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Calling Video Professor a Scam
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.
Ordered a disk from them in 2005 as part of another promotion I think (one of those complete X deals). I never got the disk as it was improperly addressed, they dropped off my apartment number, so it was returned to sender, but I got a lovely $70 charge on my CC a month later. I called to complain and they offered to resend out the disk at first, but I finally got them to refund the charge. Ended up working out OK, but again, that was a few years ago.
It's not a minor point in the article, it's the entire article. This is the article, the other link in the summary was just an aside...
The article really takes video professor apart. It's a total scam and there's no more doubt about it.
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.
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.
When I complained, they gave me a free credit report from their partners at freecreditreport.com. I don't know what this guy is complaining about.
Video Professor is a company in the U.S. with ads that are very common on TV. They consist of an older man advertising his videos in which he shows how to use various software. He then assures the viewer that he is so sure you will like his product, he will send you one free. What actually happens is that you get the free video (plus shipping and handling), then a charge on your credit card for another video each month.
Yes, the idiot is known to do bad business. Sadly if we start shutting down corrupt businesses we will shut down the American economy. We might have to shut down most state governments as well.
Yes it is, but there are other Video CDs sent to the person who tries the product including charges made to the credit card.
His business is like a "Book of the Month" or "CD of the Month" type club where the first one is free (for a limited time and if you don't send it back you get charged for it, hence the "try" part of "try my product") and if you don't like it you can call and cancel it and send the CD back to avoid being charged for it.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
In Canada this is called 'negative option billing'
It has been illegal here for 10+years.
No more CD of the month clubs
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
I tried out the Photoshop package. It actually has a lot of info and tutorials in there. However, from watching and reading ads, it seemed that it would be a reasonable price. I wasn't notified of the nearly $200 charge for it. I called theem and told them it was a rip-off and false advertising. They gave me my money back AND let me keep the course. That really surprised me.
Honest, I used video professor to learn to sell on Ebay and not I am making $10,000 a month and living the life I have always dreamed of. Thanks video professor!
If it isn't broke, tinker with it till it is!
I hereby challenge the free and open source community to make a serials of software tutorials for various Windows operating systems, Windows software, web sites, etc and provide those videos free via downloads or web site streaming to engage and or challenge the Video Professor company, and provide free alternatives that people on Slashdot and other technical web sites can refer to our friends and relatives who might get taken in via Video Professor, and instead we can redirect them to the FOSS web site of software tutorial videos or download them and burn our own FOSS Software Professor CD-R disks and give them to them for free.
The F/OSS community doing a Windows training video? Ahahah ....OK, wavy lines...wavy line....wavy line,,,,,
Start of video....
Enter guy with black hair, black goatee, horns, pitchfork, and dressed in red.
"Hi, I'm Satan and I'm here to teach you about my Operating System : Windows. Using this OS will automatically give your everlasting soul to me. Now to begin....."
Every other frame will be a quick frame that says:
F/OSS is the GOOD in the World. Linux is your salvation!
Please excuse the typos. For some reason my spell check on Firefox isn't working on this Fedora 12 box. ????
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Watch that Anti-Religious Bigotry. Religious people have civil rights too, you know.
Yeah, mocking/criticizing a group of people is an attack on their civil rights. Jesus, it's not like the post was advocating denying Christians the right to marry or something.
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.
uh, parent is unintentionally NOT OFFTOPIC this time
Apparently, this guy's lawyers can't take a joke (then again, no laywer can), Last year, Video Professor's legal department sent an email to Wikia, a wiki hosting company, concerning this article about John Scherer on Uncyclopedia, a satirical parody of WIkipedia. They requested removal of the article. However, the article in question and the pictures on it were used for the purposes of parody and humor and thus are likely protected under fair use. Instead of deleting the article, the community decided to take the opportunity to make fun of the lawsuit as well. The email sent to Wiki (and the associated drama) can be found here.
Slashdot posted this story in 2007 about Video Professor sueing to get critical reviews off the internet.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/24/1619240
Yeah, that worked out well for them, didn't it?
I ordered a 'free' Video Professor Access learning set about 10 years ago. The set came with 3 discs in a single package. 2 of the discs were free, but in order to keep the 3rd, the last lessons, I would have had to pay the $29.95 for the set. In other words, if you want the free part, it's only the introductory and intermediate lessons. Additionally, each disc installed several programs I would have to characterize as spyware. Not just the first, but each disc. Before they would run any lessons. So, I sent the 'free' software back. And then I got to struggle with their hands in my pocket through 3 more 'free' (unordered) sets, each of which showed up on my credit card statement before the (unordered) sets arrived. Each subsequent time I called to protest I was told to keep the discs. Of course, they were worth more as infections than as product. I finally canceled the credit card to stem the pilfering. 'Scam' is kind.
The last time I did a WoW free trial I didn't have to give them any payment information at all. The account just went dormant after two weeks and they told me I could buy the game online to re-activate it if I wanted. I didn't and they never billed me in any way.
Graham
I have to disagree with you. If all of the below are true:
These systems tend to have a bad name because at least one of the above requirements are broken by many bad-faith operators. In Video Professor's case, VP are selling unaccredited video learning courses apparently primarily aimed at the elderly for absurd amounts of money. In addition, apparently many customers were unaware of the fact they were signing up to an automatically rebilling system. So in my list of rules above, both (2) and (3) were violated. Book clubs in the UK were infamous for breaking rules (2) and (4), though in fairness their prices were reasonable enough that they had many satisfied customers. Cable and Satellite TV companies the world over are infamous for (1), often combined with (4).
The fact that so many scams use the model doesn't make the model a scam. There are plenty of scams that use the "You pay $X for something in the expectation it'll be sent to you" model too, but fail because a list of rules ($X has to be reasonable, the actual something you ordered needs to be delivered to you and be as described, the actual something that's sent to you can't be stolen property, etc) are broken.
As always, with any commerce system, the key questions are based upon good and bad faith, and the reasonable requirements and expectations of buyers. "First one free, others not free and sent automatically unless you cancel" is not inherently a scam. It is, after all, an improvement on "Pay for all of them, sent automatically unless you cancel."
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.