
Mint.com turns 404 ad page into date ad for developer - punkrobby
https://www.mint.com/accounting
======
chimeracoder
I love it when companies add a little personal touch to their 404 pages
(though they're taking 'personal' to a whole new level here!)

I saw an incredibly great collection of creative 404 pages a few months back.
I can't find the one I saw, though Fab404 (<http://fab404.com/>) has a bunch.

~~~
effigies
My favorite 404: <http://www.rathergood.com/404>

~~~
ComputerGuru
Sound, plus it's annoying as hell? I can see why.

------
ComputerGuru
Am I the only one wondering if it was a prank on Justin? I think it's more
likely that a coworker was being funny than Justin's desperate for a date :)

~~~
MichaelApproved
He's clearly posing in the picture. He must know it's being used for something
funny.

~~~
delinka
That, or the entire thing is a big joke and if Justin exists, he's not quite
that ... caricature.

~~~
ComputerGuru
s/caricature/character/ ?

~~~
delinka
Nope. I'm intentionally misusing the noun 'caricature' as an adjective. I
suggest that Justin's notable features in his photo are exaggerated, if he's
even a real human.

------
aaronbrethorst
Clever, reminds me of Groupon's unsubscribe video:
<http://www.groupon.com/unsubscribe> (flash required)

~~~
wtn
The Groupon unsubscribe video is so awesome I recommended my friends to
unsubscribe to see it…

~~~
joshmlewis
As long as you're signed out you can still watch the video and not really
unsubscribe.

------
josegonzalez
When I saw this page committed, I smiled quite a bit.

<http://seatgeek.com/404> (Image: [http://d2o7bfz2il9cb7.cloudfront.net/main-
qimg-e859ed4563650...](http://d2o7bfz2il9cb7.cloudfront.net/main-
qimg-e859ed4563650849267fc5cad7baa3ba))

------
goodweeds
If you've ever posted an ad on craigslist, then you know he's probably
received hundreds of penis photos in the hour since this link was posted.

~~~
bostonpete
Pshaw. I posted an ad for a lawnmower and only got a handful of penis photos.

~~~
rapind
In my defence, I really need a new mower.

------
guelo
I know this is off topic but beware of Mint. As they say, if you are not
paying then you are not the customer.

EDIT: ooh -4, I guess ya'll REALLY didn't want to be warned. It was just
intended as a friendly warning but in reality I don't care what you do, go
ahead use Mint all you want then.

~~~
hendrix
This is oh so true. Wtf are you giving out your bank history and info to a
website? If they get hacked…lol oh shit. (let the downvotes commence)

~~~
ceejayoz
Frankly, I trust Mint with my bank info more than I trust my bank. One has a
history of incompetence, and it isn't Mint.

~~~
esrauch
I agree with that in general, but it feels like a single point of failure. 10
different servers that all have an X% chance of being hacked are much more
secure to me than 1 server that even has X/10% chance of being hacked.

That said, I like the idea of mint in general. It's depressing that banks
can't (won't) figure out read-only credentials for use cases like this.

~~~
tedreed
ING Direct implemented read-only credentials for Mint, after fighting with
them about access for months. (ING kept blocking Mint, and then Mint would
find a way around it.)

------
Aloisius
Am I the only one who finds the picture a bit disconcerting? It is mostly the
kissy face pose. The photo seems so over the top that it just doesn't seem
sincere.

And is that a sweater vest? Nice.

~~~
maratd
Relax. It's obviously a joke. Nobody is a desperate enough to look for love on
a 404 page ...

~~~
maximusprime
It's PR. And it worked - got to the top of HN and probably sent around other
places. It's just an advert for mint.

------
hirojin
I see many guys (yes, only the guys) here curious about Justin's sexuality.
Really, if you're interested in him, just email him already.

------
yogrish
Other interesting 404 page <http://www.foradian.com/404>

~~~
bbrizzi
Niiiice. I just spent 5 minutes turning it along all 4 of its axis to find an
angle from which it looks like a cube.

~~~
FireBeyond
There's an easter egg there, too - try Control Shift drag.

