In actual practice the demands for a return of the money were so few as to be negligible. The calls for money back on this transaction, through out Great Britain, during the last nine years, scarcely amounted to a hundred, and the offer has been before the public all the time. From my experience of money-back trading, which I pioneered in, England, I should think that any manufacturer of a really good article, who wishes to popularise his goods and establish a solid reputation for them, is safe in making the offer of instant return of the money to every customer who might be dis satisfied with the purchase. The rank and file of people are honest, and do not take advantage of such an offer, or abuse it. Obviously such a scheme would not do for any article that was not worth the money, but so long as the article is worth the money the public would only take advantage of the offer in very few cases. This same principle of universal honesty makes it possible for large firms to open ul numbers of small accounts on an instalment basis. There is a greater loophole for leakage in such trans actions than there is in money-back trading of the type I pioneered, but from all accounts defaulters are rare even in the more dangerous proposition from the trader's point of view.
The money-back offer has been made in many propositions since I first took it up, and I have heard no complaint of its success. The only traders who find it no use are people who are selling goods dishonestly and make a dissatisfied customer with every transaction. Such trading methods defeat their own ends, and it is not often that the makers are in the money-back field very long. In the same way, the money-back offer has been abused by traders who are foisting questionable goods on the people and have not the slightest intention of keeping to the terms of the contract. The public, however, have a shrewd habit of separating the wheat from the chaff, and the firm of repute which adopts this method of trading would find in it tangible results which would justify the innovation.
JosEtat One of the Founders of the Firm, manufacturing Fels-Nuptha Soap.