Webpower - Worldgroups.com ripoff Deceptive trade practices regarding use of word "Free" Lake Worth Florida

Webpower has indeed thoroughly corrected their WorldGroups website so that it no longer calls a paid registration a free registration. How noble of them.

But a read through Liz's rebuttal here illuminates Webpower's insufferable degree of contempt for its users, and shows how it still refuses to acknowledge or accept responsibility for the flawed judgement and / or degenerate business ethos that lead to this problem in the first place.

Liz delivers a typical performance of that old war-horse known as the denial-deferral cantata. Leading off, we have the "non-apology apology" where we try to shift the blame away from ourselves and onto our adversary:

"We truly regret any misapprehensions that Carl may have formed [...]"

Next, we euphemistically trivialize the complaint:

"[...] he would have appreciated clearer disclosure [...] about the confirmation charge."

We may implicitly set up a straw man or two, such as by mentioning TRUSTe (which is concerned only with privacy, not with trade practices). And finally, we wrap this puppy up with a full-throated paean to our impeccable corporate virtues:

"Customer service is our number one priority."

Take a bow, Liz.

In all seriousness, many questions remain about whether WPI / WorldGroups / RMT et al. has the judgement and the commitment to satisfy a Western standard of fair business conduct. I contend that unless Liz is willing to say "I am sorry, we made a mistake," Webpower, Inc. is flying the black flag.

We truly regret any misapprehensions that Carl may have formed about our company. Since he posted the above report, we have been in contact with him regarding his WorldGroups account and his signup experience. In the course of our correspondence, he made several valuable suggestions that we have implemented on the WorldGroups site.

Carl told us, for example, that he would have appreciated clearer disclosure on the home page about the confirmation charge. As a result of this feedback, we have modified our signup page to address this concern.

As Carl noted above, we charge a confirmation fee when a customer creates an account. U.S. law, international commerce practices, and our own responsible best practices, mandate that user-driven social networking sites take steps to help ensure that only adults can access the site. The $1 confirmation serves this purpose, but we will gladly refund the charge to any customer who requests it.

Customer service is our number one priority, and we always strongly encourage anyone with questions or concerns to contact us directly so that we can address the specific issues that may have arisen.

We welcome customer suggestions and ideas, and are always open to innovative ways to serve our customers. We prominently post our contact information on every page on the site, and next to every charge on a credit card bill. We have been in business for 11 years, and during that entire time we have been registered in good standing with Truste and other leading independent consumer protection agencies.