and $29.95. WHAT THE HECK??? Shoot, I couldn’t even remember who they were or what I had charged originally.

I went online to find out more about who the heck Loral Langemeier was and what was I thinking. Oh yeah….Millionaire Maker. I got the book in August, paid the $9.95 for shipping (another smart move) and a couple of weeks later got a call from the snottiest 20-something salesperson I have every spoken to in my life. He insulted me because obviously I was in my 40′s and still dumb enough to rely upon 401Ks and Deferred Comp plans and obviously if I had any ambition I would have started doing something about my retirement before now.

Then he proceeded to ask me what I wanted to do, what I didn’t even know what he meant. He said something about how they can find everyday things that people do but with their “special mentoring” can make bazillions but if I’m not willing to act ‘right now’ than obviously I’m not ready and I could just plan on staying on the same dumb track I was on now. Unbelievable.

I actually got so irritated with him that I asked him what kind of a stupid sales policy this was; to insult everyone of their potential customers after a one minute conversation where it was clear they had no idea what they were talking about.

I’ve been involved in International Sales & Marketing for years and now in the Transportation business at a level where some level of brain power is required.

I told him no, I wasn’t interested, you have no idea what you’re talking about, I had no interest in working with such rude people anyway. He kept coming at and I kept getting more surprised at how rude he was. Finally, I hung up on him!

I have never done that before! When I get sales calls I am usually polite and respectful because I know what it’s like to be on the other side.

Now I am on a rampage. I called the bank and they can’t help me until after I talk to LL. And I will be next week. They will get a very Merry Christmas from me.

After that first $9.95 in August, they have charged me $96.95/month ($67.00 +$29.95) for four months. I am now out $387!!

I will be demanding my refund, I will allege fraud to my State Attorney General’s office, the Attorney General for the state they operate in, I will call the radio station from which I heard the original commercial, and I will look at getting ad space on the very same radio station to warn the rest of the people about this fraud. These people are frauds. This will not happen to me again!

And another reader has written in with a similar story…

I just had the same thing to me!!! I ordered the program and before the 30 days was up called to cancel. Evan offered to let me have the program for $98 for life and said I had a few more days to decide on that and call back if I wanted it. I thought I had cancelled the $67 per month program, and we decided we didn’t want the lifetime offer so I didn’t call back. I just now discovered a $67 charge from them in Aug. so called my credit card company to dispute the charge .That’s when I learned that I had been charged in July and for Sept. already as well!!! for a total of $201!!!!!!!!!!!

I MADE A HUGE MISTAKE IN NOT CHECKING MY STATEMENTS REGULARLY SINCE THEY ARE AUTO PAY!!!!!!!!!! IF I HAD CHECKED I WOULD HAVE DISCOVERED IT AFTER THE FIRST CHARGE!!!!!! I HAD BEEN TRAVELLING A LOT AND GOT LAX ABOUT CHECKING MY STATEMENTS CLOSELY—BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!!!

I also was told by the supervisor I spoke to, Amanda, that a refund was impossible. When I said I had cancelled she asked for my cancellation #, which I don’t have and don’t know if I got one. Her comment was that everyone knows that if you don’t get a cancellation number–then it wasn’t cancelled!!!!!! I went on to explain that I thought I had cancelled and that the other lifetime offer was separate and independent from my first offer of $67 per month. But I got no where!!!

They went ahead and started charging me every month knowing that I had called to cancel and also knowing that I didn’t want the lifetime offer either!!!!

These are just two of a rather large number of complaints out there. Here are a few links for more reference:

http://www.scamdetective.com/Real-Estate/Loral-Langemeier/Loral-Langemeier-honest-scam-reviews

http://www.friendsinbusiness.com/board1/index.cgi/noframes/read/156284

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/loral-langemeier-millionaire-maker-c300921.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080306133525AA0bSSQ (this is especially rich with complaints about Loral Langemeier!!)

http://www.johntreed.com/Langemeier.html

http://www.reviewopedia.com/loral-langemeier.htm

I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ll see of Loral Langemeier and we’re definitely nowhere near the end of negative option billing. You need to do your part and make sure you know who you’re dealing with online and start reading those ‘Terms & Conditions’ you usually ignore!