------
rehashed
1.17MB 24bit PNG with alpha transparency on a flat color background...

------
hansy
Haha this is so awesome and creative. Way to take a completely buzz-kill page
and turn it into something fun and (perhaps) useful.

------
richardw
The perfect place for a really good 404 is here. Missed opportunity, I think.

<http://xkcd.com/403/>

<http://xkcd.com/404/> <\--

<http://xkcd.com/405/>

~~~
beaumartinez
I'm getting a 404 for it. Has Munroe changed it recently?

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jspash
Looks like a stock photo. Has the same amount of "funny" as grannies on
motorcycles. Just an opinion or two...

~~~
sp332
I don't think it's stock. There's something up his sleeve.

~~~
udp
I think it's some kind of watch.

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jdelsman
I emailed him; never heard back :(

~~~
emwa
Could be he's into girls.

------
Cushman
Serious question: why do we still have 404 pages?

A 404 means the server can't find what I asked for, can't tell me where it
went, has no idea what I'm looking for. By definition, my browser shouldn't
show me the content that was returned-- it _knows_ it's not what I want!

If I get a 404 code, the page shouldn't change. The browser should just show a
message indicating that that resource doesn't exist, include the reason
message if it's something other than "NOT FOUND", and let me either try a
different link or correct my spelling. If I clicked a link to get there, it
could even set a style on the link to indicate the resource doesn't exist.

It's strange how much we're still living in the nineties. I wonder how many of
the use cases of Ajax could be replaced by an intelligent browser using the
existing HTTP standard?

~~~
eck
The webmaster wanted you to see it. If browsers didn't show the content of a
404, webmasters would just send you the same "not found" page but with a 200
code, which would be even worse.

~~~
Cushman
Well, no, it would be the same. That's my point; the conventional treatment of
404 on the web is a 200 that says "Sorry." So what's the point of it?

~~~
jamesaguilar
It would be the same for the browser user agent, but a lot of other user
agents might have trouble. Anyway, why are you advocating a change that you
recognize will have no effect?

~~~
Cushman
? The change I'm advocating is in browser behavior, and would definitely make
a difference for any site that complies with HTTP. There's nothing preventing
malicious hosts from continuing to serve pages full of ads, but then, there
never was.

~~~
esrauch
It sounds like he is claiming that if a major browser changed this behavior,
websites would just reconfigure their response to give a 200 response error
page because they would prefer if the browser showed something like this
rather than a browser dependent error message. That would end up making 404
_completely_ useless, even for actual tools like wget because it would be
against webmasters interests to use them anymore.

Do you disagree with that claim?

~~~
Cushman
Well, my counterargument is that a change in browser behavior would make sites
more usable, encouraging the proper use of 404. Of course, if that weren't the
case, I'd agree there'd be no point in changing :P

~~~
esrauch
If webmasters wanted a spartan base error they could easily have one though.

------
noja
They should probably mention whether he wants a date with a guy or with a
girl...

~~~
digitalsushi
ahh maybe that doesn't actually matter. why is everything so boolean.

------
yarone
Next up, ad network designed for embedding on 404 pages. :-)

~~~
CyrusL
Actually, that already exists. Believe it or not there are ad products that
pay for the people who click "Under 18" on porn entry pages.

~~~
ComputerGuru
I find that hard to believe - mainly because it's impossible to believe anyone
actually clicks that link. Heck, I'd bet half aren't even links, just text
(only kidding!).

~~~
MichaelApproved
I've clicked them before out of curiosity to see where it would take me.

------
Groxx
I _love_ the description. Sharp crayons FTW!

This might just take the cake for my favorite 404 page ever.

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alapshah
Quora- What are some of the funniest 404 pages: <http://www.quora.com/What-
are-the-funniest-404-pages>

~~~
rottencupcakes
Certainly not Quora's: <http://www.quora.com/zxdasd>

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tomlin
The points for this post are currently 404. I. Can't. Upvote.

