There is no free lunch and it has been proved many times over. VistaPrint is just another example, and by the look of it a nasty one.
First of all, there is a lot of spin about the company itself. I remember the PR they were pushing to investors a few months ago. It was saying something about patents and that they will delay entry of a competitor to the market.
Don't want to be rude, but it's just bullshit. I saw those patents. A pure PR exercise. Read what this guy has to say about investing in VistaPrint.
Another interesting theme about them is ... customer complaints and their unwillingless to resolve them. See this post on wordpress.com
And finally, a few ideas on how they make the money from free business cards.
- sell your details as the most accurate to spammers and scammers (they are very accurate indeed and many people will pay premium $$$ to get hold of them)
- sign you up with a reward programm you never asked for. You get charged on a regular basis until you notice and begin to dispute it. The rumor has it that people have troubles stopping the charges and very few got their $$$ back.
Free business cards did you say?
Better Business Bureau ranked VistaPrint the 2nd most complained business
Another collection of complaints against VistaPrint.
In fact, I've been asking around and found someone local who ordered from them about a year ago. This lady told me the quality was below average and she has no intention dealing with them again.
Now, I'm going to run an experiment.I will order from them using a clean never ever listed anywhere email, a brand new PO Box and so on. Watch this space!
Now, follow my instructions:
- log out
- go outside and discovere there is a whole life out there! :-)
If you didn't listen to me and stayed on, there is a really funny website. Enjoy!
