VirtualAdultAgent

So I ran a test today to see how bad companies like brazzers can be. Lets put aside the tube crap for a minute and just look at billing practices.

Join link:

http://enter.brazzers.com/signup/sig...1&type=default

Notice there is no mention that the trial is any different then the full membership.

Leads you to this page:

https://secure.brazzers.com/signup/g...teway=directnb

Notice there is no mention that the trial is any different then the full membership. There is also no link to any TOS.

Once you join you will find you can not stream or watch any movies. It basically is an expanded tour with no content. I contacted the live customer support and what do I get told?


Bechara: alright sir please contact tech support so they can lead you with the 4 videos
Bechara: because these 4 videos are under the black screen
Bechara: that is on the video page
Bechara: and its called a trial so you have limited access


Trial is a trial period unless otherwise stated not access to limited content. I was unable to actually find what 4 movies that I get for the trial but that is not as important.


charles: i dont want 4 videos i want access to the site as it was not clearly laid out please credit or i will Chargeback
Bechara: if you wish to upgrade your account for a better deal
Bechara: I can do that for you
Bechara: it is mentioned on the site
charles: link to it please
charles: as I am writing an article on shady biling practices
charles: and spent alot of time looking first
Bechara: it is mentioned ont he second page of the sign up
Bechara: you will need to resign up and read it
charles: i have a screen shot of that page
charles: and it is not listed there
charles: it lists the rebill
charles: but nothing about limited access
echara: it is and that is why it offers you the upgrade
charles: are you refusing to issue the credit?
Bechara: Under the therms and conditions of the site, I cannot refund this charge.Your purchase is protected, meaning we can not remove the access you have paid for. Therefore we cannot, remove the charge.


So when a customer finds out he has been scammed they will not even issue a credit. After further debate and me telling them it was for an article and that I would be more then happy to chargeback the transaction a credit was issued. However this was only after the standard you will never be able to join another porn site again cause we will blacklist you.


Is this what the world has come to really. Can we not create a legitimate product with clear explanations of what is inside without having to scam customers. It does not shock me these guys would pull shit like this after the involvement they have with tubes. I know many of you wont care and will still see the advantage in promoting them. However we have to ask with tactics like this is the fast $ today worth the long term damage done to our customers.

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kristin

It's a trial members area, most sites have them.

Otherwise, a member will come in and download your entire site in the trial period and never convert.

And most sites do not advertise it's a limited trial area.

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Roald

Well the word says it already "trial" membership not?

Don't think this is anything new though, don't most programs do it like this?

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Karupted Charles

You dont see an issue with this? I understand now wanting to let people download everything when on trial and it is why Karups removed trials years ago you want to join or you dont and we dont agree with free loaders but tricking the surfer is not cool.

Atleast offering a credit to the guy when he feels duped would be a step in the right direction do you not agree?

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Barefootsies

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Roald

Ofcourse its debatable if one should mention it or not. Thing is that the OP is saying Brazzers is a fraudulently billing people while they are not.

A trial membership is just that, a trial

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Karupted Charles

Is this really an industry standard now? Damn I guess im just old fashioned from when the days a trial ment exactly that. You got to try out memberships. I dont recall netflix only letting you pick from a few movies to send during your first month trial.

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Roald

this has been an industry standard for the last 8 years I would say ;)))

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Sly

Why are you switching between member names?

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Sly

Netflix sends you a hard product. You can't order 500 videos from Netflix during your two week trial. That's not the greatest example.

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Karupted Charles

Oh I am sure these guys are not alone and there is no question Incredible $ is one of if not the worst offender. However are they still even being promoted? I thought most dropped them over non payment issues some time ago.

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kristin

I don't see an issue with it because of the lack of complaints. When you weigh out people downloading your entire site v. the conversions and few complaints, the trial members area wins.

Now, I agree that it should be a real trial members area, none of the shit where you get zero content and anything you click on upgrades you.

