1 post tagged “scams”

YUWIE:  Social Networking With a Twist, or Just Twisted Social Networking?

I like the convenience of a website that allows me to socially network and blog all on one site! It's great to see opportunities expanding on the net for those like me!!!

In September I discovered Yuwie, the first social networking site to pay its members for doing the same things they would on sites like MySpace, Facebook, or Bebo. It's based on the concept of multi-level marketing, with each member being an "uplink" to those who join using their referral code.

I figured I'd give it a try, and had been enjoying the 500+ plus friends and fans of my blogs for about a month, when things began to get twisted on Yuwie. In October, Yuwie administration began offering rewards of referrals to members for reporting "indecent" content found on other member profiles. I assumed they were referring to spammers and those "cam girls", but still found the idea of paying to snitch highly distasteful!!!

The drama alone made logging onto Yuwie a real chore, as many blogs emerged in outrage about the Yuwie "witch hunt". Aside from the incessant talk about how to make more money off of "friends" by getting more referrals, Yuwie "snitches" seemed to be the primary topic of blogs and bulletins on the site for months! I felt pretty confident that my graphic art, nature photography, poetry, and music videos were well within Yuwie's TOS.

So imagine my surprise when I received a notice from Yuwie in late November notifying me that my account was locked for having images on my profile that violate their terms of service!  I'd combined photographs, graphics, and music videos in creating my profile. It was impossible to know just WHICH image they found offensive! Because none of it was in violation of Yuwie's clearly defined TOS, the best I could do was remove all of it and start over!

As soon as I completed the changes,  I notified Yuwie that my account was ready to be reviewed, and hopefully unlocked.

In the FOUR MONTHS that I waited for my account to be unlocked, I got curious and began Googling for blogs on the net about strange happenings with Yuwie. I found a few that seemed to be placed there for the benefit of Yuwie members jumping in to sing the praises of the website. One blog I found by Googling "Yuwie scams" mistakenly referred to Yuwie as a "pyramid scheme"! Curiously, not one blog mentioned the ongoing issue of Yuwie rewarding its members to snitch on their social networking friends.

But shortly after the mysterious unlocking of my profile recently, I found a forum on Yuwie, calling itself "the Yuwie Lockouts", and began to read about the nightmare experiences of other members subjected to the Yuwie twist. Very little about Yuwie makes much sense, but one thing is made abundantly clear. Whoever is running the site needs to sit down and read Miss Manners.

The variety of incongruous stories of the many victims of perplexing lockouts has made my head spin! The many Yuwie members I've encountered who were locked out were not caught spamming, were not lurking "cam girls", or sneaking indecency onto the "age fourteen and over" site!  They were, however, exposed to a heavy dose of rudeness, Yuwie style. One could easily say Yuwie has used such badly twisted manners that it's taken indecency to a whole new level!

Here is one example of Yuwie's "decency" with a confused member that had been locked out, when he wrote to ask just what on his profile had been in violation....

"Dear Customer

Your support ticket: #xxxxx has been replied to.

Response: Read the message you were sent. It states: "Your profile layout violates our terms. I guess you read it, because your profile is now fine. Your account is unlocked.

Thank you, Yuwie Support Team"

SUPPORT Team??!!! Does that seem very supportive to you? Or just arrogant and rude?

Yuwie also scores low points for its choice in advertisers. For a site boasting high standards in decency, one Yuwie member put it succinctly when she mentioned one indecent advertisement commonly seen on the site:  "I think it is horrible that on a "decent" site there [are] ads urging sex starved spouses to leer over to another site to have dirty casual sex."

Gee, that's a GREAT and oh so very decent message for Yuwie to be giving fourteen year olds about marriage!

The final point Yuwie's managed to score in its losing streak with me came in just this week, when Yuwie messaged me, with no explanation or apology about my four month lockout. The message was simply to tell me that Yuwie had "randomly" given me a referral, and provided the link if I wanted to add the member as a friend! When I went to the profile, it had no avatar and was marked "Private". Sorry, Yuwie, but that's just plain creepy!

I'm not sure another website with the ambition Yuwie started out with could behave in such a thoroughly confusing, perplexing, rude, unpleasant, migraine inducing, and uh...indecent way.  If anyone should happen to suggest you give Yuwie a try, consider it an indecent proposal.

Guess what, Yuwie? Bad manners earns you only one thing, even on the internet...

Shame on you, YUWIE!!!