Calling Video Professor a Scam 385
palmerj3 writes in to give some wider attention to a piece on Techcrunch today in which Michael Arrington reacts to Video Professor's desperate attempts to shut him up after he called Video Professor a scam in a piece syndicated by the Washington Post. As described by Arrington, the ways the company's site operates (differently depending on where a visitor comes from) are strongly reminiscent of the practices a Senate committee recently condemned. (Here is a detailed example of another, similar scam, from a not-naive victim. Video Professor's tactics sound even more deceptive.) Video Professor seems to react with belligerence, not to mention legal threats, towards any hint of criticism. Please share any direct experiences you have with this outfit.
first impressions (Score:3, Insightful)
Who/What is Video Professor? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, I know I could just google it but damnit slashdot, this sounds like a typical example of an editor knowing about a subject that a submission happens to be about yet most likely the average slashdot users doesn't have a clue as to what/who the fuck "Video professor" is.
/Mikael
Re:first impressions (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares about the name, they sued their own customers to shut them up about being scammed. That's more than enough evidence of a scam.
What it really sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that gaming market is doing a great job of trying to implode on itself. Seriously, if the way it works is the games that participate in offerbot scams are the successful ones... Well then I don't see it having a long term future. After all, there are TONS of PC games that are not that way, be they web based Flash games or retail games or whatever. There are more games than you can play in a lifetime out there that aren't like this. If this is what the gaming scene on Facebook is, my guess is that it'll implode and disappear in a couple years.
Re:Who/What is Video Professor? (Score:1, Insightful)
What I don't know is what the hell all this is about. Could the summary give us more than "Video Professor's tactics sound
Re:While we're talking about scams (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who/What is Video Professor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm the lucky one. (Score:4, Insightful)
They gave me my money back AND let me keep the course. That really surprised me.
Given their high profile, displaying a desire to avoid criminal prosecution really shouldn't come as a surprise.
Re:What it really sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling Farmville a game is like calling Mattel (Hot-Wheels) a car company. :)
Re:W-T-F? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is bigoted to point out that someone believes in imaginary creatures?
Would it be bigoted if I claimed people who believed in unicorns were foolish?
Since when does anyone have the right not to be offended?
Re:W-T-F? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:W-T-F? (Score:5, Insightful)
A belief in fairy tales does not constitute a protected class. An African-American never chose to have black skin nor can they change that condition. A Christian can apply a modicum of critical thinking to remedy their condition.
In any other discussion, a willful disregard for scientific evidence will be appropriately mocked here on Slashdot. So why should believing that the earth is 6000 years old be any different? And why should believing anything from a book compiled for a purpose ~1700 years ago be any more reasonable that believing the myths of other primitive societies?
I've got nothing against people that believe there is a higher power, but you won't find a lot of Christians that believe just that without believing in all the provably false claims in the Bible. And even then, no one would give a rats ass about that belief too if Christians didn't have a nasty habit of trying to use those spurious beliefs to shape public policy and the annoying habit of trying to spread their critical thinking deficiency virus. I can't speak for the rest of the people who make clear their disdain for Christians, but for my part, they need only stop those two habits for me to stop caring about them entirely. They can go off into their own little corner and enjoy their wacky cult. But as long as people preach their bizarre beliefs and use them to justify insane public policy, it's the duty of every rational person to denounce them.
Re:It's almost a shame (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad Summary,Christmas sale, free shipping (Score:5, Insightful)
It IS a scam. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a TERRIBLE fucking scam.
It does detail in explicit detail everything they're doing. You have unlimited time to review the conditions. So scam? No not really. Deceptive marketing? Absolutely.
"Deals" like these have been the status quo for decades. Should they be illegal? Yes, but given current contract law, try and figure out a way to band them, win a nobel prize.
Consumers who ignore the find print deserve what they get, and get what they deserve.
Re:Yup, He's a Crook (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who/What is Video Professor? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, there are a ton of articles. The point of a summary is to provide enough information to help me decide if I want to bother RTFA. Having an interesting headline and a bad summary is just irritating. If the Slashdot editors want to make money selling ads, then they need to make the site useful and compelling. Irritating their readers is a bad business model.
Re:It's almost a shame (Score:5, Insightful)
Because such "learn at home" videos are in fact very difficult to make: they have no feedback with the student, they're easily at far too sophisticated or far too untrained an audience, and because "teaching Photoshop" reequires a great deal of hands-on experience to learn how the workflow really works, and to recover from errors or inappropriate shortcuts. It's far easier to make a very lame and poorly produced document that does not actually teach, but relies on fraud to make its profit.
Such behavior is very common: do not rely on something sounding "perfictly viable" to assure that it has, in fact, any useful quality.
Re:W-T-F? (Score:3, Insightful)
In any other discussion, a willful disregard for scientific evidence will be appropriately mocked here on Slashdot. So why should believing that the earth is 6000 years old be any different?