Five minutes could save you hundreds of dollars. Be safe out there!

Sitereviewauthority.org is a joke. Why? Because its top recommended opportunity is Process at Home, the Angel Stevens “rebate processing” deal that has burned a lot of people.

I have not been able to find anything that suggests “Dr. Stera” is a real person. He has no online presence outside of Sitereviewauthority.org—and that’s not easy to accomplish today—and there are these problems:

• He can’t remember his own name. On the splash page at sitereviewauthority.org, the page that tells you to wait while they take you to the latest review, his name is Dr. Mike Stera.
• His email address is fake
• His 1-800 number requires an access code
• His physical address actually belongs to WeisComm Partners, a medical PR firm

In other words, there’s no such person and you should stay far away from whatever he recommends

BREAKING UPDATE: I take it all back! I found this fascinating biographical film about Dr. Stera. (If for no other reason, watch it for the rockin’ music!)

In the first post, we warned you about sitereviewauthority.org. In this one, we sign up for and give you the goods on top10workathomejobsof2008.com, possibly the longest bleedin’ url in the history of telecommuting. For that reason, it’s hereafter called top10.

The First Red Flags
When you visit the site, you’ll spot some of the warning signs we’ve harped on for the past year: shiny happy people from stock photography and buzzwords such as “financial freedom” and “live the life you deserve.”

And the page is a little too corporate to feel real, you know? I mean, it’s a good looking site! Nothing wrong with that, of course, but in Internet job hunting as in love, good looks are often used to hide a morass of nothingness.

But what the heck—we decided to give them a chance. After all, it’s free. I put in my name and email address and waited for Nirvana.

After Signing Up
The “welcome” screen after I signed up was very polite and told me to check my in box for the work at home opportunities I’d been promised. It also gave me a banner to click on to see the top researched opportunity. I clicked the banner and was led to…wait for it…a paid surveys site!

We’ve checked out survey sites and have only seen a couple that we like. The others lead to long lists of affiliate links and other work at home “programs,” and we’ve found them to be a waste of time. So I’m not willing to go down that road again. If top10 wants to impress me, they’re going to have to do much better than that.

The Welcome eMail
And just like the site said would happen, I received an email containing the good job information I requested.

The email was polite and well written, which is itself refreshing (sadly enough). It gave the predictable spiel…we’ve researched thousands of jobs…only found a few that are legitimate…etc. Then it described the #1 opportunity of 2008: Freelance Home Writers!

Wait a minute, I thought. The welcome page said paid surveys was the top opportunity? Oh well. It must just be a mistake.

Here is how the email describes Freelance Home Writers before giving me an affiliate link to realconsumersolutions.com:

This work at home job requires you to enter data on your keyboard in exchange for pay checks… We labeled this our #1 home job of 2008 because of ease of start-up.. All you need is a computer and internet connection and you can start typing at home for dollars today…

Uh-oh! I’ve been a freelance home writer, and believe me when I tell you: that ain’t it. This sounds an awful lot like the data entry “jobs” and rebate processor “jobs” we’ve trashed. But since I like to be sure, I clicked on the link to check it out. I signed up at freelancehomewriters.com and was promoted to step 2 of the process.

The description of the freelance work I’d be doing was kind of new, but still sounded a lot like affiliate marketing, not a job for which I would get a paycheck. In fact, if, every time the site said “write an article,” you substituted “process a rebate,” they’d be almost identical! I went to the next step and that’s where I stopped. They wanted 2.95 (before the bonus timer runs out!), which was a slash in price from $69. All of these are hallmarks of misleading sites. And even though it’s only $3, it’s $3 I don’t feel like giving to someone who’s not telling me the whole truth.

I’ve Seen Enough
The fact that top10workathomejobsof2008.com promotes Freelance Home Writers, which sure smells like “data entry” in new clothes, is enough to convince me that you can’t trust top10 to give you objective reviews. They’re posing as reviewers, but their real objective is to sell you the programs they review for which they receive affiliate commissions.

I have nothing against affiliate sales. In fact, I’m a big fan! But, darn it, tell the whole truth, not just select parts of it.

