Founders card scammy enrollment tactics… and a lesson in how to not be a creepy sales person

Story time to showcase some really bad, sleazy sales tactics. About a month ago, I got a message on LinkedIn and I don't normally answer cold dms on LinkedIn. Okay, I'm normally totally turned off, but it's from the founder of the Founders Card. And if you don't know what the Founders Card is, it's kind of like a triple A card but for entrepreneurs, gives you all these discounts to different things and like, it's typically like, I don't know, 700, which for me I'm just like, I'm not paying 700 for a bunch of discounts that I'm probably, probably not going to use. So I never considered signing up. But this whole little like automated message was, hey, we'd like to give you a six month trial. And I love a free trial just as much as the next person. Okay? So I did something totally different from my normal mo. I actually clicked through this cold DM and I signed up. Now the sign up process, like, was pretty straightforward, but once you submit for your free trial, you get led to this page of like, oh, we're going to assess your application. It's like, no, you offered me a free trial, I'm not applying to anything. You gave it to me. So anyway, so I kind of forgot about it. A couple days later, I'm just getting to the airport. It's like seven o' clock in the morning, been driving for two hours. I have to return my rental car and I'm like on the little tram from the rental car return place to the airport terminal and I see a message from them saying welcome to your Founders Card. And I was like, oh, cool. So I click, you know, open the email. And the link in the email said something like, like, click here to confirm. And so I clicked through and it took me to a page that kind of had a list of all of the benefits and it had the benefits of like the normal membership that I was given a free trial of and also of like their elite membership that had like bonuses, like extra things that you had as benefits as a member. And mind you, like, I have adhd, I skim. Anyway, okay, but that morning I'd have like three hours of sleep because you know when you have to get up at like 4, 4 o' clock in the morning to get out the door by 5, to be at the airport by 7, to be boarded by 8, like you just, you're not fully rested anyway. So that's kind of like the brain that I was working with in that moment. And so you scroll all the way down and it says like confirm, like terms of service or something like that. And so I clicked on it and one of the things that when you apply is they have you give your credit card information, right? So when I had initially been given this free trial and submitted my information information for the free trial, I submitted my credit card information and I literally in that moment put it in my calendar five months from then to go in and cancel it, you know, because like, if it's, if it's not something that I'm going to use, then I absolutely don't want to be charged for it, right? Anyway, so I hit like confirm, thinking I was just accepting the terms of service for this trial membership. No, it, it led me to a page of, oh, we're processing your payment. It was an upgrade page. Ok? So. And was done so intentionally, like the way it was set up was designed to get you to kind of get tricked into upgrading to this next level. Now the upgrade was like $300. It's not that much money in the long run, but it pissed me off. Okay, this is like not an ADHD friendly process either, okay? Because ADHD people, like, we don't really pay attention to some stuff, right? Especially when it just seems like it's like normal, like next step kind of things. So as soon as I realized that I'd made this mistake, that I was kind of tricked into this, I responded to the welcome email, I reached out to support and I explained, hey, listen, you know, this is what I thought I was clicking on. I did not mean to sign up for your more elite program. Please give me a refund and cancel out the elite portion. And then, you know, like, I get on my flight, I live my life and a couple days later I get a response from someone and support, support. And she is trying to like save the sale, right? And she's like, oh, well, this is the lowest price you're ever gonna get on this elite program. Like, sure, you really want to cancel? Because you're never gonna get this again. I'm like, yes, I never wanted it in the first place. Like, I'm just doing the free trial anyway. She's like, okay, I'm processing your cancellation right now. You know, sorry to see you go. All this stuff, I forget about it a couple days later. I was thinking, okay, well I kind of want to buy a new computer in the next few months, right? My computer, you know, it's getting kind of old and I kind of want to upgrade. And I'm like, oh, well, maybe the free trial thing. Maybe they have a discount with Apple. Okay. So I go to check it out because I'm like, okay, if, if the free trial, if I actually use it and it works out to be worth its while, I'll keep it. Absolutely. And so I go, and I go to log in, she cancels my free trial. She canceled out the payment, she refunded me, but then she canceled out the free trial that they had given me in the first place. And I was just kind of dumbfounded. But like, here, here's all the sleaze here. If you're, if you're just learning sales and like, you don't want to be sleazy, like, let's take some lessons here. Number one, okay? Free trials don't really work that well, especially if you're offering like a high level service like coaching, consulting, what have you. The reason being you're going to attract freebie chasers like I was in that moment. Okay, they're probably not going to be interested in staying your client for the long term. Maybe they will. All right? But you've basically like given away a whole bunch of stuff at that point that you'll never get back. Number two, we don't trick people into getting the sale. All right? Their whole flow, their whole email flow, how they had structured that landing page, how they had named the certain buttons. It was all intentionally designed to, to get someone who wasn't really paying attention to accidentally go and buy something that they did not intentionally want to buy. Okay? So we're not designing our businesses around gotcha tactics. It's super gross. And the impact it has is a, you have a super annoyed customer who's gonna stay your customer, because it just seems like too much work to try to like, cancel, refund, whatever. And they'll typically make the best of it, but they're not gonna be thrilled with you. All right? And the next bit is like, you're gonna get someone like me who's pissed, who's pissed, who feels taken advantage of, annoyed. It like, leaves a bad taste in their mouth to begin with. Now, and the whole process here was to get me to do a free trial so I could be convinced that it was worth it for the long term. You know, they absolutely could have let me just go through my free trial and had me be like, yeah, cool, this is totally worth it. But they didn't. They didn't do that at all. And lastly, sales is not a good thing if you don't have good client service. Like, if you don't have good customer service to make sure that someone is having a positive experience throughout the whole process. It doesn't matter how good you are at selling because your business is probably not going to make it. So once I realized that the trial had been canceled, I actually responded to lady and I explained hey listen, this a really bad experience and I'm absolutely never ever going to be a member of Founders Card, the Founders Card membership and I want you to know like this process was really shitty. No response. However, I am getting all of their marketing emails now which I'm going to unsubscribe from because I don't care. And hi, I help ADHD business owners make more money in less time with fewer distractions by showing you how to discover your profitable niche design an offer that they are starving to buy. I train you on how to market and sell your services without wanting to vomit and without skeeving anyone out with crappy tactics. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money Mindset coach.