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Unbox therapy exposed

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P

painey

Member
scamming people on CSGO is one thing, but getting overly angry that your chances of winning a free phone were artificially inflated is another. I get that you could lose some respect for the guy, but these videos are attacking him like he is another CSGO rip off merchant.
 
A

Alphahawk

Member
I''m really tired of this trend of Youtubers calling out other Youtubers. Even like the Counterstrke thing,, got annoying at some point and people should of just let the feds handle it. As for this, I really don't care if someone made a fake promotion to inflate views, in the end it's not really hurting anyone.
 
H

Hidden One

Member
I recently subscribed to the guy like less than a week ago, I saw that he uploaded that giveaway video and in the back up my mind I thought "something isn't right". *sigh* All these "big" Youtubers are scum.

Edit: lol Just watch HonorTheCalls video..It makes TOO much sense to not be right.
 
F

Fat4all

Banned
Media said:
It's seems like cons are going to be the next big thing on YouTube. Easier to con people when you make money simply by having them watch your video.
Click to expand...

It's not too new unfortunately, there's been a few notable cons coming from youtubers for a couple years now.
 
Soodanim

Soodanim

Gold Member
Watched the first video. So there was no monetary investment from the viewers, but people are mad that not enough people got free shit? Okay. So this is a thread about entitlement. Cool.

I'm not seeing the cause for outrage. To me it's closer to getting mad at YouTube prank videos that are staged earning the creators money than it is to that CS:GO thing. As far as I can tell no one is entitled to free phones.

Giving a prize to that fiancée though, if that's breaking regulations of some kind then they messed up.
 
B

BigJonsson

Member
There was a groupon-like site years ago for the Toronto area that got a lot of attention by doing an hourly iPad giveaway and most of the winners seemed to be tech or shopping bloggers, seemed pretty sketchy


Aren't there laws concerning giveaways? Big companies have a ton of legal shit to go through in order to hold a contest, why should youtube be different?
 
F

Fat4all

Banned
BigJonsson said:
There was a groupon-like site years ago for the Toronto area that got a lot of attention by doing an hourly iPad giveaway and most of the winners seemed to be tech or shopping bloggers, seemed pretty sketchy


Aren't there laws concerning giveaways? Big companies have a ton of legal shit to go through in order to hold a contest, why should youtube be different?
Click to expand...

I actually looked up contest laws for the internet, and it seems like they only need to be pretty barebones to be legal. Dunno about Canada.

I think the rules can be even more loose depending on what kinds of contest or giveaway it is. Pretty sad.
 
T

tomtom94

Member
SixFourMike said:
Watched the first video. So there was no monetary investment from the viewers, but people are mad that not enough people got free shit? Okay. So this is a thread about entitlement. Cool.

I'm not seeing the cause for outrage. To me it's closer to getting mad at YouTube prank videos that are staged earning the creators money than it is to that CS:GO thing. As far as I can tell no one is entitled to free phones.
Click to expand...

The video about the giveaway is extremely misleading about your chances of winning if you enter. There are rules against this sort of thing for a reason.
 
O

Ozigizo

Member
BigJonsson said:
There was a groupon-like site years ago for the Toronto area that got a lot of attention by doing an hourly iPad giveaway and most of the winners seemed to be tech or shopping bloggers, seemed pretty sketchy


Aren't there laws concerning giveaways? Big companies have a ton of legal shit to go through in order to hold a contest, why should youtube be different?
Click to expand...

Yes. The ftc are strict about them. Not following them also opens you up to civil suits.
 
B

BigJonsson

Member
Fat4all said:
I actually looked up contest laws for the internet, and it seems like they only need to be pretty barebones to be legal. Dunno about Canada.

I think the rules can be even more loose depending on what kinds of contest or giveaway it is. Pretty sad.
Click to expand...

Should require a skill testing question to win lol

I won a big prize at a Toronto Blue Jays game and had to fill out a bunch of paperwork right after


Edit - I could see governments regulating YouTube giveaways if they continue to generate that much traffic, may take a very long time though.....or if people sue or make complaints to relevant agencies instead of only complaining in a competing youtube video
 
S

SirRattleBalls

Banned
dbrand posted this on to his video, dont know if its real or fake , bit the profile links directly to their youtube page.