------
athst
I can't stand it when sites try to be cute like this with their 404 pages. I
guess it's a good thing for getting buzz, but what about a user who is
actually trying to use the site and gets that page? It's awful. You were
trying to complete a task, the site isn't working how you wanted, and to top
it all off, now they're trying to be funny and lighthearted. It just seems
like a site failure isn't the right time to be making jokes.

------
cfontes
Hahaha, very very nice ! It's petty that Mint doesn't work in my country... it
doesn't sync with Brazilian Banks. So I am stick with Buxfer.

~~~
juliano_q
Buxfer automatically import data from brazilian banks? I am looking for
something like Mint for a long time to use here.

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kkt262
I wonder how long till he gets a date? Probably a while since it's only us
nerd dudes that know about it.

~~~
argarg
What if he's interested in nerd dudes?

------
kr1shna
Well done, Mint. Now if you could get a service up and running in the UK?
Pretty please?

~~~
maximusprime
Mint wouldn't work in the UK. Our online banking is secure. It seems that in
the US most online banking is just secured with a password! :o

~~~
kr1shna
Secure is relative. The HSBC crap-gadget that one has to carry around on a key
chain is susceptible to easy theft/loss. Anyway, "security" is a poor reason
to not have such a great service in the UK

~~~
maximusprime
An HSBC security device is absolutely useless unless you know all the other
details needed to login. That's kinda the whole point of it...

I personally don't see the need for mint.

~~~
mikeash
Mint wouldn't be very useful if your finances are simple. I have accounts with
three banks, two credit card companies, and three investment brokerages, so
having a service that aggregates all of that activity together makes it _much_
easier to keep track of what's going on.

~~~
maximusprime
I guess possibly, but I still don't understand the need. I have quite a few
accounts, but they're all for different purposes. Seeing them "all together"
would make little sense for me, since they are different entities.

~~~
mikeash
The investment accounts are really just a bonus, but it's really useful to
have the checking account and all credit cards visible in one place. The
checking account is where money comes in, and the credit cards are where money
goes out, so seeing them together makes things much clearer. I also use
multiple credit cards for purchases, so I can't easily see all of my purchase
activity in one place otherwise.

Additionally, having everything consolidated means I can do a quick check on
recent transactions several times a week, instead of just looking at things
when a bill comes. That means that it's much easier to detect fraud, since the
activity is fresh in my mind, and takes much less time to notify the
institution of the fraudulent transaction.

~~~
maximusprime
OK, I guess I'm a completely different use case. Why multiple credit cards for
purchases? Why don't you buy things using a debit card?

~~~
esrauch
In addition to what mikeash said, using a credit card and paying it in full
improves your credit score whereas a debit card doesn't, which will make it
easier to get loans later.

~~~
salvadors
That's (thankfully) not true in the UK (or, indeed, most countries).

~~~
esrauch
Is there no such thing as a credit score in the UK? Or does paying credit
cards not improve your credit score?

The banking industry in the US is messed up, but how does it not make sense
that responsibly paying loans doesn't indicate you are more likely to make
good on future loans?

~~~
salvadors
There's no such thing as a credit score (at least not in the US sense).

The big problem with the US system is that it gets you needlessly hooked on
the whole idea of credit. As per this very example, you need to do things like
get credit cards just to pay them off on time, or else you're screwed when it
comes to things like getting a mortgage. In most of Europe the key factor for
that sort of loan is simply whether you have a steady income that's high
enough to make the payments, factoring in outstanding debts. A credit check
will show up things like whether you've a history of missing payments on any
existing credit, and that can certainly be taken into account, and most
lenders have their own version of a 'credit score' they'll apply based on all
that info — but it's not a centralised thing, and it's generally more
concerned with raising past problems as a red flag, rather than with past good
behaviour.

If you've a history of living within your means that should be a good thing,
not a bad thing.

~~~
esrauch
> If you've a history of living within your means that should be a good thing,
> not a bad thing.

How is always paying off a credit card not living within your means though?

Maybe this is some US-centric brainwashing, but it seems to me that someone
who has never had a credit card is less trustworthy than someone who had it
and didn't overspend; it proves that the person had the opportunity to do
something really dumb and didn't. The person who never had the credit card
might have done something dumb if they were ever given the chance.

