
WooMe: TechCrunch40 Finalist, $20 Million In Funding – And One Huge Scam - bjonathan
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/02/woome-techcrunch40-finalist-20-million-in-funding-and-one-huge-scam/
======
elliottcarlson
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 easy $45 (at the time) per signup, more if it were a female
registering. Having a day making $2k wasn't unheard of.

The second, shadier method, is that there will be "service providers" posing
or automating profiles on these sites. The "service providers" (escorts, phone
sex, porn sites, rival "dating" sites or plain our scammers) attempt to get
the people to use their service by enticing the end-user and making them
believe they are a real person. This is generally overlooked because for these
new unpaid accounts, their curiosity gets the best of them when they can't
read these private messages they are getting, and they end up paying for an
account. (It was even beneficial to me, even though I wasn't luring anyone in
to paying for an account, these service providers would convert them for me).

The thing that backfires is that so many of these service providers will hurt
the quality of a site by making users instantly see that something is wrong -
just like in the parent article. It's in WooMe's interest (if they are indeed
not doing it themselves) to take control over this kind of misuse, and not let
it get out of control - they will just lose real users, and in the end money.

~~~
minouye
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.

~~~
elliottcarlson
It wouldn't be rival dating sites; it would be affiliates to rival sites. I
guess the best way to see it is; once you have identified a sucker, take them
for all they are worth.

Possible scenario:

1) User signs up for free on WooMe

2) User is enticed by fake account to signup because the picture alone
suckered them in, and the unknown of their message just made it too much.

3) Fake account tells user to check out their profile on fake account's
website

4) Fake accounts website is a redirect with affiliate code to rival site

5) User signs up for rival site, thus giving the commission to the fake
account's holder.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it's all automated and easy to pull off.

 _Edited for formatting_

~~~
minouye
So the user signs up for paid accounts on two different sites? Sounds
lucrative and very shady.

~~~
elliottcarlson
If the user is gullible enough - or at least that is the hopes of some of
these fake accounts. It pays off even if you convert 10 people a day - and
most likely that is a very easy target number to hit.

Keep in mind this is all playing on human emotions; sex or the desire to be
wanted being a huge one; and for some lonely souls out there, it makes them
easier prey. My history with doing affiliate programs with that industry has
proven that if marketed correctly, it can be a very rewarding business, and
even with some seriously scary a/b tests (let's just throw the term farm sex
out there) you can still get good conversions. People's desires and curiosity
gets to them - and in to their wallet.

~~~
minouye
I'm not judging you, but an activity where you view your "customers" as prey
seems really depressing. I certainly couldn't sleep at night knowing I was
taking advantage of people yearning for some happiness in their lives.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Oh, I never took part in these practices, sorry if I lead you to believe this.
I did work as an affiliate for these type of sites, however it was via a blog
that would review the sites. I will admit, I was deceptive in the fact that I
never really used the sites - I was working an angle to make money, but I
never tricked users in to thinking I was someone else, or lured them in to a
situation where they were forced to register. My reviews simply talked about
the features of the site, then provided a link with my affiliate code.

The actual luring tactics do seem predatory and that's why I worded it like
that - simply because I have witnessed how others were going about things.

------
JacobAldridge
TC / Crunchbase might want to change their WooMe's company profile on their
pages as well, in light of this article.

Kind of funny that the article calls it "bait-and-switch, from the horrible
kind" while linking to an internal-ish overview that says "best of all it’s
free".

<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/woome>

~~~
nikcub
150k+ records in Crunchbase so it is difficult to keep it up-to-date. The good
news is that anybody can edit any record.

~~~
whyleyc
I just edited the company bio - how long do I have to wait to see the update ?

~~~
nikcub
The mods usually go through the moderation queue once a day. If you create an
account, after a few edits are approved you get permission to insta-edit.

------
iloveyouocean
I launched an online dating site FlowMingle.com in 2008 (since closed down).
When we were building the site on '07 and looking for investment, over and
over we heard 'Your site isn't viral/social enough. Look at WooMe, look at
Zoosk, etc. They will eat your lunch!' and with regards to OKCupid "It's at
best a niche site for geeks and freaks, it's growing too slowly, it's not
viral enough."

Although this TC article is hardly news for anyone who has examined the WooMes
of the world for even 15sec., I find the fact that WooMe is outed as a scam
and that OKCupid is acquired by Match.com to be hugely vindicating.