Hey everyone, dbrand here. Yep… the same dbrand who has been called out in this video. While we understand that the nature of a “drama” channel is to maximize the lifespan of a trending story, dragging dbrand into this was a misstep.

We’ll address each of the allegations made in this video under a bolded header. Honor, feel free to take off your tin-foil hat…

Allegation: The Black Friday Contest Winner was hand-picked

Before specifically addressing the fact that we ‘hand-picked’ this winner – a claim which is unequivocally false, let’s take a second to go over the eligibility requirements for our $80,000 NBA-All Star Black Friday Contest. The rules were quite simple: each purchase of $30 or more gets you one entry to win. Of course, we also had a “No Purchase Necessary” entry method, as is required by law.

Now that we’re all clear on the eligibility requirements, let’s introduce one important fact: the high volume of sales we achieved on Black Friday weren’t fueled by basketball enthusiasts looking to win a trip to the All-Star game.

As is the case with every company who holds a Black Friday promo, our sales were fueled by bargain hunters. In fact, with an average cart value of $21.38 during the promotional window, approximately 80.305% of our sales were ineligible to win (sub-$30 cart value).

The reality of the situation is that if you met the eligibility requirements, your odds to win were strong. Don’t believe us? Let’s do the math.

As you accurately researched, we made over $1,000,000 during the Black Friday promotion. The precise figure was $1,034,308.32.

Total sales = $1,034,308.32
Average cart value = $21.38 (rounded for precision)
Total orders = 48,378
Total ineligible orders = 38,850
Total no purchase necessary ballots = 36
Total eligible participants = 9,564

This means that an eligible participant with one entry had 1 in 9,564 odds to win.

The winner placed two eligible orders: one containing two smartphone kits and one containing a MacBook kit.

With two entries, the winner’s odds were 1 in 4,782.

Now that we have our numbers straight, let’s resolve the accusation of bias. Every no purchase necessary ballot was assigned a random ID. Those, along with the 9,528 eligible order IDs, were placed in an Excel file – one which contained only the ID numbers (no participant information). We then used a random selector function within Excel, more precisely =INDEX(A1:A9564,RANDBETWEEN(1,9564)), to yield the winning ID.

Now that we’ve clarified the winner selection process, let’s move on.

Allegation: The winner was the fiancée of a Pocketnow reviewer

True!

With that said, you can’t genuinely believe that we would compromise the integrity of such a large-scale contest in an attempt to gain favour with a content creator of his size – absolutely no disrespect to his work intended. The reality is that we’re in a position where we don’t have to risk our company’s reputation for the sake of exposure – we’re fortunate enough to be able to collaborate with the biggest tech influencers on the planet.

Did the winner have a connection with an editor in the tech community? Yes.

Did we know about this connection at the time of winner selection? No.

Why did we never formally announce the winner? Quite simple. She didn’t consent to any publicity before the All-Star weekend. People – actually, people like you – are malicious. She didn’t want to be harassed for the weeks and months leading up to the All-Star weekend. We honoured her request to remain anonymous until the weekend began – anything after that was entirely her prerogative.

Should we have disqualified the winner once we became aware of the connection? We firmly believe the answer is no. A random selection process is exactly that: random. Altering the results in any way would not only contradict that principle, but would also be extremely unfair to the winner who broke no rules.

Allegation: There was a pre-existing relationship with the winner, demonstrated via Twitter

This is quite easy to debunk. Every tweet shown in this video between the contest winner and dbrand was posted during or after the All-Star weekend (Feb 12-14).

Feb 14 2016: https://twitter.com/dbrandSkins/status/698936481717432321
Feb 14 2015: https://twitter.com/deviedoodle/status/698947716001366017
Feb 15 2015: https://twitter.com/deviedoodle/status/699138536461754368
Feb 17 2016: https://twitter.com/deviedoodle/status/700108418183397376

But wait... we did lie

Unfortunately, it’s not in the way you think. Our prize wasn't really worth $80,000.

