"Free" Trials - User Beware!

A recent article on PCWorld titled "The truth about free trials" caught my attention. It is quite lengthy and I had some ideas how to make the material more palatable. Let me begin with some background information.

Something that bothers me for quite some time are "Free Trials". Not only "free" manufacturer installed software packages that mostly have only one purpose, to make you pay for things like update subscriptions, license fees, upgrades to "pro" versions and so on.

Now all this junk has been joined by an ever increasing number of various offers of a wide variety of online services.

In my opinion some of these services are bordering on useless and/or the promised services lack a sound technical base. An example for the latter are in my opinion the numerous online data backup services. All these offers pitched to the unsuspecting consumer do not mention the speed problem.

Practically all normal Internet connections, whether via DSL, cable or wireless technology have the same big drawback in common: The transfer speed from your computer up to the service's computers is significantly slower than the download speed that you experience when you browse web pages or watch a video or peruse Facebook.

UPDATE 9-15-2012 (only 1 day later) re. online backup: Please read this article. 

Uploading large files like pictures, music and videos just takes too darned long to be practical!

Most online services offer free trials; sounds good, right?

But what happens when you realize that the service is actually not quite what you had expected and you want to cancel? Many users have nightmarish experiences.

PCWorld had a similar article already in 2006 and I will compare the results in an easy format. As to be expected there were services where canceling was easy and straightforward; there were services that took some detective work and tenacity to get rid of and then there were some that made it very difficult if not almost impossible to cancel. Nothing new here; everybody who years ago wanted to dump AOL has experienced that.

If you have ever listened to me on WTKM or are my customer you know that I call a spade a spade. Here are the names of the services PCWorld dealt with in 2006 and in 2012, grouped by difficulty to cancel.

	BIG hassle, really hard	Difficult & time consuming	Easy
2006	31%	22%	47%          of total number
	AOL	EarthLink	Ancestry.com
	BlueMountain.com	Equifax Credit Watch Gold	Audible.com
	Classmates.com	Flickr.com	Consumer Reports Online
	ESPN	GameSpy Arcade	Ediets.com
	MSN Internet	MLB	GameFly.com
	Napster.com	Netflix	GotoMyPC
	NetZero	RapidFax	Match.com
	Real Rhapsody		Mvelopes.com
	Real SuperPass		Reservation Rewards
	True.com		Salon.com
			Stamps.com
			The New York Times Select
			The Wall Street Journal
			Vonage
			Vongo
	BIG hassle, really hard	Difficult & time consuming	Easy
2012	30%	42.5%	27.5%        of total number
	TrustFax	BeenVerified	eFax
	LifeLock	GameFly	Netflix
	GameHouse	CalorieKing	Shockwave Unlimited
	IdentityGuard	YouSendit	TrustedID
	Spotify	Foreclosure Radar	Britannica Online
	RealPlayer Super Pass	Identity Protection	SugarSync
	Tech Support for Dummies	Match.com	Weather Channel Desktop
	FreeCreditScore.com	Audible Listener Gold	Adapted Mind
	ESPN Insider	Cook's Illustrated	Ancestry.com
	IMDb	RealtyTrac	Hulu Plus
	GoToMyPC	Club Pogo	Merriam-Webster
	SociallyKnow	Rhapsody
		American Greetings
		Dr. Laura
		My Total Money Makeover
		Blockbuster Total Access
		OnlyMyEmail

Two things seem to be remarkable to me:

1. Most of the services that in 2006 were a big hassle to cancel are gone for good and/or don't play a significant role anymore.
   
   Companies in this category in 2012 might take heed; the warning is written on the wall.
    
2. The huge shift from 2006 to 2012 between the Difficult and the Easy categories. The percentages are reversed. Does this imply that it pays to make canceling difficult (but not next to impossible)?
   
   Has Netflix learned a lesson? They went from difficult to cancel to easy.

Please draw your own conclusions and please tell us about them in the comments. Thank you in advance.

As usual I welcome suggestions right here in the blog. 

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