I need to get more fit and lose weight.
I was in Buffalo at the Homewood Suites, after a long drive, drowsy. So I took a nap at 3:00pm and woke up completely groggy at 6:00pm. To help me wake up, I turned on the TV, and an infomercial by P90X rolled in front of me and drew me in. For $39.95 a month, in three months I would be fit, lose lots of weight, look great, and be happy.
I called the number. After all was said and done, I had spent about $310, because I signed up for a subscription for vitamins and supplements. I was smart enough to turn down an online coaching program for another $20 a month or so.
I bought a bunch of DVDs to work out to and a few rubber straps and a pull-up bar. Hmmm.
- I am not committed to walking 45 minutes a day. So now I am going to work out an hour a day with DVDs?
- I never take vitamins or supplements? Now I will, just because I subscribed to them?
- I don’t have a place in the house where there is a TV with a DVD player where there is enough room to work out. Will I convert the garage to a gym just because I bought $310 worth of gear?
After I thought this through I realized that if I wanted to get fit and lose weight, the obstacle was not the DVDs and the equipment. I even have access to a full gym that I am not using. The obstacle is lack of commitment, which is not going to be solved by buying a product.
So I called back a couple of hours later to cancel the order.
And here comes the drift: It’s easy to buy this stuff, but it takes real work to cancel. The “customer service” office is only open 9:00am to 9:00pm. You can order any time, of course, but you can only cancel at their convenience. When I called, I found out that the order is already on the pallet (oh, too bad) and there was no way to hold it back. So all I would be charged was the $47 that it cost them for shipping.
I protested. They said they could not help it. It was already on the way.
Then I checked the web site:
This shows that shipping is $19.95. Of course, that does not include the vitamins.
So the deal that was so good on TV, that was only going to work if I called within those 20 minutes, is available to anyone that goes to the website to order. Had I gone to the site, I would have been more judicious about what I bought, and I would have thought more about it beforehand, and probably not done it at all.
The $39.95 times three magically turned into $310 – and I don’t really know what more I bought that makes it so much more.
So the cost of my lesson is: $47 for “shipping and handling” of something I bought even though I didn’t really need or want it. Plus the hassle of actually getting my money back credited to my card. I will need to track this carefully. I have to take the boxes back to the post office.
The lesson: Never buy from an infomercial. These guys are master manipulators.