What worries me is that the what is probably one of the major credit check agencies in the UK and some other countries is also running business the same way. Experian offers a service where you can check your own credit score online for around £6, but actually also signs you up for a £13/month service after that which is also easy to miss in the small print. You also can't cancel this online, you have to phone them. The whole phone call covers two things, one is that it's another method to retain you by letting you update your personal information and then letting you check within a day or two if the updates brought you more information about your credit score. The other is that the personal information helps them have better information about you to give to their customers who use them for credit checks.
Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
121–130 of 480 posts
Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
#122This website should definitely be part of the Dark Patterns UX Library. It's sad how people compose UX (and investors invest in) shady user experiences designed to trick people.
Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
#123I'm the Series A investor in this company. We in fact have done plenty of due diligence, and you will be pleased to know it is not a scam company. In fact, the company has very high customer satisfaction ratings, including an NPS that is in the ballpark of Amazon, and a very high customer retention rate. More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusuall…
This is bait and switch. You liken it to h&m or Zara - but they offer continuity services - they do not trick their customers. I may let them know (as I know C-levels at each) that you are attempting to trade off their good names. I am surprised you have not yet been fined under the distance selling regulations.
You can self-justify all you want, but you just smelt green and wanted in on the dodgy action.
Can you say "Columbia house record club?"
You exploit people. Be ashamed.
Edit: I see from your profile you founded betfair. This all makes rather more sense, given the cloud that has perpetually hovered around that business, due to them, y'know, not paying out when people win "too much". Also repeatedly fined by the Advertising Standards Agency, IIRC.
You like your dodgy businesses. It's your call as to what you do, but a business that provides mutual benefit, rather than being parasitic, will survive in the long term. If you bleed your customers dry and rip them off, they will go elsewhere. You talk about retention, but you are not retaining - you are duping and imprisoning. I dare say you do not care, however, so long as the money keeps rolling in, and will simply move onto the next scam when this one gets too hot.
Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
#124I'm the Series A investor in this company. We in fact have done plenty of due diligence, and you will be pleased to know it is not a scam company. In fact, the company has very high customer satisfaction ratings, including an NPS that is in the ballpark of Amazon, and a very high customer retention rate. More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusuall…
I tried out the site, and shopped for shoes as if I were a girl looking for shoes. With the way the shop and the navigation is set up, it really feels like an online store. It's not until you get to the checkout that you're presented with the VIP pricing.
Most of my time spent clicking around was looking at shoes and bags, and then taking a personalized style quiz. It's not at all obvious that it's a subscription based site, unless you carefully read the sidebar during checkout, and the "how it works tab". Not only that, the "how it works" tab disappears after you log in, so you'd never see it again, once you take the personalized quiz and sign up for the service.
Most web users are pretty single-minded in what they want to do, and they don't read. And the site just navigates and feels like a shopping site. Not a subscription site.
I can see how the OP's girlfriend got mislead. As for jdh defending it--well, either you've just looked at the numbers and not tried the actual shopping experience through new eyes, or you're just being completely disingenuous.
Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
#125It's not quite that bad. The 39.95 ends up being a credit that can be applied to a future purpose. And they are pretty upfront about how it works without one needing to "read the entire 2,500 word" TOS. I don't love the model but I don't think "scam" or "fraud" is accurate.
Here's the above the fold of their How it Works page as seen on an apple LCD.
Is how it works clear or am I missing something?
Here is their FAQ
It takes over 2800 characters and 507 words before a single mention of a membership charge with no mention of recurring until the following paragraph.
Is that clear?
Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
#126I'm the Series A investor in this company. We in fact have done plenty of due diligence, and you will be pleased to know it is not a scam company. In fact, the company has very high customer satisfaction ratings, including an NPS that is in the ballpark of Amazon, and a very high customer retention rate. More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusuall…
> I just went to the site -- you can do this -- picked a random pair of boots and put them in my shopping cart. I then clicked checkout, and here is what that page looked like:
http://imagesup.net/?di=15138026329215
You must realise that people are just going to follow their eye down the screen to the checkout button and assume that it's going to work like every other site. Putting something off to the side in the same font as everything else is what's misleading - it's likely that some significant number of people are going to click through without realising what they're signing up for. If there were a confirmation screen that just said 'Hey, this is a subscription!' Or something like that, then it would be less shady. As is it seems dishonest to claim that it was 'clear'.
Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
#127I'm the Series A investor in this company. We in fact have done plenty of due diligence, and you will be pleased to know it is not a scam company. In fact, the company has very high customer satisfaction ratings, including an NPS that is in the ballpark of Amazon, and a very high customer retention rate. More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusuall…
It's not clear at all, it's a blatant attempt to trick users in to at least one extra payment of 39.95 before they cotton on and cancel on their CC.
Business models of this nature are slimy, seedy and morally grey at best.
If your product is so great then why the need to try and act this way and why feel the need to defend it on HN?
Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't accept the word "misleading" -- I do not believe the page in any way misleads. It does not try to position it as anything other than a subscription, and the language is plain english. Could they put the subscription details in bold? Could they use a larger font than all the other text? Sure. It's a tradeoff, for sure, and every retailer has to optimize their site to perform. Could they pop up three boxes afte…
The screenshot you provided is a prime example of a "dark pattern" where the process is designed to trick the user. http://darkpatterns.org/
Actually, this scam deserves to be there... Has anyone mailed it to them yet?
Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
#129I'm the Series A investor in this company. We in fact have done plenty of due diligence, and you will be pleased to know it is not a scam company. In fact, the company has very high customer satisfaction ratings, including an NPS that is in the ballpark of Amazon, and a very high customer retention rate. More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusuall…
I started reading your post thinking you sounded level headed and that I'd hear you out.
I checked the link. Nope, you are scum. This is theft. Shame on you.
Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?
#130I'm the Series A investor in this company. We in fact have done plenty of due diligence, and you will be pleased to know it is not a scam company. In fact, the company has very high customer satisfaction ratings, including an NPS that is in the ballpark of Amazon, and a very high customer retention rate. More than half of the people who subscribe to the service are still subscribers after two years, which is unusuall…
The other commenters are being too nice in their replies. You're full of shit. JustFab is a shoe of the month club masquerading as a normal online shoe store. The VIP Membership Program is the essence of JustFab's business model and yet it's missing entirely from the home page of their site. It looks like any other shoe store. And yet you think it's clear that the user is being signed up for a shoe of the month membe…
> When a user goes to checkout of any online store, they're not going to read everything on every page. It's a process they're very familiar with so they're going to skim and click through quickly. I know this, you know this, and JustFab knows this.
This is the key point. If I know, you know, and JustFab know, then JustFab is without doubt acting in deceitful behavior. The act of deliberately portraying a subscription as an sale, usually comes down to the FTC (and sometimes State law) under the heading of False advertising.
Going to justfab website, nowhere on the front page or in the catalog does the word "subscription" become uttered. Not even in the linked checkout images is it mentioned. Justfab could argue that "everyone knows" that a VIP membership is the same as subscription, but it would be up to them to argue and prove that.
The front page especially could also be targeted, as it states clearly that 2 pairs goes for 39.95, and uses the word "buy" to describe it rather than subscribe.