I hear you. In Germany, this way of advertising would also do more harm than good, making people suspicious, but I recently spent a few weeks in the USA and I can attest that everybody advertises like that over there. I suppose that more toned-down ads would not get Americans' attention anymore.
As for the payments, you may be aware that credit card companies charge companies a fee every time you pay with a credit card. Hence, 12 times $10 is considerably more expensive to GermanPod101 than 1 time $240. This, and also the fact that they can be sure you'll stay subscribed longer, is the reason that the cheapest rate is only available if you pay yearly. However, on the same screen where you enter your credit card information, you can also elect to pay monthly, every 3 months or every 6 months. These rates are more expensive, to reflect what I said above, but they do exist. This way you could also subscribe for a shorter period of time - say you are not going to have internet for the next month but don't want to miss that month's lessons. Or maybe you want to study German really intensively over the christmas holidays and you get a subscription for that time so you can work with the Learning Center and access the PDFs. I personally find it disconcerting to learn a language with audio only.
Anyway, I'm just in charge of the content here. If you want things to change, you will have to contact the decision-makers, who also run the other Pod101 sites the same way.
is probably your best bet.