By providing users an honest, transparent service that legitimately helps them
achieve their aims, you CAN and eventually WILL profit and grow. The damage in
investors betting on companies like WooMe is that 1) they scam bunches of
online daters and turn them off from the whole industry, they disappoint and
lie to people 2) other entrepreneurs see big investment and media coverage for
a company like WooMe and think they should chase after that model and mold
their businesses to what investors want rather than what users want. 3)
ultimately, investing in WooMe doesn't create any long term value and is a
waste of time/money and starves other legitimate businesses of opportunity.

Just because a company is getting investment $$, press, meteoric growth, etc
does NOT mean it is actually delivering anything of value and/or helping its
users achieve their goals. There is always opportunity to win against ANY
competitor by doing those simple things.

------
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.

------
getsat
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 on a date with them (they're obviously
posing as an attractive female and messaging males) is signing up to a service
that does a background check to verify that they're not dangerous. Affiliate
network payout per conversion on background check = $20+ USD

Doing that at scale = you are making $2,000+ USD/day

~~~
DevX101
You want to call them out here? Maybe with an anonymous handle if they know
you?

~~~
getsat
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.

------
yaakov34
Here's a suggestion for WooMe, if it wants to cling to some credibility or at
least plausible deniability: upgrade the journo's account for free, so that he
can contact the senders of those messages. If the messages are offering dates,
and insisting on upgraded levels of membership - case closed. If the messages
are promoting some unrelated service - the site has a raging spam problem.

And if the messages are real, I'll be a monkey's uncle.

~~~
notahacker
Really, this is too easy to game to worry the cynics - the site owners could
log in and continue a few conversations for a bit to make the bad publicity go
away.

If I was running this kind of operation I'd probably ensure some conversations
continued for a couple of messages after users paid up, just to make sure they
didn't cancel or file chargebacks. If I assume men preferred their hot women
to pass the Turing test I could probably outsource the flirting to someone in
the Philippines at $5 per hundred messages.

------
kirbman89
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!

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

------
vaksel
That's like the oldest scam that pretty much every single dating site uses.
I'm surprised how TC is shocked...shocked to find that on a dating site.

Reddit did the same thing starting out...the only difference is that they
didn't try to trick you into paying.

~~~
DevX101
The value reddit users get is from viewing new and interesting content and
comments.

The value a user of a dating site gets is the PROSPECT of going on a face to
face meeting with another person.

If reddit engineers were good enough to make an AI to post great new great
content everyday along with insightful comments and analysis, I'd still go.
Hell, that might make me want to go even more often.

If I found out a dating site users were doing the same with messaging, that
completely precludes me from getting the value I really want from the site,
thus its useless.

------
staunch
When WooMe launched they got a lot of attention. They thought they were going
to take the world by storm. Unfortunately their product is a novelty.

They took $17.4 million dollars of VC with no real hope of showing a return to
their investors. They got desperate and this is the result.

------
meterplech
This is particularly poignant and frustrating given OKCupids recent
acquisition. I'm happy for those guys- but I am sad that the one good dating
site will probably be discontinued. It's tough when you know the shady tactics
of practically all the others.

~~~
regularfry
Match.com would have to be utter idiots to close down OkCupid. If they keep it
running, it's a serious asset, for a bunch of reasons, and one hopes that
they'd be mature enough not to care if one brand they own is cannibalising
another.

If they close it down, yes, their main brand will be protected, but _so will
everyone else's_. There's no competitive advantage whatsoever in doing it.

------
edw519
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.

~~~
zoomzoom
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.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Maybe we should change that.

~~~
zoomzoom
The question is: how?

The sentiment (in the US, at least) still seems to be towards less regulation
at the moment. Enforcing ethics as well as laws would seem to require even
more regulation, unless you have a magic potion that will convince all
business directors to self-regulate all at once!

~~~
watchandwait
Regulations are only as ethical as the regulator -- just ask Bernie Madoff's
victims how well that worked. Indeed, more regulation leads to a false sense
of security, and certainly stifles innovation.

Better to have the market, and market players like TechCrunch, sort out this
type of low-level malfeasance.

~~~
pavel_lishin
But then you'd have to have a financial reward system in place that rewards
ethical firms.

I don't know how you would do that.

~~~
dantheman
It's called refusing to do business with people who are ethically challenged.

------
ig1
I'm not sure what the law is in the US, but I'm pretty sure that would be
illegal in the UK both under sales legislation and under anti-fraud laws.

------
anon2345
Hey don't knock the horse face. I did fine at Burning Man wearing a Horse Head
mask. Maybe there are a lot of playa princesses on WooMe.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Wow. It's 2011 and I still haven't gone to Burning Man. Been meaning to go
since 1995.

