This must be a cable TV month here or something as another large company has recently launching an aggressive campaign to acquire digital TV customers from the current market leader. What was interesting about this company is that many people have mentioned that door to door salesmen have been going to their homes and saying how they can sign up and get a full year’s worth of service for free as a way for them to launch the service and acquire customers.
Of course, as expected these guys get paid a percentage of what they sell and so it shouldn’t be any surprise if they leave out details in hopes that you simply sign up for the service. The catch with this was that the free one year offer required you to sign a 3 year contract term with the provider. Basically, you would be stuck with the service if you disliked it even after the year.
This resulted in many people complaining to the company about misleading them even if it is technically just the salesmen that said it. While in many ways I guess you would have to take responsibility for not reading everything, usually in these situations the company would honor the offer or give you some kind of generous credit if the sales person admits to giving out the wrong information.
Usually though, only something in writing can help you there. However, that should be a reminder though that whenever you are given an offer always make sure you get it on paper somehow such as a company brochure or even a website printing of the offer (Assuming it exists). That way, even if it is an error you usually don’t have to try too hard to get them to honor it if you signed up under those pretenses. And if the salesman can’t provide you with that or is willing to write down the offer, then that should tell you a lot. Got to always watch your money from these types of free offers.