Thats a nice straw man you have there, did you make it yourself? I was under the impression that "age of the earth" had a NUMBER of different positions among christians, and that "young earth" was only one of them. But if it makes it easy for you to ridicule christians, by all means continue; it really helps your case to accuse others of being irrational in the same breath you commit logical fallacies.
And why should believing anything from a book compiled for a purpose ~1700 years ago be any more reasonable that believing the myths of other primitive societies?
And why should we believe modern neuroscience, i mean others have been wrong in that realm before right? So clearly their being wrong invalidates anything modern neuroscience can say.... Is that how your argument goes?
but you won't find a lot of Christians that believe just that without believing in all the provably false claims in the Bible
Ive heard that so many times, and yet the best ive seen pulled out is some claptrap about pi being 3, or willful ignorance about what metaphorical language is. (And these are the same people who will have no issue understanding "he was so hungry he could eat a cow", who then turn around and find that in the Bible, and remark on how stupid its writers must be for thinking one person could eat that much meat!)
Maybe im just a jerk but i find it really amusing when people launch into irrational attacks on others, all the while claiming that its their target that is irrational. I know its probably just as foolish for me to engage in this kind of discussion on the internet, but really I expected better from slashdot since fallacies are commonly ridiculed here.
Re:While we're talking about scams (Score:3, Insightful)
This should be fairly easy to figure down... Are they Google-able? They have a company?
The NDA part shouldn't be bothersome... it's par for the course; I make vendors sign 'em for certain server infrastructure additions or analysis (cf. anything that may possibly handle trade secrets, etc - even Microsoft signs one before doing their true-up audits). Besides, no NDA can prevent you from reporting illegal activity, so don't sweat it.
Otherwise, just get everything in writing (and notarized!) before agreeing to it, and make sure you get at least some of the payment up-front, at certain project milestones, etc. If it still makes you nervous, spend some cash on a lawyer to eyeball the whole thing before signing it.
Re:W-T-F? (Score:5, Insightful)
And you are a fucking moron...the Civil Rights act protects your from being discriminated against in finding shelter, a job, etc. It does NOT protect you or your religious beliefs from criticism by others. THAT right is protected in the US Constitution, under the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the "Free Speech" clause.
The UN's declaration of rights includes the rights of Free Speech and belief....this means you should be able to believe whatever you want without fear of oppression by your government, and I have the right to mock you for your beliefs...again without fear of oppression by my government.
You sound like the typical "poor Christians getting oppressed" whiner when the truth is you can't stand the idea that others also get to express their beliefs and opinions which include disdain for your beliefs. Go whine to the ACLJ and see how successful you are in a law suit. I'll talk to the ACLU to assist in defending my 1st Amendment rights against your claims.
Re:W-T-F? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got nothing against people that believe there is a higher power, but you won't find a lot of Christians that believe just that without believing in all the provably false claims in the Bible?
More than half of all Christians are part of the Roman Catholic Church [wikipedia.org], which does not believe in creationism or any of the other 'provably false claims' you refer to. Books such as Genesis are seen as largely symbolic, and in my experience when the RCC does attempt to influence public policy, they do so using secular arguments, even if their motivation for doing so is founded in religious beliefs (e.g. the abortion controversy).
Disclaimer: I am a member of the RCC
Re:Is this the guy (Score:3, Insightful)
I am one of those "olds" you speak of, and I seem to be able to spot these things a mile away. But then the older I get the more cynical I get. And if I want to learn about xyz, I go to the Borders web site and see what the local store has on xyz, or I just buy the Xyz Bible from Amazon. If I want a quick video on something, I go to YouTube. You really have to go out of your way to get scammed by these characters; though, obviously, they are still unethical. I suspect the dupes involved are the same folks who put money in the collection box every week to get "saved." As old PT used to say, there's a sucker born every minute.
Re:Who/What is Video Professor? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you, as a company, ends up having a lot of paying customers who thought they were getting a freebie, you're probably at least guilty of misleading advertising. If your business model is based upon tricking people who didn't read the fine print, I would consider it a scam. If you're selling a good product which actually gives value for the customer's money you don't need to use such tactics in the first place.
You and I would probably never fall for such tricks, that doesn't make it OK for a company to exploit those who will.
Re:Who/What is Video Professor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly how Time Life operate. Nothing new, move along.
In the sense that it's a recurring negative-option offer where the first one is cheap? Bzzt, wrong.
The problem here is that this guy is quite deliberately hides what is being charged and the recurring nature of the promotion. Time Life are- I assume- being reasonably clear about what the deal is before you come to order, even if that's not the selling point. This guy isn't.
Some Slashdotters don't read the story properly? Nothing new, move along.
Re:W-T-F? (Score:3, Insightful)
Already answered [slashdot.org] the words of Jesus have done a lot to fight bigotry, and Jesus works through his followers to educate people.
Not every Christian is going to be a Fundamentalist Christian you know.
Some Civil Rights Activists are Christians, and thus Jesus works through them.
Barrack Obama is a Christian and is trying to reform civil rights and fight bigotry as Jesus did.