The Fine Print

Offline

I received a bit of 'addressed admail' from Bell Canada, today, offering me a fantastic deal on Bell TV, bla bla bla, for only $22 dollars a month... and then in smaller print one notices the word "from" on its side under the dollar-sign, and in that same smaller print, "for the first 12 months in a Bell Bundle". Well, it's not too small to read, and I can see the little super-script '1' beside the "/MO.", and so I go to look for the after-12-months price, turn over the page, and there on the bottom is "the fine print". And it was indeed fine. Probably about 3-point size.

Now here's the thing... the entire rest of the bpack page was blank. And crammed down at the bottom are three and a half lines of nearly illegible stuff that makes the $22 per month a bit of a joke. They neglected to mention in larger print on the front page the $3/month "digital service fee" (what the hell is that?!?), that after 12 months it goes up to 'from' (I'm assuming that 'from' will still be there) $42/month, and heaps of other things.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have no problems with a promotion. And companies indeed have the right to structure their pricing and deals however they like. But are companies still so stupid as to thing that consumers don't look at the fine print? Or maybe I'm a freek in that I do look for the fine print all the time. Is it that the majority of consumers are still dense and don't think there'll be a catch?

For me, it's an insult. Exactly for the reason of "the fine print" being there, indicating clearly that Bell thinks they can somehow pull a fast one on me by putting the rest of the important information in micro-text at the bottom of a blank page in the hopes that I won't read it, I'd never buy from them.

We're not stupid, Bell (and every other corporation that does the same thing... which is nearly all of them). Just be honest, and put it in big enough print so you don't look like con artists.