(Hurry, Free Trial Offer not available in stores and only available here until Sunday, December 07, 2008. Only 20,000 magicJacks are still available for this Free Trial Offer!)
Today was Sunday, Dec. 7, so I figured, "Oh crap, better sign up before the free trial offer ends." In retrospect, that date might change tomorrow to "Dec. 8" and then "Dec. 9" as a slick marketing ploy to get you to act right away -- well, if it is a ploy, it suckered me.
UPDATE: Yes, that date changes each day. Crafty marketing ploy, indeed!
Anyway, when I clicked on the "Click Here for Free Trial" button, the first page makes you enter your shipping info and email address. After that, you'll be asked to enter your credit card info. (If this step seems shady, credit cards such as Discover let you generate secure credit card numbers so you don't have to use your actual card info.)
Once this occurs, you'll be asked to "verify" your shipping info to complete your order. Frankly, this is where the somewhat shady "pressure marketing" begins: You'll be shown a number of "special act-now-or-it's-gone-forever deals" such as:
- Paying for five years of service at a discount: Are you nuts? Will MagicJack even be around in five years? My advice: DO NOT pay for extended service just because it sounds like a great deal. Make MagicJack prove that it can survive 30 days or one year first.
- Pay right away rather than wait until the end of the trial period to get charged: I didn't get this offer ... I want to make sure this gadget works as advertised before I pay a single cent.
- Buy additional MagicJacks: Again, why would I buy more units when I haven't found out yet whether the thing even works?
- Pay $3.95 for "speedy shipping": This seemed like a money grab, so I declined. (Upon later research that evening, I learned that MagicJacks are sent pretty quickly with the standard shipping, so I'm glad I didn't bother. I'll let you know how quickly my package arrives.)
There might have been other offers, but the ones listed are the only ones I remember. (Now that I'm blogging this experience, I'll take better notes in the future).
After all the offers, I got to the final confirmation page and received a confirmation email. Although the "cost" is touted as $39.95 for the first year, there is also a $6.95 shipping charge, so the total "first-year" cost comes out to $46.90.
Something else that kind of rubbed me the wrong way was that their "30-day free trial" starts when you order. Which means that if it takes 10 days for me to receive the MagicJack, I'll actually only get 20 days to test it out before my credit card gets charged, so that seems like deceptive advertising in my book.
However, I will not judge MagicJack further until I actually try it out, so I'll be checking the mail in anticipation.
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