By David Cohen on November 23, 2009 12:48 PM

The Customer Is Always Wrong?

So much for the old business adage, “The customer is always right.” Controversial Web marketers Affinion Group, Vertrue and Webloyalty and some of their clients, including Priceline, Classmates.com, FTD, Shutterfly and Orbitz, said customers who complained about suspicious credit-card charges are at fault for not reading the fine print, CNET reported.

CNET described the controversial marketing tactics as follows:

Under most of the agreements between the marketing firms and retailers, an advertising page is presented to a shopper while they complete a transaction at the retailer’s online store. Many shoppers say they entered their e-mail address and pushed a large “Yes” button on the ad because it appears to be a $10 cash-back offer or coupon. Many of those that complain say they thought they were being rewarded by the retailer for making a purchase.

Written in much smaller print within the ad are the full terms of the deal. A customer is notified there that by providing their e-mail address, they are joining a membership program and agreeing to pay one of the marketing firms a monthly fee, typically between $10 and $20.

United Online, parent company of FTD and Classmates.com, told CNET:

We believe that our marketing practices provide clear disclosure. We do not transfer our customers’ credit- or debit-card information to third parties without our customers’ consent.

Joe Kuefler, an attorney representing plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed against Webloyalty, told CNET:

The answer is nefarious. If customers had to retype their credit-card numbers, they would know that they were registering for a monthly-fee-based service, and defendants would not be able to get rich by fooling people into signing up.

The moral of the story: Always read the fine print.