WOW ! A chance to save some money on things one actually wants and needs. That is until you see the asterisk and read the small gray print at the bottom of the page … and find out that everything you really want is unavailable or restricted. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to even know what was on sale without wasting time in a queued line waiting for an operator to answer.

Here is the email that ticked me off the most this holiday season, complete with the small gray print enlarged and highlighted …

*Offer ends November 30, 2015. Offer excludes renewals, purchases of term lengths greater than 1 year, custom websites, premium domain names, EV SSL certificates, MyTime Support, PPC/SEM services, SEO services, SmartCalls, Ignite Online Marketing, Custom Website by Web.com, Facebook Boost, and cannot be combined with any other offer. Offer is only applicable on the following domain extensions: .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz. For products billed on a monthly basis, discount applies only to the first month of service; standard pricing applies to every month thereafter. Please do not reply to this email. Replying to this email will not secure your services. To unsubscribe from emails, visit our Communications Preferences page. Please note that unsubscribing from our marketing emails will not affect important transactional correspondence such as administrative and renewal notices related to your account. Please review our Privacy Policy for any questions related thereto and please see our Service Agreement governing our products and services. ©2015 by Network Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 12808 Gran Bay Parkway, West | Jacksonville, FL 32258 Network Solutions is a Web.com Group, Inc. company. Network Solutions® and Web.com® are registered trademarks of Web.com Group, Inc. All other registered trademarks herein are the property of their respective owners.

So what are the really offering? Hard to tell from the advertisement. But from interpolating from the fin print, it appears to be a pitch to sell new one-year (.com, .net, .org, .info and .biz.) domain names and possibly other services.

So I made the call …

Unfortunately, the pricing of these domains were significantly higher than other competitors – even with the 25% discount -- and this fact was acknowledged by the customer service representative. He claims that the real savings come from the use of their other products, explaining that there was a difference between the registry products and the web.com products. 

Bottom line …

In my opinion, the emailed advertisement was either designed to be deceptive and lure you into making a phone call or the advertising team was too cute by half.

But, it did annoy me mightily … especially when discovering that their domains were priced significantly higher than other registrars … even with the 25% discount. So what does that tell you? It appears that the initial charge for a domain is somewhat competitive with some of the other registrars, but they stick it to you in renewals -- sort of like a "bait" and "catch" scenario. You may want to practice the Better Business Bureau mantra: “Investigate Before You Invest.”

Symptomatic of today’s marketing people offering commoditized goods at inflated priced. Network Solutions was, in my opinion, once, one of the most respected internet providers on the web and now there are other vendors offering similar or superior services and better pricing. So one wonders why their advertising team cannot put forth a unique selling proposition or better highlight a real value proposition? Or annoying me this holiday season with faux savings emails?

-- steve