Are you really going to try to keep repeating yourself in an attempt to compare this shady business to amazon?
Amazon is in it for the very long run (they just turned a profit this year). Good luck trying to continue to dance this song to the tune of amazon. It won't last. It is likely a legal practice, and your background might blind you into believing that unintended actions by well-meaning consumers is a perfectly reasonable business model to profit from (at least it is more transparent in the beating industry). At least you know that you are in it against the house, in most cases.
The point is that the ratings on consumeraffairs alone are meaningless as a criticism of JustFab, given that they rank Amazon so low and 1SaleADay so high.
"credits never expire. If you have 8 credits in your account, you can go get 8 pairs of shoes."
It is called breakage. If they do not expire now, they will start to expire soon. What good is it to accumulate some revenue, if you cannot claim it has no cost associated to it? Either you do not know what it represents, or you are playing a good card. Sorry for the sarcasm to start this, but it sounds fishy.
I have no ethical problem with sites that make it easier for customers to get an on-going service (a subscription), when it is more convenient to have it than the opposite. (cellphones, gas, electricity) In this cases, it is much more cool not to have to deal with $39 or whatever amount it is decided that the store wants to discount to call you upon that private VIP club. It is dirty pricing.
And yes, I did go to the link you provided, and I did noticed that it is not necessary to read 2,500 words to figure out that the company is walking a fine line in between ethics and law. Bravo, for the tack-team, probably composed of some 5th av creative minds and some hard knock lawyers.
But this does not exclude the fact that IF the site wants to be ethical, and IF it gets at least a very little percentage of its revenue due to this, it should try hard, very hard; to tell people that visit their site for their first time, that a little fuck you contract might fall in their lap that very day if they are not fully aware of what they are doing.
In fact, it it happened once, and you realize, it may be possible that it has been misleading, you should change it.
I really hope a more transparent player comes along and have you guys think about this very concerning issue deeply.
I can attest that it is indeed the 'scummy side of the internet'.
I'm developing a real online business in Medellin (mentioned in the article as one place becoming popular) - and have run across a bunch of Timothy Ferriss groupies that spend their days perfecting the art of SEO, for businesses that they fully know bring in cero value to society.
They consider the internet a fool's playground, and their mission seems to be that of profitting from its fools.
Amazon is in it for the very long run (they just turned a profit this year). Good luck trying to continue to dance this song to the tune of amazon. It won't last. It is likely a legal practice, and your background might blind you into believing that unintended actions by well-meaning consumers is a perfectly reasonable business model to profit from (at least it is more transparent in the beating industry). At least you know that you are in it against the house, in most cases.
Shame on you.