Video Professor Tries To Bully Washington Post, Fails

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/28/video-professor-washington-post-scamville/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)&utm_content=Google+Reader

by vrobancho • 17 years ago

68 40 17 years ago

techcrunch.com

dhimes2• 17 years ago

Kudos to The WP.

greyman• 17 years ago

I think the main kudos should go to Arrington, since it is basically his personal fight with scammers - WP only syndicates Techcrunch articles. I'd say Michael has an advantage that he is a lawyer, so he knows the boundary of what he can and can't write, so it is hard to intimidate him with letters from companies lawyers.

mdasen• 17 years ago

Well, if they're going to claim they have a good rating from the Better Business Bureau, hopefully people will start sending complaints there: https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/getstarted.aspx?siteID=33

dhimes2• 17 years ago

A little OT, but does anybody here belong to the BBB? Is it worth it, do you think?

apowell• 17 years ago

I've joined in order to be able to display the seal on my own ecommerce site. As a single-person company, it isn't terribly expensive (it is priced per employee).

I don't have any hard evidence (such as an A/B test) to support my decision, but I'm selling monthly subscriptions to businesses and felt the impression of credibility was worthwhile.

joanou• 17 years ago

I belong to the BBB so that I can have their logo on my site. I thought it was expensive since that is all I want of them.

It frustrates me that scammers such as Video Professor use the service.

dchest• 17 years ago

Interesting, BBB profile has this explanation:

On television, the company offers a promotion for a free computer learning cd. Consumers taking advantage of the free cd are offered upsells. If accepted, they require the consumer to return products to avoid being billed. If consumers do not return the products, they will continue to receive additional products and be billed for those products.

http://www.bbb.org/denver/business-reviews/computers-trainin...

fnid• 17 years ago

Look at all the compliants:

    117		regarding Advertising Issues  
    178		regarding Billing or Collection Issues  
    4		regarding Contract Issues  
    14		regarding Customer Service Issues  
    35		regarding Delivery Issues  
    3		regarding Guarantee or Warranty Issues  
    5		regarding Product Issues  
    556		regarding Refund or Exchange Issues  
    220		regarding Sales Practice Issues  
    2		regarding Service Issues

They probably just refund the money or something, but if this many people complain, how many don't?

tptacek• 17 years ago

A great example of what's wrong with the BBB, which "rates" businesses that pay them fees.

bmalicoat• 17 years ago

Exactly, there is no incentive to hand down bad ratings to the people giving you all your money. Way OT but lack of proper incentive is a huge problem everywhere and played a major part in the banking collapse.

robotrout• 17 years ago

When I watch those commercials, I always assumed the scam was that they were sending you a "free CD", but charging a good price for it with their "shipping and handling charge".

I wasn't nearly cynical enough it seems.

qeorge• 17 years ago

Agree. I've seen those ads more times than I can count, and never thought they'd be sending 30 CDs, and billing me if I didn't return 29 of them.

The ads clearly lead you to think they'll send 1 CD, possibly charging S&H, and it will prove its merits thereby leading you to purchase further products. I believe he even says as much.

chrischen12• 17 years ago

Honestly, it doesn't seem that scammy. I always thought it was quite obvious it's a trial offer. I guess it depends on whether or not those CDs are good to justify the price.

aarongough2• 17 years ago

Not that scammy? Nowhere on the site are any of the extra charges declared. If someone bills your credit card without expressly telling you that they're going to then it's a scam.

Are you seriously trying to tell us that tricking unwary customers is not scammy?

systemtrigger4• 17 years ago

> Nowhere on the site are any of the extra charges declared.

Be careful of what you are claiming. The http://videoprofessor.com homepage says "After your 10-day free trial, if you decide to keep the complete set, we'll conveniently bill your credit card just $289.95."

chrischen12• 17 years ago

It does notice users on the site. And people can return the products afterwards. On their BBB profile it says most of their issues are resolved.

Why is everyone taking Arrington's word for it. It doesn't even seem like he did any research besides a quick glance at their site.

For all you know video professor makes it's money by tricking people to try, only to have people realize it was worth the 300 dollars.

I don't deny any tricking on their website, but they do have a return and refund policy that seems satisfiable. It just doesn't add up. How can they sustain their business if people can refund.

chrischen12• 17 years ago

https://www.videoprofessor.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=shopping...

The sample videos show comprehensive tutorials. I think they deserve a more comprehensive look before jumping to a quick conclusion.

You and I may be computer literate, so to us it may seem like worthless crap to us, but the videos aren't too shabby quality. It's probably why it's drawing so many scam criticisms because to us it doesn't seem worth $300.

joe_bleau• 17 years ago

I like to think that the vermin preying on the gullible elderly today will one day themselves be old, gullible, and the victims of the next generation of scammers.

Looking at it from the other side, could it be that some of the current victims were themselves scammers in their youth, and are only receiving a little bit of karmic payback?

rbanffy• 17 years ago

I would much rather live in a world without scammers, even if it means the current ones won't get properly punished.

Semiapies• 17 years ago

Sounds better than hoping that victims did something to deserve it.

ShabbyDoo• 17 years ago

A few years ago, this company's TV ads said something to the effect of, "You too can learn to RUN a computer." I always thought the word "run" was odd -- kind of like I was going to learn to run a cement mixer or something. Now, I wonder if it was an attempt at selection bias; perhaps there's a correlation between those who respond affirmatively to the notion of "running" a computer are those least likely to read the fine print or return the CDs on time.

Video Professor Tries To Bully Washington Post, Fails

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