[abalone]

Pardon my french HN, but what a load of horseshit.

When I was a kid there was this mail-order thing called Columbia House Record Club. It was the same business model. They entice you with super cheap music.. if you signed up for a monthly subscription. I was a happy customer. Because I was smart enough to work the system, cancel in time and get a bunch of free CDs for pennies.

But guess what? Somebody was filling their coffers and it wasn't me. Columbia House made $500M/year. It was the regular folks who didn't pay close attention and didn't realize just how much they'd be charged on a recurring basis for stuff they didn't want.

So this VC's use of high customer satisfaction rates as a defense is utterly without merit. That's the nature of this business: savvy customers do well, but at the expense of another set of exploited customers.

Here's a great article on Columbia House, which calls it "one of the more dishonest and predatory marketing devices of the 20th century". It could just as well be about JustFab.

http://thephoenix.com/boston/music/129722-rise-and-fall-of-t...

Oh.. and now I have a really bad impression of Matrix Partners.

[po]

It may have been shady but even 8 year olds could tell that it was a 'club' and not a 'store' and knew that you had to cancel. It was "Join the club and get 8 CD's for free' not the other way around with small print. People just forgot to cancel or would stick with it for a while and then realize they weren't getting value. This is a different thing because it is intentionally masquerading as an online web store. Even other online services that sell subscriptions are designed differently.

This is making money off of deception, not consumer laziness like Columbia House was.

[calinet6]

Yes, you're right—Colombia House was less scammy and more reputable than Justfab. They're lower than pond scum.

[aestra]

And at least Colombia House actually um... sent you something.

[pbreit]

Sending you something you don't want is worse than adding a credit to your account for a future purchase of your choosing, IMO.

[photorized]

However, Columbia House was specifically advertised as a "club". It was even part of their name!

This JustFab business is much, much worse.