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WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

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Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#71

Post by notahacker »

yaakov34 wrote: post #68

Here's a suggestion for WooMe, if it wants to cling to some credibility or at least plausible deniability: upgrade the journo's account for free, so that he can contact the senders of those messages. If the messages are offering dates, and insisting on upgraded levels of membership - case closed. If the messages are promoting some unrelated service - the site has a raging spam problem. And if the messages are real, I…

Really, this is too easy to game to worry the cynics - the site owners could log in and continue a few conversations for a bit to make the bad publicity go away.

If I was running this kind of operation I'd probably ensure some conversations continued for a couple of messages after users paid up, just to make sure they didn't cancel or file chargebacks. If I assume men preferred their hot women to pass the Turing test I could probably outsource the flirting to someone in the Philippines at $5 per hundred messages.

Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#72

Post by zoomzoom »

edw519 wrote: post #35

The only thing more frustrating than an ethically challenged business is the investment that came its way instead of going to legitimate start-ups that may die on the vine for lack of capital.

Who is to say that ethically challenged businesses cannot be legitimate targets for investors? I hate these sites, but my bet is that they pay off for investors as well as your average YC company...Investors are in the business of making money, not making judgements about ethics. Legal challenges are the ones that matter to a business, not ethical ones.

Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#73

Post by pavel_lishin »

zoomzoom wrote: post #72
edw519 wrote: post #35

The only thing more frustrating than an ethically challenged business is the investment that came its way instead of going to legitimate start-ups that may die on the vine for lack of capital.

Who is to say that ethically challenged businesses cannot be legitimate targets for investors? I hate these sites, but my bet is that they pay off for investors as well as your average YC company...Investors are in the business of making money, not making judgements about ethics. Legal challenges are the ones that matter to a business, not ethical ones.

Maybe we should change that.

Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#74

Post by staunch »

When WooMe launched they got a lot of attention. They thought they were going to take the world by storm. Unfortunately their product is a novelty.

They took $17.4 million dollars of VC with no real hope of showing a return to their investors. They got desperate and this is the result.

Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#75

Post by jordanmessina »

edw519 wrote: post #35

The only thing more frustrating than an ethically challenged business is the investment that came its way instead of going to legitimate start-ups that may die on the vine for lack of capital.

Who is to say the "legitimate" startup deserves the money in the first place? The way I see it, if you're legitimate you should be at break even, investment isn't to dig a company out of a hole but rather to accelerate growth and development. I remember the Twilio CEO saying on Mixergy that they needed investment because without it they wouldn't have been able to grow/build as fast. They didn't need it to stay alive, but they wouldn't be where they are now without it. If a startup dies because of a lack of capital that's their own fault and they probably didn't have a company worth investing in in the first place.

Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#76

Post by cabinguy »

zoomzoom wrote: post #72
edw519 wrote: post #35

The only thing more frustrating than an ethically challenged business is the investment that came its way instead of going to legitimate start-ups that may die on the vine for lack of capital.

Who is to say that ethically challenged businesses cannot be legitimate targets for investors? I hate these sites, but my bet is that they pay off for investors as well as your average YC company...Investors are in the business of making money, not making judgements about ethics. Legal challenges are the ones that matter to a business, not ethical ones.

Your not going to get very far.

Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#77

Post by zoomzoom »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #73
zoomzoom wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is to say that ethically challenged businesses cannot be legitimate targets for investors? I hate these sites, but my bet is that they pay off for investors as well as your average YC company...Investors are in the business of making money, not making judgements about ethics. Legal challenges are the ones that matter to a business, not ethical ones.

Maybe we should change that.

The question is: how?

The sentiment (in the US, at least) still seems to be towards less regulation at the moment. Enforcing ethics as well as laws would seem to require even more regulation, unless you have a magic potion that will convince all business directors to self-regulate all at once!

Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#78

Post by regularfry »

meterplech wrote: post #14

This is particularly poignant and frustrating given OKCupids recent acquisition. I'm happy for those guys- but I am sad that the one good dating site will probably be discontinued. It's tough when you know the shady tactics of practically all the others.

Match.com would have to be utter idiots to close down OkCupid. If they keep it running, it's a serious asset, for a bunch of reasons, and one hopes that they'd be mature enough not to care if one brand they own is cannibalising another.

If they close it down, yes, their main brand will be protected, but so will everyone else's. There's no competitive advantage whatsoever in doing it.

Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#79

Post by dannyr »

nicferrier wrote: post #24
dolinsky wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, that was totally unprofessional of me to lay such an ad hominem attack and run away...so let me expand upon my thought some more. Your site either uses fake accounts to trick legitimate users into paying to view messages from these supposed hot women looking for dates with horses and guys who have just signed up yet haven't provided any personal details...or you have a very serious spam problem where bo…

I can't say there aren't spammers using our site. that problem waxes and wanes and we try to deal with it as best we can. The user quoted is most definitely a spammer and I'll look into why we haven't caught that. I don't think that's what robin is trying to say tho. We are simply trying to make introductions happen as much as possible because that's what people use woome for. To meet new people. It seems to work, to…

Dude, do you seriously think the people here at HN are stupid?

Re: WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam

#80

Post by Macsenour »

diziet wrote: post #38

How is this an article so thoroughly under-researched? Why not go a little bit further and investigate if actual people are posting? Hi $name, thank you for messaging me. I'm new to this site, so can you please tell me the process on how you send me that message, where did you have to click, etc? I am still trying to figure this out, so if you could tell me what buttons you had to press to send the message to me, I'd…

I have to agree. I think it's odd that just natural curiosity didn't take over, and a real account made and paid for. I'd donate $5, as I'm sure others here would, just to see the results. I think someone else mentioned that looking at the messages and emails would certainly prove the point with zero doubt.

I realize that women responding instantly to a horse picture is obvious, but why not nail all the nails in the coffin? Seems like an easy step to pay for a month of an account to read the emails.

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