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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?

#451

Post by goshx »

LispShmisp wrote: post #447
goshx wrote: post #431

Funny thing... this post just disappeared from the home page.

At first I thought it would be on a second page, or third but it's not. Story has a lot of comments/upvotes, isn't it what makes story stay on the first page, high up top? How does it work? Was story moved manually?

Very likely. Big money talking here, it seems. It was almost at the top when I first spotted it, I opened the link on a second tab and after going through the comments I went back to the previous tab to refresh and see how many upvotes it received since I started reading it. And... it was gone.

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

#452

Post by Tichy »

aestra wrote: post #442
Tichy wrote: post #191

I think it's a scam, however I'd like to point out that by virtue of being honest, it could be avoided. If you are honest, you'll think "this is too good to be true", and rather than thinking "ha ha, fools, they'll make a minus on this and I get cheap shoes" you'll look closely for a catch. That's not an excuse for the company at all, of course.

"This is too good to be true?" Um... no... Not at all. Not in the least. They are your classic fast fashion shoes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_fashion ) fast fashion is cheap. Go into your local Forever 21 and look at the prices, especially the shoe prices. I can buy a whole wardrobe there for under $100. These shoes aren't built to last. They are built fast and cheaply to capitalize on current trends. I bough…

Yeah but I think they said the shoes cost 79$ for non-members and 30$ for members (don't recall the exact prices). So you could wonder what they get out of membership to make up for that.

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

#454

Post by kzahel »

goshx wrote: post #451
LispShmisp wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first I thought it would be on a second page, or third but it's not. Story has a lot of comments/upvotes, isn't it what makes story stay on the first page, high up top? How does it work? Was story moved manually?

Very likely. Big money talking here, it seems. It was almost at the top when I first spotted it, I opened the link on a second tab and after going through the comments I went back to the previous tab to refresh and see how many upvotes it received since I started reading it. And... it was gone.

I am honestly more than shocked that it has disappeared from the main page. Today I asked a friend that I met for lunch if he had heard about the JustFab article today. I was certain he would have, because he frequently looks over the top HN articles during the day. I wish there were more transparency in how articles get buried like this one was.

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

#455

Post by goshx »

kzahel wrote: post #454
goshx wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very likely. Big money talking here, it seems. It was almost at the top when I first spotted it, I opened the link on a second tab and after going through the comments I went back to the previous tab to refresh and see how many upvotes it received since I started reading it. And... it was gone.

I am honestly more than shocked that it has disappeared from the main page. Today I asked a friend that I met for lunch if he had heard about the JustFab article today. I was certain he would have, because he frequently looks over the top HN articles during the day. I wish there were more transparency in how articles get buried like this one was.

Me too. Some posts just show up on the top of home page with no discussion and not many votes. Also, how can a comment get downvoted? (is that a word?)

[Edit: found the answers for my questions: http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html]

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

#456

Post by foobarbazqux »

jdh wrote: post #33
wenxun wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick count from these three websites showed several hundreds customers have fallen victims: http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.justfab.com http://www.scambook.com/company/view/146/JustFabcom http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/justfab.html If you google "justfab review" or "justfab scam" or "justfab fraud", there are surely many more.

You've posted this comment three times, and I won't reply on every thread, but let's be clear: these "review" sites are shady operations that extort retailers by aggregating negative reviews and charging to hide them. Amazon's review is worse than JustFab's on the same site: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/amazon.html You can Google a lot of e-commerce sites with the word "fraud" or "scam" and find a lot of neg…

Regardless of what you believe about JustFab, it has to mean something to you that just about everyone commenting about this on Hacker News disagrees with you.

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

#457

Post by NickFitz »

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…

You're full of crap, and you know it.

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

#458

Post by CamperBob2 »

babuskov wrote: post #222
personalcompute wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, when you agree to the terms of service, you conveniently waive the right to participate in a class-action lawsuit. Source: http://www.justfab.com/index.cfm?action=home.terms_and_condi...

No, actually, that never holds in court.

Unfortunately, thanks to a recent SCOTUS decision, it probably will.

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

#459

Post by abalone »

jdh wrote: post #33
wenxun wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick count from these three websites showed several hundreds customers have fallen victims: http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.justfab.com http://www.scambook.com/company/view/146/JustFabcom http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/justfab.html If you google "justfab review" or "justfab scam" or "justfab fraud", there are surely many more.

You've posted this comment three times, and I won't reply on every thread, but let's be clear: these "review" sites are shady operations that extort retailers by aggregating negative reviews and charging to hide them. Amazon's review is worse than JustFab's on the same site: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/amazon.html You can Google a lot of e-commerce sites with the word "fraud" or "scam" and find a lot of neg…

> I don't dispute the fact that there are probably several hundred unhappy customers

You're being disingenuous. You know full well that the 409 1-star complaints filed with consumeraffairs.com are just from people who were motivated enough to file a complaint with that particular site. They are therefore the tip of the iceberg.

They also exclude the quite probably substantial number of exploited customers who don't check their credit card statements every month and therefore are completely unaware that they are paying your company $39 every month. Like for example the subject of the original post.

You know all this FULL WELL, don't you.

This "business" model is designed to ferret out exactly those kinds of people and exploit their lack of attention to fine print and oversight of their credit card activity. It's illegal in Germany, which is why your company had to change its checkout UI to be more clear.. but only in Germany.

This makes me think Matrix Partners has been reduced to a bunch of desperate slimeballs. Guess the days of funding companies like Apple are long gone.

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

#460

Post by CamperBob2 »

ds_ wrote: post #275
vvvVVVvvv wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other difference worth noticing is that albeit being a bit unclear, Amazon's Prime is far to be as shady as JustFab's darkpattern since there's a huge modal window popping during the order.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said 'basically the same thing'. They both deliberately mislead users into subscribing, Amazon is just more subtle.

Perhaps you shouldn't have.
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