Groupon to be investigated by Office of Fair Trading

BenjaG

The Gruadian writes:
"The Office of Fair Trading is to launch an investigation into Groupon after the daily deals website was found to have broken UK advertising regulations almost 50 times in less than a year."
...
"The company has faced controversy over the way it reports its finances, while an increasing number of consumers and marketers have complained about their experience of using Groupon."

http://iitm.be/umDyUT

Are they just going over correct or is Groupon dirty? What do you think?

wherediditallgothen

BenjaG wrote: »

The Gruadian writes:
"The Office of Fair Trading is to launch an investigation into Groupon after the daily deals website was found to have broken UK advertising regulations almost 50 times in less than a year."
...
"The company has faced controversy over the way it reports its finances, while an increasing number of consumers and marketers have complained about their experience of using Groupon."

http://iitm.be/umDyUT

Are they just going over correct or is Groupon dirty? What do you think?

I think it's a bit carp tbh. Full of stuff I don't want and/or don't need for the most part. Delete most of their e-mails without giving them so much as a cursory glance these days.

itsallagame_2

This ^^^^^^^

Crap offers and spammers.
Another nothing company who think they are worth billions to float

Procrastinator333

There was the odd item when it launched that was a good deal. But now, you are pretty much limited to laser hair removal, teeth whitening and many other dregs.

And the discounts they quote are bo**ocks. Email came in today for their "Christmas shop". Big jar of sweets, 67% off, interesting. Well yeah, if it hadn't started at £60. Morons.

I thought I read somewhere the owners had an offer of something like £1bn on the table that they declined. My guess is they will live to regret that.

grizzly1911

Always ignored the pop ups seemed carp.

I have seen/heard two business people on the BBC who have been impacted. Both seemed to be critical of it being oversold.

One offered cut price "luxury cakes", without a set number limitation, and got inundated. Apparently the offer didn't lose him money but had a massive knock on effect to his normal profitable trade as they "struggled" with the volume..

A second on today who was selling premium cleaning services with a model built on service rather than price. Found out that they got inundated by people after the offer but not interested in upgrading to the full price options:huh: what did they expect from a site like that...

Apparently the latter then went on to book a second slot:think:

Graham_Devon

Wasn't groupon only ever any good for companies that wanted to get people through their doors? I.e. once the customer is in, they can offer other products.

Places like restaurants, where they hope they can sell a few bottles of wine, theme parks where they make their money on rides, ice creams etc, beaty places where you get a half price eyebrow pluck or whatever and they offer to get rid of your unsightly moustache at the same time.

Never got involved however, seemed to stem around London and other key large cities.

Jennifer_Jane

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Wasn't groupon only ever any good for companies that wanted to get people through their doors? I.e. once the customer is in, they can offer other products.

Places like restaurants, where they hope they can sell a few bottles of wine, theme parks where they make their money on rides, ice creams etc, beaty places where you get a half price eyebrow pluck or whatever and they offer to get rid of your unsightly moustache at the same time.

Never got involved however, seemed to stem around London and other key large cities.

Yes, they are around the bigger places, but I set my area to Stoke and do get some offers for my town. Anyway, I am doing a cooking course (just one day) at an Indian Restaurant near Stoke soon and looking forward to it.

I do agree that they don't have a great reputation here in the UK, but aren't they pretty global (a French company, anyway), and friends in South Africa seem to love them.