Putting the flight costs, hotel, and $1,000 cash aside, the NBA All-Star tickets alone were $90,000. Skeptical? We don’t blame you… that’s a lot of money. Here’s the wire transfer confirmation: http://i.imgur.com/hSPqIbP.jpg. Need more? Here’s an article on Sportsnet – second paragraph, last sentence: http://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/all-star-game-tickets-available-but-expensive/.

p.s. you fucking suck at cod
Click to expand...
 
F

Fat4all

Banned
BigJonsson said:
Should require a skill testing question to win lol

I won a big prize at a Toronto Blue Jays game and had to fill out a bunch of paperwork right after
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure in Canada you need to answer a question in order to win most giveaways. Usually, at least.
 
T

thenexus6

Member
I used to watch him but stopped ages ago. alot of people in the "tech circle" on Youtube got really lame.. him, TLD today, (I never watched him but that lame Austin Evans guy) and some others. Unsubbed them all.
 
M

Maximo

Member
Alphahawk said:
I''m really tired of this trend of Youtubers calling out other Youtubers. Even like the Counterstrke thing,, got annoying at some point and people should of just let the feds handle it. As for this, I really don't care if someone made a fake promotion to inflate views, in the end it's not really hurting anyone.
Click to expand...

Your tired of a couple of Youtubers breaking the law and pushing gambling onto teenagers and children for profit, dam son what DON'T you get bored of?
 
T

The Beard

Member
painey said:
scamming people on CSGO is one thing, but getting overly angry that your chances of winning a free phone were artificially inflated is another. I get that you could lose some respect for the guy, but these videos are attacking him like he is another CSGO rip off merchant.
Click to expand...

It's not necessarily individuals getting mad that their odds of winning an iPhone weren't as good as they were led to believe, it's the using shady, border line illegal practices to get viewers/subscribers to make more money for themselves.

Not to mention the "for each $30 you spend on our website, you get an entry into our sweepstakes." bullshit, where people were asked to spend money for a chance to win a prize that an employees fiancée ended up "winning".

It's shady as fuck, and they deserve to be called out for it.
 
D

dity

Member
Maximo said:
Your tired of a couple of Youtubers breaking the law and pushing gambling onto teenagers and children for profit, dam son what DON'T you get bored of?
Click to expand...

Nice job conveniently not bolding the "at some point" part. I can see where they're coming from. I remember when Youtube was absolutely filled with Fine Bros rant videos, after about a week it's like beating a dead horse. Nothing new being brought to the table, just people saying the same same stuff about the same things a ton of Youtubers have already covered in a very short time period.

The Beard said:
It's not necessarily individuals getting mad that their odds of winning an iPhone weren't as good as they were led to believe, it's the using shady, border line illegal practices to get viewers/subscribers to make more money for themselves.

Not to mention the "for each $30 you spend on our website, you get an entry into our sweepstakes." bullshit, where people were asked to spend money for a chance to win a prize that an employees fiancée ended up "winning".

It's shady as fuck, and they deserve to be called out for it.
Click to expand...

Are you @OneWithABeard, because if so you might want to concern yourself more with associating with serial harassers than some giveaway conspiracy you're obsessing over. Get some perspective.
 
S

Simply Sami

Member
dity said:
Nice job conveniently not bolding the "at some point" part. I can see where they're coming from. I remember when Youtube was absolutely filled with Fine Bros rant videos, after about a week it's like beating a dead horse. Nothing new being brought to the table, just people saying the same same stuff about the same things a ton of Youtubers have already covered in a very short time period.



Are you @OneWithABeard, because if so you might want to concern yourself more with associating with serial harassers than some giveaway conspiracy you're obsessing over. Get some perspective.
Click to expand...

I thought you were out.

If you don't like this thread, why do you keep posting in it? It's not rocket science is it what you need to do next.
 
T

The Beard

Member
dity said:
Are you @OneWithABeard, because if so you might want to concern yourself more with associating with serial harassers than some giveaway conspiracy you're obsessing over. Get some perspective.
Click to expand...

No, I don't have a Twitter account. Never heard of that guy either.

You're going to bat for liars that you don't even know, and you're trying to call me out?
 
D

dity

Member
Simply Sami said:
I thought you were out.

If you don't like this thread, why do you keep posting in it? It's not rocket science is it what you need to do next.
Click to expand...

