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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

#41

Post by yaakov34 »

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…

Oh come on, COME ON, I'm all for research too, but 15 messages from women in the middle of the night who want to date a horse is not something that requires going deep undercover before you decide that it's fake. And he said that it would cost him $60 just to contact anyone or do anything on that site.

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

#42

Post by jonursenbach »

It's this kind of stuff that always gets me fired up about one of my previous employers and the cadre of clones that they run.

What WooMe is doing is nothing different than any other adult "dating" website in that they send messages to users with the hopes of getting them to sign up with a recurring charge (that the company hopes they forget about) and then immediately cut off almost all of this instant contact that the paid user just received. Then about a week later they'll send out a mass mailer to a set of demographics with more fake messages just to string that person and get them to continue forgetting about that recurring $24.99 charge.

Don't even get me started on upselling.

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

#43

Post by tptacek »

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…

They appear to be spamming for the express purpose of converting free woome users to paid ones. Come on.

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

#44

Post by DevX101 »

getsat wrote: post #15

It's really unfortunate that this is the norm and not an exception. That said, users of these kind of sites are probably most susceptible to this kind of trick as love, lust and infatuation are probably the strongest emotions. I know of a few people who scrape profiles off of dating site A, create new profiles using that data on dating site B then message users on site B asking them out. A requirement for going out o…

You want to call them out here? Maybe with an anonymous handle if they know you?

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

#45

Post by getsat »

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%!)

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.

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

#46

Post by tluyben2 »

nicferrier wrote: post #27
qeorge wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/woome.png Yeah, that's a "real" dater.

that's not a message from a user.

It however looks like a user and people will think it's a user. So it's a fake user.

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

#47

Post by nicferrier »

robinwauters wrote: post #31
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.

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 top online anymore (and if you're not engaging you also drop off the top of the 'online now' list) you just didn't get these messages anymore.

As for contacting us... well, I'm sorry, I guessed we dropped it. I've been trying to track down your email and I can't find it.

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

#48

Post by metageek »

robinwauters wrote: post #36
nicferrier wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what he received so I can't say. But our tools promote real users interacting with real users. Maybe Robin could talk to us if he has a problem. Horses for courses not withstanding.

I got about 5 messages the first 2-3 minutes after signing up. A short while later, I had roughly 20 random women contacting me. Good thing I have screenshots, because they stopped coming as soon as WooMe noticed my post. I can only see what these supposedly real women are trying to tell or ask me until I pay up. That's all fine and dandy, but there's no point in pretending that real users were just all jumping on th…

You're doing this for work, right? Why not go ahead and pay the $25 and see what the messages say?

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

#49

Post by getsat »

DevX101 wrote: post #44
getsat wrote: post #15

It's really unfortunate that this is the norm and not an exception. That said, users of these kind of sites are probably most susceptible to this kind of trick as love, lust and infatuation are probably the strongest emotions. I know of a few people who scrape profiles off of dating site A, create new profiles using that data on dating site B then message users on site B asking them out. A requirement for going out o…

You want to call them out here? Maybe with an anonymous handle if they know you?

They're all way outside US jurisdiction (where all these sites operate), so there's really no point. These aren't people I know personally, merely acquaintances from various black hat communities. Honour among thieves, and all that.

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

#50

Post by nicferrier »

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%!)

so the thing in the screencast is not a message from a user, nor does it claim to be.

It's actually an experiment with a 3rd party to see if an automated response system converts people to our paid service well.

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