Adaptive Marketing LLC Calls for Industry-Wide Internet Marketing Standards

Adaptive Enhances Existing Best Practices with Additional Consumer Protections

NORWALK, Conn., Nov. 16 -- Vertrue Incorporated and its indirect subsidiary, Adaptive Marketing LLC, today called for industry-wide post-transaction on-line marketing standards that will provide enhanced protection for consumers.

Adaptive has for years adhered to a set of Best Practices - both on-line and off-line - and it believes that protecting the consumer on both the front- and back-end of every sales transaction is vital. As the result of discussions with industry leaders and consumer advocates designed to address concerns specifically identified by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation with regard to certain post-transaction marketing practices on the Internet, Adaptive is strengthening its existing Best Practices and is implementing an additional layer of consumer protection:

-- In every post-transaction membership program offer that includes
pre-acquired account information and a free-to-pay conversion feature,
Adaptive will obtain from the consumer the last four digits (at a
minimum) of their payment account as further acknowledgement of the
offer.

This new layer of enhanced consumer protection reinforces the company's existing, longstanding pro-consumer Internet marketing policies, which include the following:

-- Providing consumers with clear, conspicuous and repeated disclosure of
all material terms of the offer, including membership fee and
cancellation terms (e.g., how and when the membership fee will be
charged/debited and how the consumer may cancel by calling a specified
toll-free number and other convenient and readily-accessible means).
-- Obtaining and confirming the consumer's unambiguous and express
consent to charge/debit the membership fee to/from a specified
account.
-- Obtaining an "electronic signature" (as defined by the E-Signature
Act) from both credit card and debit card users authorizing the
membership fee to be charged to/debited from a specified account.
-- Sending e-mails to consumers to verify enrollment.
-- Providing a toll-free customer service number on all Adaptive
enrollment/confirmation webpages, enrollment verification emails and
payment card billing descriptors, so that consumers can readily call
with questions or cancel their enrollments.

-- Providing a full and prompt "no questions asked" credit or refund to
any consumer who is charged a membership fee but claims that he or she
did not authorize that charge. Members wishing to cancel online also
have 24/7 access to the company's easy-to-use website:
www.MembershipCenter.com.

As the Committee this month continues its leadership role in examining post-transaction Internet sales practices, Adaptive's enhanced Best Practices provide a strong foundation for marketing standards to which the entire online marketing industry should be held.

Source: Vertrue Incorporated