 _looks at blizzard outside_

------
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.

~~~
mthoms
Except that the screenshots clearly say "(so and so) has sent you a message",
which is plainly false. I'm not sure how you could see it any other way.

------
20110202
Here is what the site does (or at least did two-three months ago, when I tried
it).

After you pay for your account, it immediately asks you "do you want the site
to introduce you to people who may be of interest" or something like that. A
little later, I looked at my Sent folder and saw that I had said "hi" or
"what's up" to dozens of people, many who are not local or I otherwise would
not be interested in.

------
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.

------
cloug
I'm kinda disappointed, I just signed up (with what I thought was a engaging
picture: [http://www.illusionking.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/09/horse...](http://www.illusionking.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/09/horse_head.jpg)) and I've only got three messages from
VIP members. Thank you Anita, Yanisa and Shawna !

------
galactus
I don't understand, how does he know it is actually WooMe behind the bots?
Couldn't it be some scammer who has nothing to do with WooMe?

------
jasonmcalacanis
No one remembers how you got that--just that you got there.

------
fedd
where is the analogous website for scamming women with pics of hot boys? "pay
50% OFF to chat with Ivan!"

what a chauvinism!..

------
nicferrier
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.

~~~
dolinsky
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%!)

~~~
nicferrier
right. I'm the CTO. I'm not sure what I can do to combat the perception that I
sell snake oil. I don't sell snake oil. I help people meet each other.

If you really WANT snake oil I guess I could find some and get it to you.

~~~
dolinsky
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 bots are running rampant across
your site with hordes of fake accounts trolling for new profiles to scam (or a
combination therein).

As evidence, I just logged in to my woome account, which I haven't logged into
in maybe 3 years, and immediately I got a request for a video chat from
<http://www.woome.com/sallyl3462/> . Who wants to get laid tonight? Sally
does!

~~~
nicferrier
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 my knowledge our users are generally happy we have good
time on site, repeat vistits and viping.

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

------
Tichy
The evidence does not seem overwhelming to me. It is well known that girls
_love_ horses, so it doesn't seem that surprising that he is flooded with
messages if he uses a horse avatar.

------
sharescribe
The Complete Idiot's Guide To Frauds, Scams, and Cons
[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0028644158/thepolitic...](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0028644158/thepoliticalg-20)

------
diziet
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 appreciate it, it
would help me get started. Thank you ahead of time, $name. P.S. Have you read
any good books lately?

And then, to be even more sure, create a couple more accounts through proxies
and see what kind of messages they get. Do deactivate them after.

See, while it does look like some sort of bait-and-switch, at least try to
verify it. Maybe at the very least they've got a very persuasive feature where
new members do get popped up, and there's a user initiated "Poke" like feature
(that appears as a message on your end), so that would put them somewhere in
grey-hat tactics out of the black-hat area.

~~~
yaakov34
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.

~~~
noodle
i agree that its most likely fake, but it seems like TC would be able to comp
him for the $30 for a membership it would take to lend weight to the story.

are the messages fake? again, yeah, probably. but its also concievable that
one or two are "lol a horse" type of messages. kind of depends on how the site
itself works.

~~~
robinwauters
It's not just the messages from users, it's the whole concept of showing
nothing unless you hand over your credit details, pretending hot women are
dying to contact you even though you're obviously not date material (unless
they're into horses), the unsolicited emails, the corny live chat box and pop-
up message when you try to close it, and so on.

~~~
noodle
> it's the whole concept of showing nothing unless you hand over your credit
> details

this is how a lot of dating sites work. no contact unless you pay, no
receiving messages unless you pay. its also how classmates.com works, not just
dating sites. and one of the reasons they were sued recently is due to
business practices similar to this.

> pretending hot women are dying to contact you even though you're obviously
> not date material (unless they're into horses), the unsolicited emails

again, this is probably true, but there's no _proof_ of it unless the dude
signed up and found out for sure. more data required.

> the corny live chat box and pop-up message when you try to close it

shady indeed, but they're not the only place who makes use of this.

~~~
robinwauters
There seems to be a notion that I shouldn't call out WooMe because other sites
are doing it too. I don't know where that is coming from.

~~~
diziet
My notion is that you should call out WooMe. Go for it. However, as an author
it is your responsibility to try to research as much as possible. It does
seem, from the surface level that you described, that those messages are
spam/automatically generated. However one could come up with a semi-plausible
bordering on the edge of legitimacy rationale why you had received those
messages. Maybe WooMe discovered a novel way of nudging users towards
communication with each other, maybe they get Achievement Points for sending
messages to new users? Likely? Not really, However, chatting with a very
cleverly disguised CTA does not constitute thorough research.

