[HN Gopher] Deliveroo April Fools' joke backfires in France
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Deliveroo April Fools' joke backfires in France
Author : beaker52
Score : 114 points
Date : 2021-04-02 20:10 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| lopatin wrote:
| The French app users should leave 1 star reviews, short the
| stock, and switch to Doordash. Ya know, as an April fools joke.
| crashbunny wrote:
| That went down about as well as slashdot's april fools joke a few
| decades ago that started 2 weeks before april 1st. Slashdot said
| they were being sued. Complete with slashdot fans passing around
| a hat to take a collection for legal bills. This was long before
| go fund me type services, too.
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| I think most agree it was a bad joke - there is no 'absurdity' to
| it. Even when you find out it is fake, it's not really funny,
| it's more like "oh, why did you do that".
|
| That said, I'm amazed how angry commenters here seem to be
| getting over it. Yeah, they tried to do something funny, it
| wasn't, it backfired and annoyed people. But at the same time,
| lighten up. Not everything needs to be a rage-inspiring
| transgression.
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| Haha, I guess I'm a minority. Other commenters thought it was
| "morally reprehensible", "fraud", and are "livid". I'll try to
| do a better job of seeing how evil those around me really are.
| jessaustin wrote:
| At this point I try to laugh at everything, with the possible
| exception of low racist crap, just so I'm not associated in
| any way with the stick-up-the-ass no-one-can-laugh-if-not-
| everyone-is-laughing crowd.
|
| It hurts me, because I used to have very sophisticated taste
| in humor.
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| There is another comment in the thread where someone
| suggests that maybe its time we do away with april fools.
| Personally, I think most of the jokes are dumb (and
| honestly mostly closer to the kind of inoffensive-to-all
| anodyne crap that can still be distributed as a "joke").
| But I find it horrific that people think doing away with it
| is the answer (it's also possible that person is trolling I
| suppose)
|
| Anyway, I've said before, this reminds me of "The name of
| the rose" where the inquisition era zealot couldn't accept
| that religious men should laugh, because if they can laugh,
| they could laugh at God and the whole power of the church
| would fall apart. There is an echo of this in the current
| lack of tolerance for any humor that derives from making
| fun of something, grounded in the misunderstanding that
| finding humor in something means disrespecting it.
| gregorygoc wrote:
| Come on, people may have 600EUR in their bank account to
| survive a month and they receive some fake ass invoice, which
| is supposed to clear almost all of their savings. That's the
| definition of "not cool" April fools joke.
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| I'd concede that it's not cool, if true, that banks and tech
| companies have so much power over people that a fake invoice
| someone knows they aren't responsible for makes them afraid
| for their survival.
| saos wrote:
| Cmon dude. Everyone's made different. Such an email would
| Be very concerning. Especially during this economic period
| where people are losing their jobs.
|
| It's not cool at all
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Am the only person who thinks we should not do April Fools
| anymore? It's funny when you're 8 and in school. It's just become
| a day of annoying corporate bullshit as an adult.
| kelp wrote:
| You are not the only person. I would be super happy if we just
| stopped this thing once and for all. It was kind of funny 20
| years ago. It's not anymore.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| It's still funny. Just don't do a joke at the expense of
| another person or inconvenience people.
|
| IKEA sent an email about Hund Couture. They made a little
| video with dogs dressed in clothes made of IKEA bags.
| Amusing. Hurts no one.
|
| Sending someone a fake bill that looks real isn't really
| funny. I'm not even sure what that is.
| lopatin wrote:
| Even if we wanted to, how do you stop April fools? You can't
| just call it off, it's not a national holiday.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| Just make it extremely clear it's April 1st and do something
| unusual instead of lying to everyone.
|
| The worst part of April Fools' isn't the spirit, it's the
| deception and inauthenticity.
|
| I remember one creator on YouTube this year who put it as:
| "yes, today is April 1st, but what I did is real, not a lie,
| and it took actual effort to achieve."
| klyrs wrote:
| It was funny in the late 90s. Slashdot would go all wonky,
| everything was a lie, and it was mostly absurd press releases
| and wacky scientific "findings". You could say "bah humbug" and
| stay off the internet and mostly avoid it. Or, you knew what
| you were getting into after maybe the second headline.
|
| But the voltswagen thing was way too early. Jokes and serious
| news are mixed on sites like HN. This shit with deliveroo is
| _unthinkable_. And all this in a environment where fake news
| isn 't just rampant, it's been weaponized.
