When Is Free Free

Free?
I see this word all the time especially on the internet but magazines and television are very good at throwing it around too. Now, to my knowledge free means, at no cost, and at no cost means that you do not have to give any money, beads, animal skins or your first born son to receive. Nothing is to be given in return for whatever product the advertisement may be promoting. This is my impression of the word free.
Apparently things have changed since my last look into the dictionary because now this word is bounced around all over the place and the last thing it now means, is free. The word is just a come on to get you to read their advertisements and worst of all to trick you into buying or ordering something that you probably would never be interested in buying but since it is free you think, “why not”.
Then as you are filling out the form, if you are lucky, you find out that the shipping and handling fee for a two ounce item no larger than an envelope is $29.99. Now that is what I call free!
Here is another example I have experienced myself. I ordered some information from a company and the shipping was $1.97. Now that’s a number I could accept. Finally, here is an honest company, or so I thought. One week later I found that the debit card I used for the $1.97 postage fee has now been charged $49.99, because by ordering the information they just naturally assumed that I would want to buy the product too. For them, there was no need to do something so ridiculous as to wait until I informed them as to whether or not I wanted it.
Do you know that “Free Trial” means that if you are not careful and count the days and notify that company before the end of the “Free Trial” that they will charge your credit card every month until you finally have to cancel your card to get them to stop? Trial is an awfully good word to use for this situation.
Here are a couple more good ones I have experienced. Once, I was called on the phone and was told I had won a free membership to a gym and it was only going to cost me $49.99 per month and my personal favorite was the time I won a free vacation to Disney World. Yeah, free except I would have to pay for the plane fare for each person, taxes, surcharges, all my meals and I would have to pay to get into some of the parks.
Free, I have learned, is just way too expensive for me. I don’t know how these companies can continue time and time again to take advantage of innocent people. Maybe I’m naïve but shouldn’t they be regulated, shouldn’t they have to be up front and honest. I think they would end up doing more business. Most truly interested people are now so scared and tired of being taken advantage of that they just completely ignore these statements of “FREE”.
So my best advice to any one reading this is to be very, very careful about this new meaning of the word free. Perhaps we should all go with the instinctive phrase, “If it’s free, it’s not for me”.
Well, at least this blog was free.