There’s some kind of cold virus going around and my son AJ brought it home, gave it to his big brother and then I caught it. It was the middle of the night and I couldn’t sleep… and I turned on the television just to see what was on. I don’t watch much television as it is, and I already know what’s on in the middle of the night.

Shopping shows galore.  Why?  What is it about the middle of the night that makes people want to shop.  First I watched Montel try to sell me some super duper fantastic blender that would actually make hot soup for me just by blending some vegetables together!  I was intrigued but confused, and wondered how the very same blender could make smoothies like soft serve if it could make hot soup?

I flipped through a few more channels and landed upon a sales pitch for something right up my alley.  Right up my personal finance alley… that is…

Debt Cures.  Make that Debt Cures II.  And another book for free, called Free Money “They” Don’t Want You to Know About!  I listened for awhile about all the things “they” don’t want us to know about and I started thinking hey… this would actually be a business expense… two books for only $19.95… I could do a review… not bad… but then I saw that the shipping was almost $12.00.

Now if I had a smart phone I could have dialed up the Internet and hopped onto Amazon, but I don’t, and so I thought that’s about what books go for… about ten bucks each… and so I went and got my phone and my debit card.

I think the fever got to me, because I have NEVER succumbed to late night shopping in all my nearly five decades of life.

I made the call and an operator got right on the phone with me… she took all my information… name and address, city, state and zip, credit card number and then she paused… probably taking a deep breath and crossing her fingers… and launched into a speech on how lucky I was to be calling right now that I’d been selected for $100 free gift certificates to shop at Walmart or $100 worth of gasoline, AND I’d receive Kevin’s monthly newsletter, all for $99.95!   All I would have to do is turn in one gift certificate each month for $10 for ten months and I’d essentially be getting the books and the gasoline free!  Could she go ahead and charge that to my card?  I’m thinking to myself, “Go ahead, there’s not that much in my business account right at the moment” but I declined, telling her I only wanted the $19.95 special.

She paused again… and launched into the second upsell… well they didn’t want me to miss out on the monthly newsletter… she’d be more than happy to send the first copy to me free and then they ONLY charge my credit card $14.95 a month.

No, I told her firmly, only the $19.95 special… thinking to myself I should just cancel this right now!

Then there was a long pause… at least 10 or 15 seconds, and she launched into a third upsell… I can’t even remember what it was, but I told her I was not interested, please just charge me for the $19.95 special!

Finally she had exhausted all her specials, and grew quiet again.  And then she launched into how lucky I was because I’d been chosen to stay in lovely California at some hotel for 3 days two nights FREE and could she put me through to speak with another representative. I said sure… and when the guy got on the phone I told him I’d had enough upsells for the night, I was NOT interested.  Then I looked at my phone and it was not connected to anyone.  Either my phone decided I’d had enough, or the guy hung up quickly when he heard the tone in my voice. Somehow I don’t think that would have bothered him a bit.

Amazingly, they were not through.  Two days later they called to congratulate me and let me know my books and the DVD and other things I’d been so so lucky to buy were on the way, but they really wanted to send me their newsletter for only $14.95. I told them I wasn’t interested and she said she would go ahead and send me the first copy free, they really didn’t want me to miss out. I said, “Completely free?” and she said, “Well, we’ll only charge you one dollar for an introductory copy” and at that point I told her I was not interested.

Finally I decided to check Amazon and found that I could have bought both these books for $15… free shipping. AGH.

So now I’m tempted to just reject that package when it arrives… I’m pretty sure they gave me a 30 day money back guarantee…

Have you ever succumbed and bought something from the middle of the night infomercials?