|
| Yeah, count me out. It's gone too far. Companies really need to
| quit it. At least, we could hope that HN could keep this crap
| off the front page
| linkdd wrote:
| > [...] it was mostly absurd press releases [...]
|
| Makes me thing about the april fools on LinuxFR[1]
|
| [1] - https://linuxfr.org/news/mise-en-place-du-port-du-
| masque-ave...
|
| TL;DR: Since the government authorized facial recognition on
| security cameras and the mask prevents that, they voted a law
| to have a QRCode on your mask to enable "facial" recognition
|
| Obvious fake news, but funny read anyway.
| joejacket wrote:
| It was never actually funny or amusing on Slashdot. I would
| usually block the domain for a few months after to make sure
| I didn't go back.
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| at least corporations should think twice before doing stupid
| tricks like this.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Internet April Fools jokes were fine and cute when the most
| viral a story could go was being #1 on slashdot, in 2001.
| Today? Not so much.
| anm89 wrote:
| That is astoundingly stupid.
| onion2k wrote:
| It's so hard to believe this is a real joke I'm half wondering if
| they did it to cover up a hack or something.
| rnotaro wrote:
| It's just an invoice email with an April Fools disclosure at
| the end. Cards are not really charged. Nothing to hint an hack
| or anything like that.
| bserge wrote:
| Resilience test of the customer support department? heh
| de6u99er wrote:
| I find those corporate April fools jokes unnecessary. It just
| hurts other businesses when communicating unpleasent news.
| Imagine getting an email that you got fired, and next day you
| appear at work thinking it was an April fools joke. Or that there
| was a security breach and you start mitigating it, only to find
| out that you wasted your time because of your manager being a
| joker.
| endisneigh wrote:
| this is one of the stupidest pranks I've ever seen.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Sometimes you see an idea so zany that you have trouble even
| modeling the person who thought it might be a good idea, and went
| so far as to follow through. This is one of those times, for me.
| tablespoon wrote:
| Doubly so for this. I can't understand how someone could come
| to the conclusion that 1) customers would think this was funny,
| and 2) it would improve their brand.
|
| I mean, this is a like an AWS April fools joke where they
| pretend to loose all your data or something.
| politelemon wrote:
| I'm sure that's just a hypothetical example but just reading
| that last sentence gave my feelings of anxiety. Of course I
| have backups, and of course I'm testing them... but still.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Typical tone deaf actions of the privileged. Myself, I would
| just chuckle and think "yeah right." Ten years ago I would
| have been in a panic, as someone mentioned previously, this
| would have been my food money for the month or my house
| payment and I would have been at thier mercy for a refund.
| Not appropriate, obviously now.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| The worst part is, I'm not sure it was only one person.
| yaml-ops-guy wrote:
| Sadly with the amount of "it's just a joke bro" I see on the
| Internet, it wasn't as difficult for me to model the person
| lacking the necessary scruples to think of this and then
| immediately think "nah, I better not"
| r00fus wrote:
| Some amateur clown is awaiting their termination check.
| aritmo wrote:
| I would pay $$$ to have a glimpse in the Zoom meeting that
| decided this April Fools.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| That's not even funny!
| waheoo wrote:
| I chuckled.
|
| April fools is about pranking people.
|
| Ya'll need to relax.
|
| I get that for some people this is a lot of money, but these
| people aren't stupid because they're poor, they too can figure
| out it's a prank.
|
| "That's funny, I didn't order 500 euro of pizza. No way I'm
| gonna pay that."
|
| Please stop white knighting poor people by simultaneously
| implying they're retarded.
| vbernat wrote:
| From Twitter feeds, it seems many people cancelled their
| credit card in case of a fraud. This is quite annoying.
| Hopefully, some of them also have been told about that by
| their banks.
| lopatin wrote:
| Yep. My immediate thought would be that my credit card info
| was stolen. It's a mean spirited prank which also manages
| to be not funny.
| [deleted]
| Raed667 wrote:
| I fail to see the "funny" part of this joke.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I saw two other "jokes" yesterday that were either poor taste
| or just plainly unfunny.
|
| I struggle to think why everyone in the age of fake bullshit
| posted on social media all feel like they must "play the game".
|
| If you don't have something clever or funny, not doing anything
| at all is a perfectly acceptable option.
|
| I think they real story here is some implicit requirement to
| "be cute" or "be heard".
| systemvoltage wrote:
| They fully deserve this and there should be a lawsuit, I have
| absolutely zero empathy for Deliveroo. What a monumentally stupid
| and irresponsible joke. I'm livid just thinking about this.
