Question to Martin - Groupbuy websites - scams or real deals ?

thesavvyconsumer

Came across several group buy websites that are spawning across after copying groupon US big giant model. trialled nearly everyone and here is what i think is really happening... have you guys felt the same ?
1. mycitydeal - attracting buyers through scam advertising everywhere - 90% of ryanair, zara, mcdonalds, nationalrail ... when you click on the link there is no 90% at all from any of these stores -but you are asked to register to get similar 90% deals ! pure scam to get your email address and make you register so as to send you emails every single day...
2. keynoir - funded by venture caps - smaller start but not much deals on the site. calls itself exclusive club but does not do any thing different than other players.
3. Kgbdeals - funded by 118118, copied mycitydeal strategy to attract customers by gettin £1 from cineworld vouchers and funded attracting buyers through own money.
4. Groupola - funded by myvouchercodes ceo, another groupon clone like above 3 but seem to follow unethical approach to attract buyers to the website. try typing in groupon in google, you will be landed to groupola website ! even their vouchercodes website had groupon disguised as groupola url and there is a you tube video of how this guy attracted more traffic on the website by riding on groupon success. clever but ethical ? again deals on the site are really not worth it but people are falling for it ?
5. other small players - wahnda, comeletsbuy, wowcher, vivavoucher are around but not much happening on their website currently.... either they are not funded well enough by big giants like above or they do not want to practice anything unethical or they are just waiting for something big to happen...
difference in deals - if you are affilated to networks, you can pretty much get any of these deals yourself. even deals on myvouchercodes are available if you shop on moneysupermarket, or on kelkoo vouchers or on other websites. groupdeals above sounds too good to be true and if they are then why are these companies allowed to use false strategy to attract buyers ?
Question to Martin and forum here - is the unethical campaigns these companies are getting involved in legally allowed in this country ?
is there real any real profit for suppliers to give 90% off - will big companies as advertised by mycitydeal will give 90% off in their life time ?
what is in it for smaller companies if comission charged by these companies are 50% and above after already giving 50%+ off...
thanks,,,

competitionscafe

thesavvyconsumer wrote: »

1. mycitydeal - attracting buyers through scam advertising everywhere - 90% of ryanair, zara, mcdonalds, nationalrail ... when you click on the link there is no 90% at all from any of these stores -but you are asked to register to get similar 90% deals ! pure scam to get your email address and make you register so as to send you emails every single day...

Those ads are everywhere and I agree - very misleading. Can be reported to ASA I suppose (not that they do much).

thesavvyconsumer wrote: »

4. Groupola - funded by myvouchercodes ceo, another groupon clone like above 3 but seem to follow unethical approach to attract buyers to the website.

That guy has a long history of unethical business practices - just ask on affiliates4u forum or ask some of the businesses who have dealt with him!

yorkyinsuffolk

Interesting.

trumpton

I am very, very wary of these sites - read on Hot Deals and the MSE Grabbit board for problems like price-hikes once you've bought the vouchers, some people claiming their sunglasses are fake etc., deals not quite what they claim etc.

I wish MSE and Hot Deals would ban their deals from being posted. People who are aware of them can check their own site for deals, I really don't think they need MSE or other forums to promote them.

Personally, I feel the status and credibility of MSE has been damaged by the recent My City deals issues and although it does seem that MSE have tried to sort things out for customers, it has made me think about MSE in a different way.

Brian99_2

I'm getting masses of emails from Groupon. To cancel, it says "click on the link at bottom".

That takes us to the main site.... where there is NO link to cancel....

Has anyone managed to cancel at Groupon or MyCityDeal ??

boonkoh

I just came across another dubious dodgy practice by Groupon/MyCityDeal!

Deals on Groupon go live at exactly midnight, with each deal lasting exactly 24 hours. I went on to the Groupon London website immediately at 12am two nights to see what new deal they had... and was pleasantly surprised that 3 deals had already been bought! And this was less than 30 seconds since the deal had gone live.

I then decided to test again last night, and had print screen ready, and... the evidence speaks for itself:



Image from: http://www.londondailydeals.co.uk/group-buying-deals/groupon-misleading-and-deceiving-potential-customers-scam/

There were 3 buys, again, just after 14 seconds?? I find that extremely hard to believe, especially since one would have to read the description, and go through the whole checkout process... and 3 was exactly the same number as the night before.

I think Groupon are scamming customers and using false advertising here...

Stephb1986_2

I've used mycitydeal quite a few times not had a problem once with any of the deals.

I bought one about 2 months ago £35 for £105 worth of teeth whitening treatment it's due to run out on the 7th of August so I booked it yesterday with no problems at all. I've bought canvases, chocolate, spa days, hairdressers.

They might just put 3 bought automatically so the deal does go ahead. Not sure though

Steph xx

Laura_Scotland

boonkoh wrote: »

There were 3 buys, again, just after 14 seconds?? I find that extremely hard to believe, especially since one would have to read the description, and go through the whole checkout process... and 3 was exactly the same number as the night before

I had been reading this thread not long before midnight, so just went onto the Edinburgh Groupon page as I have a look every now and again, the deal was less than two minutes in and there were 3 buys as well!
Some of the deals used to be quite good, such as the Cineworld one which was in the MSE email, but lately it's more expensive deals for spas and places I've never heard of before. I never had any problems when I bought the Cineworld deal, but that's all I've bought so far!