Some People Just Don't Get It... Or Maybe I Don't

I received a call this morning from an unfamiliar number... It went like this:

Caller: "Hello, is this Mr. ****?"

Me: "Yes, speaking."

Caller: "Hi, I'm calling from XXX company and we're located at Suntec City. Our company is celebrating our 5th anniversary and we'd like to congratulate you as we've chosen you as a lucky customer to receive a FREE FACIAL... You just need to PAY $10.70 for the products that we'll be using during this facial... Would you like to make an appointment to come down?"

Me: "Thank you... I don't think I'm interested in this... Good bye..."

Caller: "Oh... okie thanks."

I hung up phone...

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For a moment, I was really confused... Did I get the free facial part wrong? Or was I informed that I needed to still pay $10.70...

I actually spent a few minutes to analyse what I didn't understand correctly... I thought it was free?

But I guess, they could argue that there's no misrepresentation whatsoever... The act of giving facial could be free... But the products that they'll use, I'll have to pick up the tab... So there's nothing too wrong about that... It's just that I'd expect the entire facial should be in fact free, including the products that they'll use...

Nothing too different from other gimmicks such as:

1) Winning a car in a lucky draw - car is free, but COE not so...

2) Winning free air tickets - but will have to pay for the other tour expenses

3) Free XXX products - but only if you have spent $xxx amount first

And the list goes on and on...

There's no free lunch in this world... And I was momentarily naive enough to expect that I would have a free facial...

Perhaps that the nature of things in life... some form of exploitation of human nature... some form of exploitation of words as well...

Big money can be found usually within crevices between orthodox practices... that's how many people becomes rich anyway... that's ironically also how big banks such as Leh*** Bros got into trouble... and a string of other major financial institutions too... all thanks to sub-prime loans, a marvelous invention of man-kind, which lures banks to lend to people without creditable credit histories... Amazing behaviours, resulting in amazing fall from grace...

As far as I can see it, basically it just can be summed up in one simple 5-letter word...

GREED...

And what was it that I couldn't understand initially?