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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

#91

Post by minouye »

elliottcarlson wrote: post #66

There is a huge industry going on on these kinds of sites - not necessarily done by the site owners... Generally there are two monitizations for a third party; first of all being an affiliate and sending traffic can be big bucks (I paid for my wedding as a referrer for SexSearch and AdultFriendFinder - I'm not ashamed because I didn't use necessarily shady practices to accomplished this). With big bucks, I mean an ea…

I'm not really understanding the second method. I don't see how a rival "dating" site would have any incentive to get a customer to pay for a rival service. Are you saying that once affiliates drove a user sign-up, they would engage the user via messages to get them to sign up for a paid plan so they would get a greater payout? If so, how did they find the specific users that signed up via their affiliate links?

Just trying to understand who other than WooMe would have an incentive to spam on their site.

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

#93

Post by moomba »

This site may be dishonest, but its certainly nothing new. Most dating sites you go to employ some of the same tactics. They will try to lure you in and then put up a paywall. I guess the thing that is bad here is that they lie about having automated messages when they obviously do. That is really kind of slimy, they might as well admit to the obvious at this point.

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

#94

Post by jordanmessina »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #90
jordanmessina wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

YC isn't the same as VC. I should have been a little more clear in my first comment. It's not like I think angels or incubators that make small investments are making bad investments in these young companies. I went through an incubator with my first company, so I know first hand giving those opportunities is priceless.

We're talking about VC funding here. No company goes after VC on day one. All these companies that get millions in series whatever rounds are mature and have some revenue coming in, or at least a plan to turn their userbase into dollars. If a company is mature enough to seek VC funding and also needs that investment to dig themselves out of a hole, then I don't think they're worth investing in. That's all I'm saying, hopefully it makes sense.

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

#95

Post by noodle »

noodle wrote: post #70
notahacker wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or paying scammers to "prove" the bleeding obvious. I'm not sure that getting no replies to private messages (happens all the time on legit sites) is any better a standard of proof than 16 hot girls sending generic messages of interest in dating a horse (doesn't happen). For all I know, one of the Nigerians in my spam folder really is sitting on piles of cash, but I don't think it would be good investigative journali…

CC chargeback. for the average consumer, obviously, you would want to avoid it. for TC doing some journalism on a company they once supported and gave praise, PR, traffic, and the buzz to get funding, i would've expected a bit more. but maybe thats just me.

since i can't edit anymore: instead of giving them money, go create a few more dummy accounts and see if the same thing happens to them. that would also be sufficient proof, imo

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

#96

Post by plusbryan »

kirbman89 wrote: post #6

Wow. That is a horrible. Can't believe any VC would invest money in such a misleading, annoying startup. Are these messages coming from WooMe internally or are they SPAM submitted from "Russian bride scams"? Either way, I'm staying away and warning others!

WooMe probably didn't start out this way. Desperation can do bad things to good intentions.

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

#98

Post by unreal37 »

I realize I'll probably spend some karma here, but after reading TC and checking out the site (and the blog post by the site), I see what's happening. And there is a LOT of misunderstanding in the TC article and in the comments of HN.

One of the services WooMe offers is to automatically introduce people they think will get along. They do NOT make it clear its the system doing the introduction, nor that its automated. But what is clear is these are all real people on the site, no fake accounts.

So yes, no person sent a hello to a horse in the middle of the night. But that doesn't make the whole thing fake. It mimics a scam, but is not.

Imagine if after signing up for Facebook for the first time, FB sent you 10 friend requests within minutes of people they thought you knew - one step further than what they already do with suggested friends. Is that a scam? Or is that a ham-fisted attempt at helping you get started using the site?

It's clearly not a scam. It's just really really borderline on the ethical side. I've never used a dating site of any kind, so I have no idea what is normal in that industry.

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

#99

Post by bluelu »

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…

The same game as google plays with the adsense spam sites. As long as they make money, allow them to stay even though in public you say taht you will do everything to ban them.

It's not that hard to spot users messaging new users during the first few minutes. If one user does this multiple times, just ban him.

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

#100

Post by mitel007 »

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.

"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."

That may be how things are, but that doesn't mean they have to be. There's no law of nature or 'business' that dictates that is how it should be, like there's no other weay. It's all a human choice. Some people choose to act this way.

How can we change this? Simple, don't interact with folks that choose to act this way.

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