Why now?
We actually did take a short look at some review sites a few months back, and we stand by what we said then. (Click here to read “Scam pitching web sites to avoid.”) But this issue has new urgency because our readers are being scammed after being sent to a rebate processing site recommended by sitereviewauthority.org, one of these review sites. (They’re also being referred to scams by ads on sites that should know better, such as Careerbuilder, but that’s a different post.) One reader writes:

I am ashamed I fell for this BS also. I am very suspicious of anything and normally would never ever do one of these dumb work at home things. What got me was that darn website saying they investigated all the scams and then listed off the ones that WERE NOT scams, yea sure. Process at home with Angel Stevens was the number one NOT A SCAM that was listed.

And then a follow up comment a month later:

Like Wendy (March 28th) I read about “Angel Stevens” and her #1 “work from home” rebate processing business from SiteReviewAuthority.org. This website touted itself as being a “watchdog” group that actually bought these offers and had weeded through the scams for us (how very kind of them!)

There’s no better way for shady sites to call down the wrath of Steve and Joe than to pitch B.S. programs to people while claiming to do objective reviews.

The reader trusts the review site and then loses money to a program the reviewer recommended. It gives the whole idea of program reviews a bad name, and then people who don’t know any better lump us in with all the rest of the review sites that are just out to make a buck, or lots of them.

Why you can’t trust SiteReviewAuthority.org
In an effort to distance ourselves from those other review sites, we’ll demonstrate using just one of them why you shouldn’t trust them.

Siterviewauthority.org
As you read above, this site recommends rebate processing, the biggest scam of the last two years. That in itself is proof that you shouldn’t trust what the site tells you. Well, that and this line from its paid surveys review: “Only 3 have received our world renewed seal of approval that means 98.3% of them are not recommended.” If you’re gonna pitch scams, at least try to hide your stupidity. And the fact that all the paid survey programs they recommend require a fee to “register.” But there’s more.

This site goes to great lengths to convince you of its impartiality and legitimacy. It was (allegedly) founded by a doctor (of what, he doesn’t say), it allegedly employs a staff of program testers who sign up for everything under the sun. The site has five “bulletproof” criteria to decide which opportunities to recommend.

The good doctor and his staff trash most of the programs to convince you that the ones they recommend are in some way different from all the others. They do a good job of it, too. Their “analyses” are pretty convincing. But beneath the veneer of legitimacy, it’s nothing but a collection of affiliate links (or hoplinks). The apparently objective reviews are just dressed up sales pages, and sitereviewauthority.org makes a commission from everyone who clicks on a link and signs up for a program. That’s what they’re about—making money, not telling you the hard truth about online scams.

Nothing against commission sales
My objection is not that they get a commission when someone signs up using their link. That’s affiliate sales, and it fuels the Internet today. We here at I’ve Tried That are big fans of affiliate sales, and we’ve recommended things to our readers that we profit from.

But I have a big problem with “reviews” that recommend trash and convince people to spend money on misleading programs that can never deliver what they promise. We’ve never done that. Sitereviewauthority.org does it routinely.

Jeri, the second commenter above, gives a pretty good description of more of this site’s shenanigans:

Knowing how grateful we would all be for their hard work they even had a link at the bottom of the page where you could contribute to their company via paypal! They also had a 1-800# that you could call to report online scams. Having been “scammed” in the past I decided to call their 800# just to see what I got and lo and behold the first red flag was raised.

The “scam reporting” number required an “access code” to go further. I was going to go to their website to report their 800# problem but went first to Angel Stevens #1 “non scamming” site to see what it was all about (making money being a higher priority than reporting a bad 800#). I must admit she had me going. I did find it interesting that she used her “SiteReviewAuthority” #1 ranking to further validate her “legitimate business” and I will admit to thinking that that seemed fishy to me.

See how it works? Sitereviewauthority.org recommends a site as “scam free.” You go to the site and it displays its “SiteReviewAuthority” rank as some kind of stamp of legitimacy. That’s like me sending you to a “Pay Joe $100″ site and displaying a fancy seal that says “This Site Ranked #1 by JOE!”

Stay away from SiteReviewAuthority.org.