

How Groupon's UK insiders are ripping off UK public - vizzah
http://scam-revelations.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-groupon-uk-scams-its-unsuspecting.html

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waitwhat
The Advertising Standards Agency referred Groupon to the Office of Fair
Trading last week. [http://www.asa.org.uk/Media-Centre/2011/ASA-to-refer-
complai...](http://www.asa.org.uk/Media-Centre/2011/ASA-to-refer-complaints-
about-Groupon-to-OFT.aspx)

Groupon has breached the ASA's code 50 times so far this year.
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/07/groupon-
bre...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/07/groupon-breaches-asa-
code)

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waqf
I too thought it was called the "Advertising Standards Agency", but apparently
it's the "... Authority".

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whiskers
I generally really dislike the Groupon approach and have since it started.

The size of the discounts they enforce ensures a constant stream of people
convinced they are getting a great deal without really mentally evaluating and
doing due diligence on the offer: "Hey wow! 87% off?! This must be a great
deal I shouldn't miss out on it!".

On the flip side for most genuine honest businesses these levels of discounts
are almost certainly a bad thing. They only consider them because of the
promise of "more jam tomorrow" when the customers come back at full price. The
problem being that they don't - they were only there for the deal price.

This is the icing on the cake though. Whenever you create a new channel for
selling products or services it won't be long before the scammers and conmen
arrive in force to take advantage of it while they can.

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helipad
Whether or not these conclusions are accurate, Groupon at least in the UK does
appear to be very fishy.

The sheer number of "business consultants" (read: graduates doing sales) they
are listing jobs for (<http://jobs.groupon.co.uk/>) is staggering and points
very much towards a deluded sense of their own scope.

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Matt_Mickiewicz
That's so dodgy, did they run out of legitimate businesses to run offers with,
so they have to create new entities?