I mentally signed out. But I'll unsub now too, lol.

The Beard said:
No, I don't have a Twitter account. Never heard of that guy either.

You're going to bat for liars that you don't even know, and you're trying to call me out?
Click to expand...

You're "The Beard", that twitter has been linked in the thread already (despite how small of an account it is), not too much of an absurd assumption to make. Suss to me how a random low follower account is linked to and then suddenly someone with a similar username is in the thread. But if you ain't them, you ain't them.

Messofanego said:
Get some evidence first before you accuse others of such things.
Click to expand...

"Are you, because if so".
 
S

Simply Sami

Member
dity said:
I mentally signed out. But I'll unsub now too, lol.



You're "The Beard", that twitter has been linked in the thread already (despite how small of an account it is), not too much of an absurd assumption to make.
Click to expand...

You mentally signed out when you started posting in this thread.

Question how your idol gets 800 phones for starters. Apple don't like the guy after he was giving them bad publicity by bending their phones easily. So I doubt they'd be involved in any of this. Those videos were very good, I actually enjoyed that side of his content. It was great because they actually solved the problem for the 6s.
 
D

dity

Member
Simply Sami said:
You mentally signed out when you started posting in this thread.

Question how your idol gets 800 phones for starters. Apple don't like the guy after he was giving them bad publicity by bending their phones easily. So I doubt they'd be involved in any of this. Those videos were very good, I actually enjoyed that side of his content. It was great because they actually solved the problem for the 6s.
Click to expand...

Tab closed.
 
M

Messofanego

Banned
dity said:
"Are you, because if so".
Click to expand...
You didn't need to add the bit about being associated with a serial harasser. Could've just stopped simply at "Are you @TheOneWithABeard?".

This kind of leading question reminds me of when police stopped me over for a "random" check and said the following without any evidence: "We were reported about someone that fits you. Were you watching children outside of a school inappropriately? Because if so, do not do that again!". They had no evidence that I was near some school or even in that area. I didn't like the possible accusation that I was a pedophile. Even if you add qualifiers, it still feels like an insult and accusation when you jump to conclusions already. Just, take it one step at a time.
 
S

Simply Sami

Member
Symphonia said:
Watch the original giveaway video.

He says he's giving away *some* iPhones, not *those* iPhones.
Click to expand...

You haven't answered my question.

Why did he need to show a truckload of empty boxes and announce he is doing a giveaway? He obviously knew the reaction that the video would get. He isn't stupid.

Any normal person who is doing a giveaway would announce how many. Not just I am giving some of these iPhones away from this truckload, like and share my video please.
 
V

Vyer

Member
This is the bendgate dude right? Was shilling for Samsung in official videos not long after lol.

That box of phones pic is ridiculous
 
V

Vamp

Member
I dont understand why in this videos there is footage of some first person game playing in the background while the guy is talking.
I have seen this also on some other videos, is this some new trend?
 
T

Terrifyer

Banned
It seems clear that Unbox Therapy was dishonest about the giveaway and deserves to be called out for it, but at the same time I'm already tired of these multi part takedown/"exposed" series.

It made sense for csgo gambling because that was a big multi-layered issue, but this situation is super simple and not nearly as egregious. Parts 2 and 3 lean really heavily into speculation and just repeating the same stuff. I think this desensitizes people to real scandals and is being done by HonorTheCall and other channels just to generate clicks.
 
jts

jts

...hate me...
So I've seen the beginning of the video and I agree it's pretty scummy. Not illegal-scummy it seems since there is only vague promises and innuendo but scummy enough to be called out for and hurt his reputation.

In any case I tried to the maths, and counted very roughly 720 iPhones in that truck, which at an 2016 estimated ASP of $690 it's about $500.000, half a mill.

£20.000 are rather humbling compared to that, lol. With that kind of money he couldn't have given away more than 30-something iPhones without turning a loss.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Gross but this is also what TV does. HGTV and MTV produce more elaborate frauds every day. Burn it all down.
 
D

Darkwater

Member
Symphonia said:
Watch the original giveaway video.

He says he's giving away *some* iPhones, not *those* iPhones.
Click to expand...

SsLkoMZ.gif
 
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