WARNING: Hidden Catch In “Money Back Guarantee”

Those of our readers who live in the UK, will I’m sure be familiar with a company called Streetwise Publications.  And they are very well-known for selling various kinds of business opportunities and other business related publications. 

Like anyone else, we at Internetmarketing247.com are always on the lookout for new and exciting business opportunities and something caught our eye called ETrends.  The sales letter looked particularly attractive and appeared to be very well written.  The idea of being able to place a program on autopilot and let it point out to you various moneymaking situations, seemed very appealing.

So we thought we would give it a try and we set the system up in our computer and buried ourselves in the manual.  However, it all seemed rather overcomplicated, so we sought some support help from the program developers.  In case you don’t know, this system works inside Betfair and endeavours to point out to you when a particular win situation comes up. 

The only problem with this is that you have to run the software for the entire afternoon and sit in front of the computer to wait until it gives you the appropriate bets on which to place your money.  Not quite what we had expected!  Nevertheless, undeterred we tried to contact support and asked them to spend an hour or so with us taking us through a live situation on the computer.  Rather concerningly, after one hour, the program support had still not found a suitable race on which to place a bet.  So that was one hour wasted of our precious time.

Support promised to call us again but never did.  We thought that enough was enough and confident that we were still in the 30 day money back guarantee period, we phoned Streetwise Publications and cancelled the account.  We tried to contact the bank and to cancel the standing order, but unfortunately that had gone through for the next month.  We requested Streetwise Publications to issue a refund for the first month and a rebate for the second month, considering that they had received this money long after we had cancelled our account with them.

Incredibly, Streetwise Publications refused to honour any kind of refund and on top of this, it took them three or four weeks to actually rebate the overpayment that we had made.  Not only this, but we had to call the company several times to get them to send a cheque for this overpayment. 

To our amazement and shock, Streetwise Publications also announced that this product, eTrends, was not covered by any kind of guarantee!  Can you imagine this?  No company in the world that I am aware of, offers any kind of product without a guarantee or refund in the case of dissatisfaction.  Readers, I would ask you to make up your own mind what these commitments mean in their sales letter:

Now I realise your’re still probably sceptical… That’s why I’d like to give you the opportunity to “suck it and see” over the next 30 days. I hope that shows you how confident I am that ETrends works and can change your life.

by taking me up on my unique trial offer…. Test the bank-boosting power of eTrends YOURSELF over the next 30 days

So AFTER you’ve tried out the software and the system for a month - and you want to continue with it, then you simply pay the next months licence fee.

So with a full 30 day test run option, what are you waiting for?

To me all of this looks remarkably like a 30 day money back guarantee.  But I contacted Streetwise Publications, and they denied it entirely and claimed that you had 30 days to try out the program and then could renew if you wanted.  Now this sounds like gobbledygook to me. 

What’s the point in emphasising about 30 days?  What does “suck it and see” really mean?  After all, they also claim that having an opportunity to suck it and see will show us how confident they are that eTrends works and can change your life. 

And what exactly do they mean by a “full 30 day test run option?  This to me sounds like a 30 day money back guarantee, but this does not appear to be the case.

I received a response from Streetwise Publications, which claimed as follows:

“Unfortunately it didn’t offer a 30 day free trial, it was just a 30 day trial period.”

How ludicrous is that?  When they first offered this opportunity, it went at the ridiculously high price of nearly 2000 pounds.  It is obvious that few people bought at that price, or indeed they encountered many refunds from people who could not see the alleged value of this program.  Since that time, they reduced the fee to £97 a month and this was quoted in the brochure. 

So what I don’t understand is if there is a monthly fee, which you can cancel any time, what is the point of offering a 30 day trial period?  Surely this is what you get any way, if you pay on a monthly basis? 

It’s no wonder I was very angry, because I had understood their wording to mean a 30 day trial with a money back guarantee, as opposed to a 30 day trial period, which means nothing at all if you are paying on a monthly basis and can cancel at any time. 

I found much of their brochure to be grossly misleading.  So in my view, buyers beware and in particular beware of hidden 30 day trial periods, which appear to be 30 day free trials, but are not.  It’s the fastest way to lose £97.