Absolutely agree with this comment. Here's the impression that I see at a "first glance" that page:

1.) The item to purchase, along with the price of the item. 2.) A bright magenta "Continue Checkout" button. 3.) An ad for an upsell on the right hand side which I'm generally not interested in. (on the right side, light grey text, etc)

Only after carefully scanning the page do I notice the following:

3.) This isn't an ad, it's actually something important for me to read. 4.) There is a tiny magenta link on the right hand side with explanation text that says to click it if I don't want to save 50%. 5.) Way down at the bottom of the page is text.

So I went ahead and did try it out myself. I borrowed a friend's laptop (that doesn't have a developer-level screen resolution). The screen resolution was 1333 x 768 and FF is maximized there. Here is what it looked like http://imgur.com/9rHhhLV

What's missing from that page, is all of the important information about the VIP program. What is present is the price of the item, the quantity and a magenta "Continue Checkout" button.

I'm definitely calling "Dark Pattern" on this one. Hiding important text off the screen, coloring the important text a light grey, even when the text is visible it is far down the right side in a small font.

At first, I disagreed with your tone and profanity. But now, after trying to checkout on that site myself, I realize that it's fair to treat people who knowingly aid scammers, this way. Especially when they are the ones who fund them. It's not like they are innocent little babies, right? They (the company and the investors) know obviously why the conversion rates are so high - Because they are very subtle-y scamming people. We must not encourage this type of shit. It will get back to us at some point. I am with you on this one.

Also with you on this. The checkout flow is deliberately misleading. Sorry Mr. VC, you DID do your homework and the fact that you still invested is telling.

First off, what is the "happy path" on this checkout page? Right, totals + shipping costs + grand totals + checkout button. What else is hiding in this element? "Promo Code: 50% off your FIRST item", emphasis mine. What this is telling the consumer, is NOT that you are signing up to the VIP program and getting a discount because of it, it's saying "hey, since you're new, we are giving you a discount".

Would a consumer walk away from the happy path with the assumption that they had signed up to a subscription in exchange for the 50% off for their first item? No.

Yes Mr. VC, the subscription info is here on the page, but the location is not an anchor. The way the page is designed is to funnel the users attention down to the continue checkout button. The product designers knew this. At least GoDaddy puts their useless up-sells in the middle of the page, but they clearly give users an ability to opt out. They don't try to fool users by hiding them on parts of the page where they know they won't look.

Wow, I just said a startup is worse than GoDaddy. Getting frosty in hell no?

> When a user goes to checkout of any online store, they're not going to read everything on every page. It's a process they're very familiar with so they're going to skim and click through quickly. I know this, you know this, and JustFab knows this.

This is the key point. If I know, you know, and JustFab know, then JustFab is without doubt acting in deceitful behavior. The act of deliberately portraying a subscription as an sale, usually comes down to the FTC (and sometimes State law) under the heading of False advertising.

Going to justfab website, nowhere on the front page or in the catalog does the word "subscription" become uttered. Not even in the linked checkout images is it mentioned. Justfab could argue that "everyone knows" that a VIP membership is the same as subscription, but it would be up to them to argue and prove that.

The front page especially could also be targeted, as it states clearly that 2 pairs goes for 39.95, and uses the word "buy" to describe it rather than subscribe.

Agreed, complete scam. From that image it looks like you are making a standard purchase for a pair of shoes, and possibly just signing up to their site. Its only if you read in detail everything on that page and get down to 3 in the bottom right that it finally says you will be charged a monthly fee.

And remember, my fellow entrepreneurs: if an investor is ok with cheating customers, there's no reason to think they will have a problem cheating you.

Double agree.

Not delivering value for dollar is called one thing: a scam. It might be letter of US law legal (which doesn't have a stellar consumer protections record), but it's dishonest as predatory lending and crap hawked from backs of magazines.

TL;DR Series A investor is trying to rationalize legitimacy to himself in the face of overwhelming conflicting evidence. Don't worry chap, denial is the first step toward accepting you dumped cash on a charlatan. Hopefully it won't end up in plastic barrels in the desert.

The number to cancel VIP is 1-866-337-0906 (as seen on TOS)

Exactly. It's a bullshit scam. The entire page guides you into signing up for a "VIP" style, but always looks and feels like you're buying a single pair of shoes. It is a scam, plain and simple, and their recurring income is from the privilege of sending poor unwary consumers a new pair of shoes every single month without their full understanding.

It's no better than the mail-order monthly subscription scams of olde. Perhaps people invest in those too, but no one in their right mind claims it's "a great company."

It's a scam using classic deceptive marketing methods. No debate, no question.

I suppose it isn't exactly Blue Hippo, but they'd have to be pretty obtuse not to know that it is misleading, regardless of whether it is the old or new version of the page.[1][2]

Take for example item number three shared by both in the side bar: "Skip The Month" or "Skip any month".

This isn't the usual lowercase English word "skip", it is a special "Skip", short for special terminology "Skip the Month", their official term for actively declining within a five day window, not passively skipping a purchase. (The official terms and conditions[3] specify "Skip This Month" rather than "Skip The Month", but that may be another issue.)

Its meaning could be ambiguous if the reader is adept at incorporating new usages for words as they are being defined by the surrounding context. Or, the reader could skim the headings, or the reader simply lacked the reading comprehension skills to grasp that the meaning had changed in the text below the heading.

These challenges can be out of reach for a large majority of adults. Glance at the National Assessment for Adult Literacy[4], see the descriptions of the difference between "intermediate" (44%) and "proficient" (13%), and compare the difficulty of sample questions[5] with the comprehension level needed to grasp the message. (Complete reports can be found here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/getpubcats.asp?sid=032)

This extremely poor communication that never seems to happen when people benefit from their customers understanding what they are trying to say, and makes it pretty difficult to deny that their business is based on misleading people.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/3di93.png

[2] http://i.imgur.com/d02xmsy.png

[3] http://www.justfab.com/index.cfm?action=home.terms_and_condi...

[4] http://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp#2

[5] http://nces.ed.gov/naal/sample.asp

Seeing the comments, I wonder if the only person he was trying to convince was himself.

From what I see in his comment, it looks quite like a rationalization attempt.

Came to say this. I can smell class action against JustFab.

Agreed. This 'investor' is full of shit. Per their own screen capture, there is no line item for 'VIP membership' in the cart section of the page. As such, it reasonably appears that the customer is buying no such thing. But, in fact, they are!

The presence of the sidebar is irrelevant, as it is in no way visually associated with the current transaction.

I hope this ends up as the most upvoted post in HN history.

I came to it knowing the OP's story and still had to think for a minute to realize the pre-checked VIP option was the monthly thing the OP described. What hope does someone without so much information have?

If investors get a good ROI all legally they might be horrible people but not horrible investors.