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marcop

I'm shocked--shocked--that such things happen.

milambur

Since it says 2 day membership, not 2 day trial membership they might be comitting fraud. But then again, alot of the tactics used by membership sites could be considered fraud in some countries.

hashbury

Alone from the part about the trial, On the cs rep side it should have never taken the member to threaten to charge back a fucking dollar just to get his dollar.
The rep should have tried being more understanding (this happens all the time) maybe he would have been able to upsell.

Caligari

If that is true then its complete bullshit. If they aren't giving you any movies even as samples in the trial period that is utter crap. But I'm not surprised.

If people find that is ethical you gotta be shitting me.

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Tom_PM

Did it state somewhere "limited time, full access" or not? Not sure what else would make a difference. There's several definitions of the word trial though.

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Roald

but then again, a post is made against brazzers so why not leave out the end of your convo with CS? Not saying he did but it is ofcourse really easy to adjust your convo a bit to give it some juice ;)))

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TheDoc

Many people run trial upgrades all types of ways... people that run them aggressive are trying to get 60%+ trial to converts, the more aggressive you are the more people upgrade and the more they complain too.

However, upgrades are a very good thing... you can have an upgrade button in a trial members area that gives away all of the content, and people will upgrade and the same percentage will still naturally rebill - so it's a gain just by having the upgrade button let alone screwing with the surfer some.

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gideongallery

and how exactly does that justify the scummy practice of hiding the limiting nature of the trial.

guy is not saying don't have a limited trial, he is saying tell me on the tour that the trial is limited.

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LoveSandra

is something new? lol

kristin

Most have it in their TOS .. but as a surfer, they can never be expected to read the TOS for what they are actually signing up for, can they? I mean, a surfer read, that's absurd!

From our TOS on our paysites:

"Three or Seven Days Special Introductory Trial Memberships shall renew at the normal one-month membership rate of Thirty-Nine dollars and Ninety-Five cents. Three or Seven Day Special Introductory Trial Memberships do not grant the member access to the full selection of content or full range of benefits of the Service."

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beemk

trial doesnt always have to be related with time. i think most sites do this.

heres from the dictionary "the act of trying, testing, or putting to the proof."

Karupted Charles

I have looked and looked on the links I posted do you see anything like that listed? If I as a webmaster that can read (sometimes when I have to lol) and can't find it how is this legit?

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seeandsee

who can here say more what is fraudulent and what is not

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Supz

You are wrong here. You can stream netflix now. So if you can stream 5 movies a day at 2 hours a piece for a month. You really can stream quite a bit.

pradaboy

What else did you expect really?

There's a few other sites doing it, not sure if they explain it any better but yeah in my mind it's misleading. Trial access to a website should mean full access for a limited time.

These kind of shenanigans are why the industry is where it is.

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kristin

I said *most* have it in their TOS, I should agree that if it doesn't have it in there and the TOS were read, then he has the right to bitch. (And I did look at Brazzers - after I posted I will admit - and couldn't find much as to what their trial offers, just how it is billed.

But that goes back to dealing with a few complaints in comparison to better retention, smaller bandwidth bills, etc.

And I don't approve of "fake" trial members areas, they should be real with actual content a surfer can watch on a trial. So I would think if a program offers no content in their trial members area, they could probably care less if it's disclosed to the surfers.

But, it's not fair to say that trial members areas in general are a bad thing.

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Vacares rules.

"Usually only fat guys have the kind of knowledge and ability that Kristin has."

Karupted Charles

Which is why I said Brazzers are fraud instead of, anyone who runs a trial that discloses what it is commits fraud.

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BlackCrayon

i don't think trial member areas are a bad idea but what sponsors need to do is offer thumbs of ALL content available when they upgrade and once they use up a certain number of megs, say 500 megso 1 gig or something just make the rest of the videos clicked say 'you have used up your trial download alotment, you must upgrade to a full membership for unlimited access'.

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ProG

Surprisingly, they are not doing anything wrong. If you want to attack someone for bad billing practices, take a look at WEG sites.

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directfiesta

With most mainstream software sites , when a " free trial " is offered, it clearly states what you get :
- Some will say it is as the original, limited in time
- Some will specify that functions are limited such as saving; or it will say that the output is limited by time duration or watermark.

