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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

#81

Post by watchandwait »

zoomzoom wrote: post #77
pavel_lishin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Regulations are only as ethical as the regulator -- just ask Bernie Madoff's victims how well that worked. Indeed, more regulation leads to a false sense of security, and certainly stifles innovation.

Better to have the market, and market players like TechCrunch, sort out this type of low-level malfeasance.

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

#82

Post by 20110202 »

Here is what the site does (or at least did two-three months ago, when I tried it).

After you pay for your account, it immediately asks you "do you want the site to introduce you to people who may be of interest" or something like that. A little later, I looked at my Sent folder and saw that I had said "hi" or "what's up" to dozens of people, many who are not local or I otherwise would not be interested in.

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

#83

Post by AlexC04 »

dolinsky wrote: post #13
nicferrier wrote: post #10

for the record, robin wauters didn't approach us to verify anything in the story and the accusations are untrue and misleading. we focus very hard on getting people to talk to each other and interact and we have a number of features on the site, driven by users, that make that happen. Ironically, the user featured in the pic is one of the longest standing and most active on WooMe.

You, sir, sound like a snake oil salesman of the worst kind. Either that or you have no clue how your site operates. edit but apparently 'Jen' does. Screencast here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOtBmqqKVcc (Thanks to my Appsumo purchase of Screenflow which saved me 50%!)

As much as I'm NOT here to stick up for Nic and his site, he is telling the truth that this is a 3rd party service. http://www.intellichat.com/demo is one of a number of services like that.

You put a tiny fake-ai-chatbot on the page to help with conversions.

Here in Toronto, I interviewed once with a dating site similar dating site similar to WooMee /* on second thought I won't link to them */ who "Seem" to be doing similar things (this is of course only alleged misconduct, as I have no proof)

There are also numerous accounts of the dating scam sites out there. I read one story of a "Sugar Daddies Dating" site that charged huge fees to sign up, then when you did a chargeback, they'd refer you to collections for many times what you originally pledged.

So it's either pay up or damage your credit rating. http://maxkle.in/how-elite-dating-sites-scam-people/ Max Klein has a good account of one such scam.

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

#85

Post by AlexC04 »

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…

This has been done: http://maxkle.in/how-elite-dating-sites-scam-people/

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

#86

Post by 20110202 »

getsat wrote: post #45
dolinsky wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You, sir, sound like a snake oil salesman of the worst kind. Either that or you have no clue how your site operates. edit but apparently 'Jen' does. Screencast here -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOtBmqqKVcc (Thanks to my Appsumo purchase of Screenflow which saved me 50%!)

Ok, that is pretty damning. If someone signs up and realises they've been duped, they probably won't even contest the CC charge due to a variation on the Small Penis Rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule They'll just cancel their account to avoid being rebilled.

I imagine that happens a lot, although that wasn't the case for me.

And actually, they handled the cancellation process well (at least for me).

I called them up and said I want to cancel because "their site is a scam" and in a no-nonsense way the person started helping me undo the payment (without defending the site). Since I paid through PayPal, I did have to dispute the payment via them (which took a month or two) but I eventually got all of my money back.

So I give the company (or at least the person I talked with) props for their cancellation process, although not everyone may experience it that way.

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

#87

Post by zoomzoom »

watchandwait wrote: post #81
zoomzoom wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Regulations are only as ethical as the regulator -- just ask Bernie Madoff's victims how well that worked. Indeed, more regulation leads to a false sense of security, and certainly stifles innovation. Better to have the market, and market players like TechCrunch, sort out this type of low-level malfeasance.

I am definitely not advocating more regulation, only pointing out that laws and ethics are not the same thing. The parent of the above post is the one suggesting to "change that" (implying more regulation) and I am answering that comment.

I agree that this kind of "malfeasance" is not really worth any more attention from regulators.

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

#88

Post by pavel_lishin »

watchandwait wrote: post #81
zoomzoom wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Regulations are only as ethical as the regulator -- just ask Bernie Madoff's victims how well that worked. Indeed, more regulation leads to a false sense of security, and certainly stifles innovation. Better to have the market, and market players like TechCrunch, sort out this type of low-level malfeasance.

But then you'd have to have a financial reward system in place that rewards ethical firms.

I don't know how you would do that.

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

#89

Post by jeffmould »

nicferrier wrote: post #47
robinwauters wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did contact WooMe. The accusations are not misleading, see also the update to my post. Also, the user featured in the top picture personally contacted me, and while I never claimed her profile was fake (but mine obviously was), it turns out she's pretending to be someone else on there (confirmed). It's easy to say I fabricated the story, much harder to prove, isn't it? I wouldn't be calling you out if I didn't thin…

I didn't say you fabricated the story, I am taking issue with you claiming they are fake users, made by us. They are not, they're real users of the site. Could be there was a lot of spam on the site at that time - but we weren't sending you fake activity. You acknowledge that the lady in the picture was real. We didn't do anything to stop these getting to you, as you say elsewhere in this thread. Since you weren't to…

The statement of "I've been trying to track down your email and I can't find it" falls right into the problem with the site. It is obvious you did not try to hard or at all. Robin is active on Twitter, has his own domain name with links to among other things an email address, and if all else fails, reaching out directly to TechCrunch for contact to a writer is fairly simple.

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

#90

Post by prodigal_erik »

jordanmessina wrote: post #75
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,…

Nobody breaks even on day one, it takes time and resources to get there. Why shouldn't any of it come from investors? YC's premise is that there are good potential founders who don't even have enough capital to live on for the first few months.
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