Yelp goes to businesses and say, "I will knock the negative feedback off your default main page for $xxx."

 

Being in the "Chicago IT" scene ... Groupon is a hack. Word on the street is that place is a HUGE scam.

Throw bodies at problems that don't exist. Ramp up all departments. This is done to falsify growth rate to investors.

The Groupon site isn't hard from a technology aspect.
- membership database
- 1 page of offerings
- data aggregation from input sources
- content management
- localization

There's NO way these guys need a tower of developers.

 

can you elaborate more on this?

 

Funny, I think the same thing...on a lesser scale for restaurant.com. I think they are able to give restaurants more repeat customers than with small boutique-like shops that group-on targets.

I am curious what the costs is like for restaurant.com though. Every time they have the 80% sales, I stack up...and today they have a 90% off sale. I go sign in to print one out for lunch....and:

Welcome to My Account!

Because our deal is so popular today, we are experiencing a very high order volume. However, please do not worry – My Account will be available by 9pm CT today and you will have access to all of your certificate(s). No need to contact us.

Thank you for your patience.

Restaurant.com


:squint:

 

Yelp is a site were you rate your experience at Restaurants and other local business.
People sign up for this site and give reviews good and bad.

What happen in friends case is, he owns a small mom and Pop Filipino restaurant.

When you looked at his yelp reviews it was all 4 to 5 stars (5 stars being the best)
He gets a call one day from yelp Rep.
This Yelp Rep tells him,he can hide any and all negative reviews for a monthly fee.
He tells reps to "go kick rocks".
One month later all the good reviews disappear and a bunch of negative reviews start piling up!
One month passes and the yelp rep calls back wanting more money to make negative ratings disappear:wtf:

Google yelp and see all the shit they try to do!

 

This is just a company cooking it's books to be able to borrow more money. That's not a ponzi scheme.

Social Security is a ponzi scheme.

 

By definition it is not a ponzi, but it is a hugely unsustainable business model and anyone buying shares in it may as well kiss the money goodbye. The only way an investor is going to get a fair return is short term holdings or a "pump and dump" type deal similiar to the penny stock scams.

 

Nope, this is a Ponzi Scheme by definition.

"The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors. Usually, the scheme is interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses because a Ponzi scheme is suspected or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities increases." - Wiki

"Daily deals juggernaut Groupon managed to significantly slash marketing costs last quarter, but its net loss in the second quarter of this year has almost tripled compared to last year as it hired more than 1,000 new employees, according to an SEC filing published this morning. Basically, the company is still growing like gangbusters but losing money like crazy in the process." - http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/10/gro...ng-costs-jump/

Groupon lost 100M last quarter, mostly due to covering capital due back to investors. They won't say that and cook the books to make it look like it's incurred operational costs.

1,000+ hires is to make the company look like it's growing, when it's all being done to make current and future investors believe the business is viable.

I've been through the exact same thing with Canopy Financial. ( http://www.google.com/search?q=+Canopy+Financial ) I've seen all of this before. Groupon is a real business, but it's not as valuable as they (themselves) make it out to be.

 

That's some fucked up shit yo. He tried calling the BBB?

 

BBB won't do anything, according to articles, neither did the Federal courts.