JustFab’s Checkout Tactics Are JustShady

This may be the closest thing to journalism TechCrunch has done since AOL took over. It's definitely the first time AOL has impressed me since giving me 30 hours free internet ~16 years ago.

Edit: I hope they have the stones to do a follow-up about the JustFab articles vanishing from HN.

Edit: we are still unsure if the cost of membership is in addition to the cost of the shoes? Would love if someone could clarify. --

Funny enough my sister informed me that she ordered a pair of boots last night. I immediately think of this and ask her if she's heard of JustFab to which she says "how did you know?".

For what it matters, she is a law student and actually took the time to read the TOS(yeah!). She has it all planned and will cancel her subscription Monday.

Also learned from her that if you just make an account and wait for a few days, apparently they let you in for the first month for $20.

My sister felt a bit shitty after I showed her HN's view but at least for her she's getting a good deal. Too bad almost every other customer isn't likely to have the same luck.

Very disappointing. I'm sure the internal stories of the UI/UX designers and product managers will start coming out soon. I suspect that management had a checkbox for "knowledge of dark patterns" on the job description.

Re: the investors. I wanted to give Josh Hannah of Matrix the benefit of the doubt - many investors have little interest in much besides the revenue and user growth. Unfortunately he decided to speak out about the situation and show he was not only completely aware of this bullshit, but fully supports it.

Somebody is gonna get sued.

They are more than shady, they straddle the line over which they become misleading.

Just wondering, do they atleast send an email reminder mentioning that you have to select your pair for the month?

That should give an indication to some people to cancel their subscription.

Absolutely shady. It's a shame we don't have consumer laws or JustFab would have been closed a long time ago. Good thing they raised some money, at least they can afford lawyers for a while.

Another major deception going on is on search engines. All of them. They deceptively designed ads in a way so a lot of people (roughly half http://www.seobook.com/consumer-ad-awareness-search-results ) do not know that they clicked an ad. Imagine seeing a commercial and thinking it was CNN content or reading an article and thinking it as an unbiased one from NYT? If you're buying an item and search for it, the ads do not have your best interests in mind, so this matters a lot. Of course, if you think the result is unbiased you're more likely to buy it. That is fraud, plain and simple and it has been going on for a long time.