Special Offer

Everyone wants to give us special offers to tempt us, usually to sign up with them and spend money with them, and while it might start well, sometimes we just end up getting stitched up after they have got what they want from us.

One thing to remember is that when someone gives you a voucher for $10 off a $100 sale, the seller probably only paid $25 for the product, so the $10 is hardly a loss for them.

Everyone wants you to use their app with a special offer for using it to buy something, and sometimes we are tempted.

Then they ask for your name, date of birth, email address, physical address, whether you have a pet, a car, a house, a mortgage, and so much more. Sometimes we give this information for five dollars off a single product, and then we have been ensnared.

Then we start using the apps because they are convenient, and we have to give them our information to get cheaper products, when what is really happening is that they are punishing shoppers who refuse to share their information.

We are all tempted by convenience.

And then the app stops working. You email, but get nothing. You uninstall and reinstall, and it's still the same. You find a number, and it is a recorded message that says go to the website and fill in a form, which you do, then you hear nothing.

You decide not use the app but go somewhere else and use cash, but you then have to pay premium prices for everything you buy.

They still send you coupons to get $5 off $50, but you need to use the app, which does not work.

You give up

But they have all your information and keep bombarding you with offers through email, junk mail, texts and phone calls.

You would change your phone and internet provider, but they own the networks.

They own you now, like they do everyone else, and you have nowhere else to go.