If they would specify clearly on the signup page ( not buried in 10 000 words TOS ), this would be a non issue , but how it is presented now it is clearly a trap.

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TheDoc

Look people... Almost ALL of the Programs YOU PROMOTE run trial member areas almost like Brazzers does. MOST do not have it in the terms. It's ran this way on literally hundreds of programs, hundreds and hundreds of them.

If you want $35pps - people are going to get aggressive on upgrades. Otherwise stop bitching and go promote some revshare company that has a natural 20% conversion rate and make your $22 average per sale.

It's not fraudulent to the customer, for one simple fact... CB and Refunds do not go through the roof, they maintain. If was truly fraud, we would see in the numbers - like any fraud.

I do not agree with aggressive upgrades, but also don't think it's fraudulent to anyone.

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SmokeyTheBear

FRAUD

just for the record , because i see alot of people have differing opinions on what fraud is. In general a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain . As a legal aspect obviously it would depend on the jurisdiction but here are some basic factors from wikipedia.

1.a representation of an existing fact;
2.its materiality;
3.its falsity;
4.the speaker's knowledge of its falsity;
5.the speaker's intent that it shall be acted upon by the plaintiff;
6.plaintiff's ignorance of its falsity;
7.plaintiff's reliance on the truth of the representation;
8.plaintiff's right to rely upon it; and
9.consequent damages suffered by plaintiff.

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tranza

I don't really see an issue with that neither. I thought it was pretty normal.

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bloggerz

it's actually practiced by many owners because anybody can download all the videos in one day of their trial and the programs wont get an full members

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timebomb011

really anyone can download a site in a day?
i don't believe someone could grab every scene from a site like brazzers, in 2 or 3 days.

gideongallery

wow i can't believe you are actually justifying making one sales pitch and then burying a limitation in the fine print.

look at mainstream business when they do something like that TOS falls in the way of the purchase, and is unclickable i accept until the person scrolls to the bottom of the TOS.

there is at least a reasonably credible arguement that the person saw the TOS and it therefore binding.

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Cyber Fucker

noob... :D

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TheDoc

It doesn't have to be in the terms at all, it still isn't fraud...

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DigitalTheory

Just curious as to what constitutes as fraud in this business (serious question)

So let me ask you guys this.

Say a person has a network of sites

person 1 signs up for a website within this network of sites, site A which is 24.95 a month. With an automatic checkedbox for a "trail membership" to website b for an additional 39.99 a month recurring 39.99 a month their after. Therefor paying a total of 65.00 a month

person 2 signs up for website A for 24.95 a month and website b (separately) for 24.95 a month, spending a total of 50.00 a month on the same 2 sites.

Person 1 and person 2 end up talking and realize the difference. Is it fraud?? Is it a charge back (through ccbill) waiting to happen? or is it just shit happens?

Brujah

Wouldn't a trial convert to full better if the trial member was actually able to access the content featuring the performer he was interested in seeing?

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TheDoc

What you're talking about is a cross sale offer... this isn't the same thing. But to answer your question, if the xsale offer isn't spelled out, it's fraud. I think most people feel that's fraud.

What we're talking about is a trial membership that offers a very limited amount of content in the members area because it's a trial, they then upsell the member to the same site, for the full monthly rate.

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TheDoc

You know, oddly.... no.

Natural trial to converts is 20%, good is 30%, anything natural above that is great. If you give away your full members area to trials, and simply offer the upgrade button.. heavily. You will get another 10% or so upgrades.. not bad.

Take away everything but updates, it's another 5-10%... take away everything but 3 scenes, you get 60% + BUT you also get some members bitching. I would say a balance is best, but to the less side.

I will say this though... when you really lock it down, you kill trial hoppers. If you give trial members updates, leased content, or too much shit - they will resignup for trials until they suck you dry.

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DigitalTheory

I know what we are talking about, I was not referring directly to that. I was referring to the price when someone mentioned FRAUD and asked what is considered fraud. I think you missed my point, which was off topic of a trail. I thought the OP was talking about ripoffs in general also, since he was writing about it. sorry for that