It's interesting that your credit checks are so decentralized, but it seems
unlikely to me that would cause them to consider no history to be the same as
known good history.

That said, I'm not even sure how much impact properly paying credit cards has
versus not having one, but even with a minor difference there is practically
no advantages to using a debit card instead of a credit card that you always
pay off in full from your checking account. Even excluding credit, certainly
you must get additional fraud guarantees and possibly rewards programs with
credit cards in the UK?

~~~
salvadors
But if you're always living within your means, why would you ever want to have
a credit card at all? Things like reward programs certainly aren't universal
(or even common, I believe, though they do exist), and pretty clearly only
exist to try to get people to use the card in the first place, on the basis
that it's to the credit card company's advantage, in that enough people won't
pay off in time to justify the rewards. (I should also note that it's more
common in UK/EU for credit cards to also have a monthly or annual fee.)

I'm not sure what additional fraud guarantees exist. I had fraud on my debit
card once, and it was resolved much easier and quicker than the time I had
fraud on my credit card. The UK does have a slightly odd additional consumer
protection law in that if you buy anything over £100 on a credit card, and the
goods turn out to be faulty, you can claim the cost back from the credit card
company, rather than the retailer. That's certainly vaguely useful, but I've
never heard of anyone choosing to have a credit card just for that reason.

I think there's potentially a different worldview at play in the "had a chance
to do something dumb and't didn't" approach. To massively overgeneralise, I'd
say the European way is to simply not put that temptation in front of people,
whereas the US way is to deliberately encourage it, so as to massively profit
from it (with the UK constantly torn between the two!) :)

So I'd say pretty much the opposite of your final conclusion: There are so few
advantages to using a credit card rather than a debit card that why would you
bother with the hassle/risk?

~~~
mikeash
If nothing else, a credit card gives you a month-long interest-free loan when
used properly. That's money in your pocket if you keep the difference in an
interest-bearing account. Why _wouldn't_ you take advantage of this?

I'm not sure what hassle/risk you're talking about with a credit card. The
hassle factor is the same (approximately none) and the risk is lower, not
higher.

~~~
salvadors
People always say this "interest-free loan" thing, but it doesn't make a lot
of sense to me. In an average month I spend under €1000 a month on my debit
card, but let's round it up to that just for an example. My bank doesn't pay
interest on current account balances. Even if I were to go through the hassle
of setting up a term deposit for that, the total interest I'd receive on that
in one month is 78 cents.

I can think of any number of reasons why I _wouldn't_ bother taking advantage
of that.

The question as to whether a credit card is more/less/even risk to a debit
card is pretty much the issue at hand here, but even leaving aside the
slightly odd issue of psychological risks and hassles, I've heard plenty of
horror stories from people in the US where something went wrong to make their
monthly payment late (including the credit card company just deciding to
change the due date), thus triggering all sorts of badness.

~~~
mikeash
Well, get a better checking account to start with!

Yeah, the money is small, but it's also free. I mean, $10-20/year for doing
nothing? Why not?

So as you say, it comes down to the risk differential. If you believe a debit
card is less risk, then certainly a tiny amount of interest won't change your
mind.

For what it's worth, I've heard far more horror stories about debit cards than
credit cards. The major difference is that with a debit card, _any_ company
that gets your card info can screw you over. You place an order online, and
the company charges you $1000 instead of $10 by mistake, leaving no money in
your account. Your next transaction then overdrafts, leaving you with a fat
fee. In theory, it's not your fault and you should be able to get the bank or
the merchant to cover it, but they'll all be pointing fingers elsewhere....

And of course, if you can't get the money refunded immediately then you spend
a great deal of time with no money in your account. Now you may have trouble
buying necessities etc. until the situation is fixed.

