Evil Marketing Trick #348: Bundling

One of the biggest difficulties for evil marketing is how to sell more product when the market is saturated.  If people are buying all of a product they need, how do you convince them to buy more?  Bundling is a well known strategy to push more product than people need.  I recently saw a bundle of watch batteries, a 2 pack for $6, which was a good deal over 1 for $4.  The problem is, I only have one watch that needed a battery.   Yes, some people will benefit from a 2 pack, so maybe the extra consumption isn't double, but even if 20% of the additional batteries are ones that would never have been purchased, that is still a 20% increase in sales for the vendor.

When you can combine bundling with fear-mongering, you  get something like this:

You've Got Lycos?

When you sign up for a "free" web account, do you have an exit strategy?

While searching through old internet account notes, I noticed that I once had a Lycos email account.  I was curious, so I went to the Lycos website and managed to login to my old account, which I had assumed was long gone.  After searching everywhere for a "close account" option, I found that they do not have one.  Folks, you should be very concerned about any web service that doesn't allow you to terminate your account.  They had no further information on their website, so I had to search the web to find out how to delete my account.  The best I could find was some statement that said accounts would auto-delete after 30 or perhaps 90 days of inactivity.  Since I am sure I haven't logged in for years, I am pretty sure that this is a bold faced lie.

Lycos is also tied to Gamesville, which has a cancellation policy... by FAX!  Seriously?

Please submit a request to close your Gamesville / Lycos Network account to Gamesville Customer Service, by sending a fax to 781-370-2990.