|
| Can you imagine the stress this would bring to someone not as
| fortunate financially!?
| StavrosK wrote:
| > Can you imagine the stress this would bring to someone not as
| fortunate financially!?
|
| Seriously, how does the person who approved this not realize
| that, for many people, a charge like this means they can no
| longer afford food for the month, and have to spend time they
| don't have trying to resolve the situation?
| OnlyOneCannolo wrote:
| Time really is one of the biggest issues that separates the
| more fortunate from the less. Many are oblivious to it, or at
| least dismissive of its impacts.
| thedanbob wrote:
| This is like something Michael Scott would do.
| mhh__ wrote:
| More like David Brent in this case
| koboll wrote:
| This is hilarious on a meta level. Like, it's funny that a
| marketing team could be so detached and misanthropic as to
| think people would find this funny.
| [deleted]
| munificent wrote:
| Corporate takeover of April Fools' Day is such a stupid fucking
| aspect of modern society.
|
| Pranks are at their best when they punch up, subversively point
| out the irrationality of existing power structures, or when they
| have no larger agenda or point. When they give you a moment to
| remember how absurd everything really is when you think about it.
|
| Treating 4/1 as an excuse for PR departments to find a clever way
| to push their message just makes me sad.
| wdr1 wrote:
| I dunno... Gmail was a pretty good April Fools.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| As was Apple Computer.
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| The only joke I was surprised and chuckled at was the
| stackoverflow limiting the amount of copy paste. I was annoyed
| for few seconds and then laughed out loud.
|
| The rest of the jokes are obnoxious, trite, wannabe bandwagons.
| Maybe it's time corporates ease down on this worn out
| tradition?
| jmercouris wrote:
| April fools jokes should not harm people. That's when a joke
| crosses the line.
| rement wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this is how many of those scam refund emails
| start...
| verdverm wrote:
| I felt too many companies tried to be cute this year with April
| fools and they ended up the fools themselves
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I made a comment here to similar effect. I agree, everyone
| seems to want to "be cute".
|
| But I am seeing it's deeper than that. Look at SV obviously
| "nudging" political discourse, look at companies like Delta
| weighing in on election laws while requiring the same of their
| customers things they decry as a public evil, or Coke telling
| people to "be less white" whatever that is supposed to mean.
|
| It's like _everyone_ has forgotten their own _core missions_.
| And yea yea "social responsibility" and etc, but I don't want
| the cast of Avengers telling me how to vote, or care what my
| airline thinks about anything but planes and how to serve me
| better, or what joke my pizza places has to push out because
| it's "international joke day".
|
| What became wrong with putting your head down and doing the
| best you possibly can at the thing you do?
| chowells wrote:
| People have realized you can't just put your head down and
| assume the rest of the world is going to do the right thing,
| because it won't. If that's all you do, you're going to get
| overrun by organized bad actors.
|
| And not the bad actors who think it's ok to run a protected
| left-turn red light when there's no traffic. The bad actors
| making a push these days are the ones who believe "race
| traitors" should be executed and murder of government
| officials you disagree with is appropriate political
| discourse.
|
| Know why these people are comfortable talking about and even
| acting on these beliefs? Because everything they hear is
| agreement. Too many people keep their heads down and pretend
| it will go away. They think clearly-disproven mantras like
| "sunlight is the best disinfectant".
|
| But there are people starting to recognize that sunlight has
| in fact accelerated the growth of these things. What stops
| them is consistent widespread visible opposition. And that
| means lots of people and businesses stepping up and making
| direct statements. You hear about it when famous people do it
| because that's how fame works. But they're hardly the only
| ones.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Who is Coke presenting constant and widespread visible
| opposition to when they said "be less white"?
|
| If you want to keep it straight tech... if you want
| Facebook being the ultimate moderators of what speech is
| allowed, what is true, and who can say it, that's like your
| opinion man. I disagree and think they could focus on a
| sustainable long term plan that will best suit their
| investors while not causing harm - but how interested does
| FB seem on their core product vs legislation, "nudging",
| their "outreach" on issues that they want to see changed?
| I've seen a lot more of Zuck and Dorsey in testimony than I
| have tech talks lately.
| yboris wrote:
| Feels like this "joke" would backfire in any country.
| xyst wrote:
| incoming mass cancellation of Deliveroo accounts
| olyjohn wrote:
| Maybe some, but I'd be willing to bet that most don't and this
| barely even shows up as a blip to the company.
