{"id":6786,"date":"2006-08-03T06:19:35","date_gmt":"2006-08-03T10:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/?p=6786"},"modified":"2006-08-03T06:19:35","modified_gmt":"2006-08-03T10:19:35","slug":"i-dontdidnt-buy-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/?p=6786","title":{"rendered":"I DON’T\/DIDN’T BUY THAT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Original DHEAYankee Traci passed along a piece<\/a> that appeared on the local news in Philly. The advice just doesn’t seem to make sense:<\/p>\n

Melody McCrea loves to shop online but hates being barraged with pop-up ads.<\/p>\n

“I just always x out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explained McCrea.<\/p>\n

But the federal trade commission says that doesn’t necessarily get you out safely.<\/p>\n

“We often see pop-up ads as a common form of negative option marketing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Gregory Ash of the Federal Trade Commission.<\/p>\n

With negative option marketing, companies take your silence as acceptance and bill you until you opt-out or cancel.<\/p>\n

Ash says pop-ups are the newest form of attack by unscrupulous marketers.<\/p>\n

“Even hitting that x signs you up to the service,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d added Ash.<\/p>\n

According to the FTC, these sneaky pops ups appear after you’ve bought something online. The store is partnered with the marketer and gives them your credit card number.<\/p>\n

Consumers don’t know they’re enrolled until they notice the charge and that’s what happened to melody.<\/p>\n

“I noticed toward the end of the month, every month since January, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been getting charged this $14.95,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explained McCrea.<\/p>\n

The company told Melody she accepted a free gift card after buying a present online and that automatically enrolled her in a buyers club.<\/p>\n

Melody says she never accepted any offer, and probably just x-ed out of a pop-up.<\/p>\n

“You think oh, that’s never going to happen to me. If I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m x-ing out, how can they possibly trace it to my email or my credit card,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said McCrea.<\/p>\n

So, how can you get out of a pop-up safely?<\/p>\n

“Hit alt f4, and that will close out the window,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Ash.<\/p>\n

You can also hit control- alt- delete just once.<\/p>\n

That’s what melody is doing now.<\/p>\n

“I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to be more aware when I look at credit card statements, look at all the charges,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said McCrea,<\/p>\n

Not all pop-ups are sent by unscrupulous marketers. However experts say it’s hard, if not impossible, to know which ones are, so it’s important to avoid clicking anywhere in the ad and to use your key board to close them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alt+F4 closes the program. So how is that any different than closing a window?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original DHEAYankee Traci passed along a piece that appeared on the local news in Philly. The advice just doesn’t seem to make sense: Melody McCrea loves to shop online but hates being barraged with pop-up ads. “I just always x out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explained McCrea. But the federal trade commission says that doesn’t necessarily get you out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}