has nothing to do with role models,
i'm dont like Bill Gates or his products and use as little Microsoft made stuff as i can.

Personally I say a little thank you to Brother Bill and his minions every day... without his 'distribution methods' for the PC, we'd probably all be doing something else to pay the bills.

Alex I think it is a little unfair to paint everyone at Oprano with the same brush. Many people think this is a little shady. But as someone pointed out before, people tend to have the ethics they can afford. In tough times, and I will say THESE are tough times, people are going to push boundaries. When these people push the boundaries, it creates pressure on others to push as well to keep up. Doing business the way it was done 4 years ago is crazy, hell even 2 years ago. It is a pattern that is continueing to develop....

What can be done about it? It is tough.... when people's income drops they will do whatever they can to fix it. I see these things more as a signal of the tough times in the industry then with people who want to be scammers or mislead people....

The funny things is, this is is a deal you see all the time in mainstream....

Mike, yes, you often see this sort of deal in the mainstream, but the combination of steps taken, the selling approach, this diguising of the costs (even though they are spelled ou in the terms), the lack of a clear indication of "1 membership at 99 or one membership per site for a total of 297", the lack of a secure submit page, all things that tell me there is something here that isn't 100% on the up and up... someone is playing the angles.

Mike, what I like about oprano is the lack of morals - that they only real line in the sand for a majority of the regular attendees of this board is the line drawn by your future cell mate and the fact that he ran out of sex lube years ago. It is interesting to watch, to learn... just a GFY is the home of certain types, Oprano is the home of it's own type... and it's entertaining to say the least.

Each and every person who called this a scam has also considered how to do something similar since they started reading this thread... even as we disagree to the exact method, we all try to learn from everything we see.

:wnw:

Alex

Morals and ethics are not the same thing, and should not be used interchangably.

Moral issues are things like is porn bad? Ethical issues are, is misleading customers with free trials wrong?

:D

I'll bet the Insufficient Funds returns on that $99 charge has to be pretty high. I am constantly shocked by the amount of my check transactions that come back Insufficient Funds for little $19 charges and the like. I mean who doesn't keep $19 in their checking account?? Apparently joe sixpack the porn surfer doesn't. I even get a lot of insufficient funds returns for $4.95 trials. How screwed up is that?

So I can only imagine how high the insufficient funds returns would be on $99 transactions. Has to be pretty high. If it was $99 x 3 as someone suggested, it'd be off the chart, but I doubt that is the case... they'd almost have to be nuts to be charging $99 x 3 imho.

So what you are saying Mike ,is I have to be eviller as nthe non-evil are catching up?

Excellent ! :)

Mike, ethics are a result of morals... someone without morals probably don't have ethics either...

:-)

Nick, you got to work twice as hard to be evil now tht you have lost your right hand man... (or was he left handed?)

Alex

Nick. We received a phone call for you. Not sure how they got our phone number ;-)

http://personal.clickfeel.com/funshit/spam.wav

Ethics. Don't cheat because you think it is wrong.

Morals. Don't cheat because everyone else thinks it is wrong.

ethics (used with a sing. verb) The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy.

mor·al Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character

No morals, you have no ethics.

Alex

It's about time, we as a community, start to recognize what surfers TRULY want and are looking for. I think its great!

Punks! Useless in this society! ROFL!!!

Alex, a lack of morals does not guarantee a lack of ethics. It is entirely possible for a serial killer, for instance, to have a complete lack of morals, indeed even to lack an understanding of morals, but to have an excellent work ethic.

Alex,

LOL. I don't have to try to be evil...I just AM! :)

That wav,Hoop, was like a minor one for us LOL.

To me ethics and morals are the same.They both get in the way of making money!!! :)

This is a very interesting discussion.

I have tried to look at this from a surfer's prospective as well as a webmaster/business perspective.

From the surfer's point of view: It obviously looks too good to be true. If something is too good to be true, it probably is. So, if you're still brave enough to give it a try...read the fucking small print. If you are satisfied that it is worth it after reading the small print then sign up and you get what you pay for (or got paid for, as the case may be).

From the webmaster/business point of view: As Hooper so eloquently put it, "grab the surfers by the ankles and shake em upside down til all the money falls out..." If this tactic (the site in question) gets more signups/money then so be it. I don't see anything inherently wrong with this "marketing strategy". I don't feel responsible for people that don't understand what they are getting into. It is the surfer's responsibility to read the fine print and make an educated decision to move forward.

This is the "Gym Membership" mentality. I got burned the other day by my soon to be ex-wife. She signed up for some fucking tanning salon that dinged my fucking checking account for $15.97/month. I have quite a few auto-withdrawals out of my checking account, all of which I know where they came from. This shows up one day. I had to track down who it was to, then send a certified letter to the corporate office, and then after receipt, a 30 day cancellation was in place. Holy shit...I got fucked right in the ass...but it was my wife's fault...not the tanning salon...in my opinion.

Everyone out there that is crying fraud, scam, or other such nonsense...is the "gym membership" mentality also a scam? hell yeah, but you have to take personal responsibility when you knowlingly walk into a "scam". Is it fraud? Nah, I don't think so...

lololol... Spent a year in South Dakota one afternoon at a little tiny out of the way tittie bar... So cool, they took checks..... Next month I got a call from my bank asking about the 250 bounced checks for one dollar each :nyanya:

As for morals:

What's moral is what feels good after having done....

What's immoral is what feels bad after having done.....

:rokk: