Asking for credit card info when it says it's free

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Reverbnation, I'm going to agree with some of these responses as your ethics are questionable. You shouldn't be asking for credit card information as a condition of submitting to an event that you have alleged is 'free'. In my state, this is called false advertising.

Case in point is the post that I received the 'West Coast Crab & Jazz Festival' in Oakland yesterday, which wants both credit card information and access to my Facebook data. All of this without any discussion of fees for the performance.

Strike one.

If these promoters are genuinely interested in hiring professional musicians, they should contact the performer(s) directly to discuss terms. It's not as if contact information hasn't been provided to them.

James Armstrong
San Jose, California

Yeah, more and more Reverbnation is seeming like just another web scam. Free means you don't need credit card info, and now, seeing Sagamuffins post, it's very plain that we shouldn't give you our credit card numbers for free shit that isn't free.

This goes to your most recent scam about submitting our music for TV shows on USA. Says it's free. But when you submit, OH! It still tries to scam money from us with "free trials" which aren't free because you are asking for our credit card info. When I signed up on Reverbnation, it was due to your "tired of feeling ripped off by websites that nickel and dime you..?" campaign and look what's happening now. This site is the most nickel and dime strongarm site I know of.

And because of your weird data mining of our fans, I've lost some because you keep spamming them too. You cross the line between promoting to and annoying the hell out of fans. I've been on here for almost 4 years, and have only seen things happen that make me glad I didn't sign up for any of your pay services. How long will this post stay up, I wonder...I'm going to take the good old fashioned approach from now on--if my shit is any good, it will find an audience with or without Reverbnation's bag of scams...

I have been offered a chance for my band to play the EXPOSED Music Festival in New Orleans.

My band will be passing up this opportunity because I do not want to submit credit card info for something that is allegedly free. I am referring both to the the free entry fee for the festival as well as the required registration for a free trial of Press Kits.

With all the scams and phishing going on, this seems a bit sketchy.

This needs to change. I'm not gonna hand over my credit card information until we get access to the trial first. Asking for credit card information for something free is just wrong! If it's good enough and I like the trial, you can have my money but before that it's a big NO!

Win a DIY recording package...(but only if you sign up for a free trial that we need your credit card info for in order to pass on the freeness to you...heh heh...)

No thanks!

Why does everyone assume that all people use credit cards? How can I submit to a 'Free' promotion and still be required to enter credit card details.

Lot of opportunities being missed because you want CC details even on "FREE" promos. You're credibility will be shot to pieces very soon if you persist.

Any way the promoters of the events seeking bands or musicians are easy enough to find on the web so by pass Reverbnation offers and go direct to the source. That works.

Very frustrating: Yeah, free fb promotion, upload pictures, think about an ad text, make 1000 settings, bam "you need to have a credit card". Why don't you tell in advance, there's a credit card required? Look in your logs, how many people set up everything until credit card is required and then stop. How many hours of musicians have gone into creating ads they couldn't start? Where I live, it's quite uncommon for musicians to have a credit card at all. I would give you my card data and also be willing to spend some money, if I had one. I understand you like to be able to actually receive payments, whenever a free trial doesn't get canceled or other costs appear. There's no need to reduce your potential customers to credit card owners, this is so frustrating and misleading for the others. And as I said, credit cards are not as common in poor germany, i know no musician that has one (everybody has a paypal account). Can't you just accept prepayment/paypal, like everybody else? Can you at least put a sign to your ads "don't waste your time if you don't have a credit card"?