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Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

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Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#391

Post by maxmem »

jdh wrote: post #23

I'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 put in the bottom right corner, where if someone isn't parsing the whole page will be pretty sure to miss it. Most people scan pages http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web... and it's conveniently places where people tend to skim or skip.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#392

Post by aestra »

po wrote: post #232
abalone wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon my french HN, but what a load of horseshit. When I was a kid there was this mail-order thing called Columbia House Record Club. It was the same business model. They entice you with super cheap music.. if you signed up for a monthly subscription. I was a happy customer. Because I was smart enough to work the system, cancel in time and get a bunch of free CDs for pennies. But guess what? Somebody was filling the…

It may have been shady but even 8 year olds could tell that it was a 'club' and not a 'store' and knew that you had to cancel. It was "Join the club and get 8 CD's for free' not the other way around with small print. People just forgot to cancel or would stick with it for a while and then realize they weren't getting value. This is a different thing because it is intentionally masquerading as an online web store. Eve…

And at least Colombia House actually um... sent you something.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#393

Post by NonEUCitizen »

jdh wrote: post #23

I'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…

Instead of defending the indefensible, you should go to your next board meeting and tell the CEO s/he has to change this.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#394

Post by dragonwriter »

ds_ wrote: post #152

Amazon do basically the same thing with their prime membership, although they do refund if you notice and complain early enough (offer a free month and then start charging unless you opt out, whilst making it far from obvious that you have to do so).

> Amazon do basically the same thing with their prime membership, although they do refund if you notice and complain early enough (offer a free month and then start charging unless you opt out, whilst making it far from obvious that you have to do so).

No, its quite obvious that you need to opt out if you don't want to pay -- they explicitly say the membership will be billed to the credit card attached to your account at the end of the free period, and force you to attach a credit card to your account if you don't have one already attached in order to sign up for the free Prime trial -- when you sign up, though its also easy to forget afterwards. But they give you a complete refund anytime in the paid period if you ask, as long as you haven't used any Prime-exclusive benefits during the paid period.

And its a zero-friction, click-a-button, cancel-and-get-refund thing.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#395

Post by tripzilch »

harrybr wrote: post #95
jdh wrote: post #23

I'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…

Hi Josh, it's good of you to step up and have this discussion. It seems that justfab is using a Conversion Rate Optimisation trick that you're either not aware of or that you're deliberately downplaying. Put simply, the UI is set to have VIP membership activation default to ON. Those people who are not paying attention will not read the information in the right hand side bar, will check out and will mistakenly purcha…

> Hi Josh, it's good of you to step up and have this discussion.

He's not having a discussion, he quickly tried to "defend" this website, as if he really believed it is not misleading, found that everyone saw right through his dishonesty, and cowardly retreated from any discussion.

> The simple way to fix this is to have NO DEFAULT. When a user clicks check out, you should show them a page with both options equally balanced.

This is exactly what the German version of the site looks like[0]. Because these sort of misleading practices are considered fraudulent in Germany.

Fraudulent.

They know perfectly well how they are misleading customers and feel they can get away with it, except in Germany. I wonder if they make any profit in Germany?

[0] the German version is no longer flat-out misleading, it still could be a lot clearer, but at least the offer is so fishy, it stinks.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#397

Post by jtbigwoo »

tzs wrote: post #226

Interesting that I don't see these kind of complaints at this level about book clubs. The most popular book clubs all use a negative response model, where when you sign up you get a certain number of books at a great price, and agree to buy a certain number of additional books at the regular club price. They send you a monthly list of books available that month, with one marked as that month's featured selection. If…

>> Interesting that I don't see these kind of complaints at this level about book clubs.

Don't be obtuse. There are TONS of complaints about The Book of the Month Club, Columbia House, et al. Ask ten people who signed up for Columbia House record club and nine of them will tell you what a horrible experience it was.

Even with the slightly scummy nature of "X of the Month Club" companies, JustFab stands out. The SFBC page you link to has two very prominent links to "HOW IT WORKS" which state (in overly salesy language) that you're signing up for a book club, not just buying a single book.

JustFab.com, on the other hand, has a section called "HOW IT WORKS" right on the home page. There is no mention of any subscription or club features in this section. JustFab also has two "HOW IT WORKS" links, but one link is below the fold and the other is much less prominent than the SFBC link.

But it gets worse! JustFab's "How JustFab Works" page does not mention anything about a subscription or club until the third section down, way below the fold on most monitors.

Here's the bottom line: "X of the month" subscription businesses are ethically questionable, but not illegal. JustFab heads down to the bottom of the barrel by concealing its true nature to a greater extent than other subscription companies.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#398

Post by mratzloff »

shiven wrote: post #247

It is because of websites like these, I love my credit card's Virtual Account Number generator. It gives me a new CC number every time, with 'Dollar amount' and 'Valid until' limits. I always use a new number to sign up for all sorts of 'trials' etc. Never ran into problems with zombie billing. That said, scammy company is very scammy!

Which credit card company is that, in which country?

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#399

Post by aestra »

jdh wrote: post #42
karterk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP - but I did take a look at that page, and I do find it misleading. The "checkout as a regular member" is in a small font on the sidebar, while the main CTA is big, bold and defaults to the VIP program. The part where you're told about the monthly fee is in the last sentence of the sidebar. I had to practically hunt it to find it - for most people shopping online this will be oblivious. By giving the screen…

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…

Should you bold the text? YES.

This is a very important action. You want to make it very clear to the user they are not just purchasing a pair of boots, but also subscribing to a service, since you are presenting yourself as a normal retailer!

Less scummy thing to do - include the subscription as a line item in the checkout. HOW HARD IS THAT?!!!??? Oh wait, that would make it clear what the user is actually purchasing. We can't have that.

Re: Why can a scam company raise $40 Million Series C + $76 Million Series B?

#400

Post by GrinningFool »

ds_ wrote: post #383
GrinningFool wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. EVeryone downmodding is well aware that Amazon doesn't hide the subscription - in plain sight or elsewhere. When you sign up for prime, you know that you're signing up for a subscription service. There's no doubt. Things like "try it free for 30 days" in bold letters make it very clear. I've also never seen a default behavior of enabling prime.

"Try it free for 30 days" is very different from "Try it free for 30 days but if you don't cancel, we'll charge you from then onwards" - especially when Amazon already have my card on file from previous purchases.

To me it seems implied? "It is free for 30 days but then it is not free anymore."

I don't know, maybe I read too much into it - but when I signed up, I was aware that I was both getting 30 days free, and that I would pay for it after. And I don't recall that I had to read any fine print to glean that understanding.

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