Hacker News Reader

Comment by whackabump | Hacker News Reader

“OK, here's the deal

The Ord Phone doesn't actually exist... yet. This is a concept website created by an experimental product studio in New York. We want to see if there's a need for a product like Ord Phone, and whether people would actually pay for it. And you tried to... but we didn't actually charge your card or store your payment information. We might actually make Ord Phone if enough people try to buy it! If we do, we have your email address, so you'll be the first to know :) In the meantime, please don't share online that the product doesn't exist yet. At least until we've finished running this little experiment.”

View on HN

Well ain't that some BS. I don't like that type of behavior from a company, makes me not trust them.

This is straight out of the playbook though, find out if people would actually spend money on it.

What they don't say to do , is give an actual ship date and outright lie about the timeframe.

lol, what are you talking about? they do give a date. and the date given is so absurdly soon that they couldn't possibly hit it even if they got millions of $ in orders.

> Orders ship by November 2023 from San Francisco, CA. Short production run, these will sell out very soon. Free shipping to anywhere in the world. Return for any reason within 2 weeks of receiving your order.

You're agreeing with the comment you're replying to. The parent comment is saying the "playbook" doesn't say to give a date, and they've given one so absurdly soon that it's impossible to hit. The "get signups for a fake product" is out of the playbook, promising it 4 months from now when it doesn't exist at all is not out of the playbook.

Pretending to take payment information is out what playbook? Selling things that don't exist is common or selling things that don't exist yet is common but pretending to take payment is weird. In fact, I'd burn that card.

I checked and they don't validate card information, which is at least something. I didn't bother to look at what the site is doing because if the fake info I put in was flagged, I would have already known. I assume they're collecting and storing contact info.

“Ok here’s the deal: we didn’t work with any data protection experts, consult a lawyer, or even think through any possible negative outcomes of tricking you into giving us your personal financial info and email. We’re sure that’s great for our brand, definitely not a form of wire fraud or a deceptive trade practice, and there’s no way we’d get into some seriously deep shit for this cute website.”

>If we do, we have your email address, so you'll be the first to know

Not for people in the EU I hope, since you'd be violating the GDPR by acquiring it under false pretenses

Well that sucks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com