Additionally, I have my credit cards set up to automatically pay off the full
balance each month. If somebody tries to pull a dirty trick and the payment is
made late, the blame is clearly and fully with them, so I imagine that would
be quickly resolved. Beyond that, there really isn't anything to go wrong
other than a major failure of self-control.

~~~
salvadors
Where does one find these magical accounts? In many countries no bank pays
interest on current accounts, or, where they do, currently interest rates
generally are so low anyway that the amounts are negligible. I have much
better ways of arranging my finances than faffing around with credit cards I
don't need and moving money around short term money market accounts just to
earn less than $20 extra a year.

As for your example of buying something online with a debit card, I don't do
that. My bank lets me generate as many virtual cards as I like for online
shopping, each with a different number. I set the maximum amount that can be
charged to each one and I can then order anything I want online with it with
none of the risks you mention.

Even if I couldn't do that, the situation you describe wouldn't arise, as

a) I have daily limits on various types of transfers and withdrawals (that I
can adjust online if I need to spend more than that at any time, so I keep the
defaults pretty low). So even if someone was being malicious they still
couldn't take out more than that amount (and I've SMS notifications set up for
all transfers over a fairly low limit too, so they couldn't just come back and
take another payment every day until I was cleaned out). It would certainly
inconvenience me, but that's just as true with a credit card (and that would
probably take me longer to notice). And, as I said earlier, I've had
experience of problems with both, and the credit card ones were much more
hassle to resolve.

b) my current account is multi-currency, so even if someone managed to clean
out all my euros, I'd still have cash in GBP, USD, etc.

c) most of my money isn't in my current account anyway, so even if _that_ got
completely cleaned out, in all currencies, I'd still have money in my various
other accounts.

~~~
mikeash
Interest bearing checking accounts do exist. They're not making much right
now, but it's more than zero.

I don't get why you describe credit cards as "faffing around". They're no more
hassle than debit cards.

------
guynamedloren
So, who emailed Justin after seeing this page? Wonder how affective this is!

~~~
blahedo
Clearly, this page displays strong affect; that's why we're all talking about
it. The question is, does it work?

~~~
sandieman
Only if females existed on hackernews to let us know!

~~~
ChrisAnn
Damn, I guess we'll never find out seeing as there aren't any on the internet
at all...

(also, maybe Justin likes boys.)

Edit: It would seem sarcasm falls on deaf ears at Hacker News. Note my
feminine username...

~~~
sp332
HN doesn't read usernames, that's why they're in small gray print.

------
wwweston
Shades of datelance.com:

[http://www.deseretnews.com/article/600150311/Friends-post-
bi...](http://www.deseretnews.com/article/600150311/Friends-post-big-ad-for-
old-bachelor.html)

------
dr_
Since it's at mint.com/accounting I wonder if it an intentional dig at the
traditional concept of accounting, or at least personal finance, as opposed to
what mint offers?

Just a thought.

------
insraq
"The page is not available, but Justin is" - very creative.

------
scoot
Um, why are we upvoting this dreadful stereotype of a developer (dickie bow,
nerd glasses, and "slow cars, sharp crayons, awkward silences") Puhlease!

------
JAVagueArgument
JavaScript Polaroid (you have to shake it like one) 404
<http://fatjed.com/404>

------
asktell
GitHub has the 404 I've been looking for: <https://github.com/404.html>

------
cupcake_death
Page Sad Clowned <http://www.explore.to/nothing-here>

~~~
jarofgreen
That serves a completely blank page for me. You broke the 404! :-p

------
anid101
This one is awesome too - <http://playcez.com/error>

------
jeremyt
Genius link bait.

------
kwamenum86
Watch from tokyoflash.com. Nice.

------
LearnYouALisp
That man needs to shave!

~~~
biesnecker
Or maybe he doesn't.... they need to A/B test! :)

~~~
LearnYouALisp
I knew what the reaction here would be. I know what the modern "trend" is, and
its unprofessional.

~~~
biesnecker
How is figuring out what your customers actually respond to unprofessional?

~~~
LearnYouALisp
It's so basic that we really shouldn't have to talk about it: this is personal
presentation, interaction, humanity. The trouble is people who live in a
virtual world lose much of that consciousness (and it's happened to me as well
before).

------
Tharkun
I can warmly recommend <http://www.404.be>.

------
ronbeltran
Is there any mint.com girl developer who wants a date? I only see Justin on
404, or maybe they dont have girl developers.

