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Comment by stordoff | Hacker News Reader

I can't quite put my finger on the reason, but I can see why people are sceptical. Few possible reasons, which may or may not be large factors:

- Non-obvious business model - It's not obvious how you profit from the raffles, whereas charging money is generally easier/quicker to understand

- Use of memes (e.g. http://muxme.com/giveaways/56-25-toys-r-us-gift-card ) doesn't inspire confidence (may be a personal quirk of mine)

- Layout/design - My initial reaction when the page loaded was "Oh, it's a penny auction site", which are known for being borderline scams. Obviously it isn't, but that gut reaction is difficult for you to overcome (I'm thinking of sites like swoggi.co.uk when I say penny auctions)

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Only problem is charging money is illegal. I was thinking of "implying" that you may have to pay one day, and having the register button say "Sign up for your free trial", which will be an infinitely long free trial. But then again, the site is all about trust, and you've already tricked them from the start with this method.

Yeah I tried the approach of a quirky, 1 owner website, and it didn't work. I'm still trying to clean up all the jokes, memes, etc.

Hmmmm, yeah I can see how a first impression is that the site is a penny auction site. I definitely need to rethink the front end design and UX flow. Maybe don't even show the prizes until they've registered.

Yeah the giant table of "win this! win that!" seems enormously scammy. Maybe because scam ads just display something so similar. And, key thing with yours and theirs, no context and leaves me wondering "what's the catch?".

Even if you just added a short paragraph explaining the concept (since otherwise when I get to your site I look around to see what it does, and see nothing but scam ads all over = scam site; if you actually say what the site's for the prizes have context) and how it works (otherwise I'm like, "sure, effectively free cash, yeah right" = scam site), and then have the prize list, it would make a big difference in first impressions. Maybe have any list of prizes on the front page not be a countdown of upcoming prizes, but a list of selected featured prizes ("including these brands!").

On the other hand, the long list of terms and conditions on the Toys R Us gift card actually makes it feel more legit somehow. ("Ahh, there's the catch"?) Maybe have the front page end with that list, or the intersection of all terms, or a similar terms and conditions for muxme itself, rather than "many pages of EVEN MORE PRIZES".

You're saying the picture with the bank statement? Or are you talking about the Official Rules portion?

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