Better Business Bureau Warns Against 'Free' Smokeless-Cigarette Promo

Hundreds of consumer complaints have poured in to the Better Business Bureau regarding a smokeless-cigarette promotional offer that appears to have left trial-minded customers with the impression that they were burned.

Direct E-Cig's starter smokeless-cigarette kits are supposed to provide a "great smoking alternative to traditional tobacco cigarettes," according to the company's website. But the smokeless cigarettes are not nicotine free, and they are not meant to help smokers quit. Rather, the Florida- and London-based company's site says smokers can smoke: "virtually anywhere, without the flame, ash, tar, or carbon monoxide" of tobacco cigarettes.

According to the Better Business Bureau, the problem, over the past year, has been consumers' complaining that they received unexpected charges for what were at the time promoted as free starter kits.