| diplodocusaur wrote:
| > customers who received fake bills for hundreds of euros' worth
| of pizza have failed to see the funny side of the April Fools'
| joke
|
| Unfunny. Not even smart.
|
| EDIT:
|
| Here's a guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkKs2LgF6qc
| noneeeed wrote:
| I wonder ow many people cancelled their credit cards before they
| were told this was some PR idiot's idea of a "joke".
|
| You've got to wonder how people come up with ideas as clearly
| braindead as this.
| myth2018 wrote:
| Indeed. With so many credit card frauds over there, that would
| be the first thing occurring to me.
| Clampower wrote:
| I really can't fathom how this could ever be approved by a brand
| team or a social media team? There must've been several people
| involved, from the initial planning stages to do something for
| April fools, to coming up with an idea, to writing copy for it,
| to sending out the email to customer lists, to briefing customer
| care teams that it's a joke and not real. And no one thought
| "hey, this is a bad idea. There's a lot of people struggling
| financially right now, let's shock them into thinking their
| account got hacked and they are out a significant amount of
| money". How could this even happen? I'm really truly dumbfounded.
| What was the expectation here? That people would find it funny,
| to get a scare that they're out of money, that their personal
| information was misused? In no scenario does this make deliveroo
| look good - like ... how did this happen?!?!?
| esquire_900 wrote:
| This isn't a joke, they are fully aware that it was going to
| backfire. It's just free exposure.
| diplodocusaur wrote:
| That would be dumb. Generating hate for your brand.
| gruez wrote:
| "any publicity is good publicity"
| [deleted]
| r00fus wrote:
| If so, that's brazen and malicious. Would the fallout truly be
| worth the exposure generated?
| zoomablemind wrote:
| If there's any responsibility left in that company, it should
| allow the affected customers to claim the real contents of the
| fake orders for no-charge (no, it's not "for free", because these
| customers already have paid for this 'joke' with their stress and
| anxiety).
|
| Then let the company accountants tell how well such a marketing
| stunt fared.
| myth2018 wrote:
| I'm not aware of how the French laws treat such matters. In my
| country, for each unduly charged cent, a company must reimburse
| two if the customer demands so. Such prank would've automatically
| costed them a good amount.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Interesting. Is that if they were charged or if they were sent
| an invoice? Like, if I sent you an invoice and mistyped the ,
| and . you get to hit me with some double extraction even if I
| didn't actually get any money from you?
| myth2018 wrote:
| I believe so, I'm not sure.
|
| Customers, in general, don't abuse such right, and I've never
| come across cases of extremely evident mistakes like these.
|
| However, in case a customer demanded such "premium", I
| believe you would have to take the matter to court showing
| that your mistake wasn't in bad faith.
|
| Edit: but in general, yes, companies have to be really
| cautious. Such law applies to enterprise customers as well. I
| worked for a small telecom provider which hired services from
| a bigger one. They started a whole new department responsible
| for detecting unduly charges and, within some months, the
| department was not only recovering money, but also generating
| revenue.
| jordache wrote:
| I hate these commercialization of April fools, complete with high
| effort, but cringe worthy "jokes"
|
| Then you have these tech blogs("journalists") covering them like
| it's black friday sales. "All the April Fools jokes you've missed
| around the net"
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| They have an app that lists restaurants and plenty of different
| foods and drinks. The potential to do something funny is huge
| just by creating fake menus and fake new restaurants. Funny, no
| harm done.
|
| This makes it even more difficult to imagine how they could have
| thought that faking potential fraud and financial loss would be a
| good idea (can it ever be a good idea, anyway ?)
| harrylepotter wrote:
| as if their abysmal IPO wasn't enough drama. Let's throw
| something morally reprehensible into the mix.
| linkdd wrote:
| Went back to my folks during the lockdown because staying alone
| was not an option anymore, did not use Deliveroo for a few months
| now.
|
| During the first and second lockdown, they shutdown their "help"
| chat, so no way to complain when your delivery cames 3h late
| (yes, 3h!! not even a joke) or with half of the order (with the
| price not adjusted).
|
| And now they dare to joke by sending fake bills? I will never
| order from them again.
|
| I thought we had laws to protect the customer, but it seems with
| enough money you can get away with anything...
| blarg1 wrote:
| April Fools isn't funny anymore.
| planetjones wrote:
| I suspect this may be a misuse of the customers' personal data.
| Either way Deliveroo are not grounded in reality.
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