Oct 10 2008
Pay to Try (PTT) – Benefits and Risks…
Benefits - Pay to Try offers can be a lucrative “business” if you work the right programs. Cash rewards can range anywhere from 10 cents to as much as $100 based on what I’ve seen.
Risks - One risk is that you forget to cancel your trial offer before the trial offer expires. This is why I suggested in my prior post to document in detail those offers that you sign up for. The bigger risk, one that you cannot control, is signing up for an offer with a “dirty retailer.” If you get stuck dealing with a retailer like this, usually what happens is you communicate your cancellation, maybe even get a cancellation confirmation from them in writing, yet they still bill your credit card after the trail period is over. One way to mitigate this risk and your exposure in the event that this happens, is to use a prepaid credit card for any offer program that requires a credit card. That way if you forget to cancel, or if the company still charges you after you cancelled, you have far more control than you would with a credit card that has thousands of dollars in available credit, or even worse, a bank debit card where you’re not expecting charges and it causes your account to be overdrawn and be charged Non Sufficient Funds charges which can really add up (I mention this because it happened to my girlfriend.) The point here is to be selective about who you do offers with, research the company on the internet prior to completing the offer, and the obvious, be sure you remember to cancel within the trial period.
