Did Shaadi.com use fake testimonial?
First, a little background.
Yesterday I was reading the latest issue of Business 2.0 magazine and read an article about ZipCar, an alternative to renting car from Hertz or Avis. After I finished reading the article, I went to ZipCar website, to learn more about them. And I saw this picture.
[You might have to refresh page couple of times to see the photo. Direct link]
That face seemed very familiar. I had a strong feeling that I had seen this guy’s photo somewhere. And then suddenly it struck me, I saw it on some matrimony site. A quick check found this guy’s tesimonial on Shaadi.com.
Hm… now that’s interesting. Either this Kartik dude submitted testimonial at Shaadi.com and ZipCar.com with a smiling photo OR he is a model whose stock photo is used by both companies, the later being much more likely.
BTW, That true stories page on Shaadi.com is very interesting. If those beautiful gals and handsome guys on that page need to use an online matrimony site, I guess I would need to use some serious Google horsepower to find my life partner. I always had a doubt that the stories on that page are fake but now I am certain.
Fake testimonials on a page named ‘True Stories’. How ironic.
What say you?
June 26th, 2007 at 10:42 am
hey never made that connection! it’s indeed ironic!
June 26th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Yes, most of them seem to good, too pretty, too surreal to be true!
June 26th, 2007 at 11:19 am
True indeed… One shud not blindly belief on all the stories…
June 26th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Hi there!
It’s funny because my mate uses Shaadi, hence leaves the homepage open on my browser, while I work for WhizzGo, a competitor of StreetCar!!!
I had spotted the same exact trick last month!
I agree these 2 companies are blatantly using a fake picture to illustrate a real customer’s testimonial
(or everything is fake? -you name it!).
I don’t think it is very ethical and this is very irritating when we are spending soooo much time interviewing our customers for marketing, and asking them if any of them would accept that we use his/her picture for commercial purpose.
The asnwer to the latter is generally NO: what benefit would our customers get by posing on ur home page?
If I was to pay them, it would not be so ethical either…
At the end of the day, I am breaking my back to do things teh right way, and some people don’t even bother, but they always do things at their own risk: look, we already spotted the mistake, that makes 2 of us!
People are not dumb: this guy is blatantly a model!
Celine
June 27th, 2007 at 6:03 am
Hi,
Just read your post and wanted to give you another perspective on it. I have been a Shaadi.com user, and in fact I am one of the success stories that you have talked about in your post.
The guy who’s pic you have put in your article is in fact a model. It is a very well known fact that companies use models on their homepage. If you click on the image of the model on the home page,you go to another page which documents success stories. Shaadi.com on this page, shows a disclaimer saying that the identity of some members have been changed in order to protect their privacy. A lot of people don’t want their real names to be put on a website; so even though some pictures are of models, the success stories are very much real.
Shaadi.com has another section called the ‘Shaadi Pride’ which documents real success stories with real pictures. The link is http://www.shaadi.com/shaadi_info/matrimonial_success_stories/index.php . Why don’t you check it out? You will find thousand of real success stories and real wedding pictures. Even my success story is recorded there.
From a person who found her match on Shaadi.com, I would just request you to be not so cynical about the medium. Take a look at my success story link.
http://www.shaadi.com/shaadi_info/matrimonial_success_stories/weddings/view.php?id=714
Neither of us are fake, and neither of us are exactly bad looking (or so i hope!)
Cheers,
Gunjan
June 27th, 2007 at 11:37 am
I agree with Gunjan. There are quite a lot of succces stories from matrimoinal sites. I met my husband through jeevansathi.com in 2000. I posted my profile and got his response within 24 hours. And, there was no looking back.
I believe marriage, whether it’s arranged or love, through newspaper matrimonial columns or internet, is pure luck. So, consider these sites as just another medium and make use of it.
Let them promote their product as everyone else does. Do you buy a health product, if a person with a stethescope around his neck endorses the product or if you think the product might be good?
Btw, beautiful gals and handsome guys might find admirers in their neighbourhood, but not necessarily suitable life partners.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Wow !! Thanks Gunjan and Bindhu for clearing our misconceptions.Sometimes these internet conspiracies can get too much.
I sincerely hope you enjoy your job at Shaadi.com
June 28th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Hi Gunjan and Bindhu,
I didn’t mean to suggest that Shaadi.com is not a useful site OR that there are no genuine people who actually found their life partners at Shaadi.com. My point was that, even though they have lots of genuine success stories, they choose to highlight these fake testimonials, which in my humble opinion, is wrong.
And dear pappu pager, I didn’t want to start a conspiracy, I was blogged about something I noticed.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
*Cough* Sarcasm *Cough*
June 29th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Shaadi.com is cheating people by putting up these fake pictures in their TRUE STORIES section. Why don’t they clearly mention that the picture shown does not belong to a person who got married on Shaadi.com. Come on, stop cheating people like this. Marriage is something very sacred and Shaadi.com is acting unethical.
June 30th, 2007 at 6:36 am
My friend found the man of her dreams on shaadi.com. He turned out to be a wack job, so she got out of the marriage, filed for seperation and got a restraining order out against him. Today, he rented a car in Florida, drove all the way to NY, bought himself a gun, entered her apt. bldg, and shot her five times ,killing her, before turning the gun on himself and killing him too. People beware, Pls hire a private investigator also to do a background check, on these internet alliances. U must know the friends and family of your match.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Isn’t this the same guy? http://www.themint.org/
July 19th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
It’s a common practice to have marketing people and brand managers write fake testimonials. Purina (the pet food division of Nestle) is a client of my employer and they for a number of pet food brands (Go Cat, Purina One, Alpo) have written fake testimonials for products that haven’t even been taken to market. Personally I was a bit shocked initially but as the years have gone by I see more and more of this.
Just think about all those canned performances by models and wanna be actors in infomercials.
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:24 am
A real shame when this happens particularly when Shaadi proclaims to have nearly a million success stories! I am sure there must be a hand from such a big number!
But we live in a marketing world where we are fed teh things we desire….and by happy smiley good looking people, whether or not they use the product!
We get what we respond to…or at least what the majority reponds to. Shame!
September 27th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
i put my profile in shaadi few hours ago & had big hopes
after reading the success stories . but i had that feeling of doubt so i made a search & found your comments they enlightened may . thanks a lot
October 4th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Hello All,
Just came across this post. I am a Shaadi.com Member. Now first off all companies cannot use the real customers faces due to DPA. (DATA PROTECTION) law. Why is that we want to make everything into a contoversey? Numbers can always be twisted but I think Shaadi has been existing for 10 years. There must be something they do which is why they are in Business. For them a Million matches should be nothing. Just check our population out. Matchmaking website can only help you with an intoduction. Its the same way as somone might intoduce you to a potential person and they turn out to be something else. You cant blame anyone. As a member i sent them my documents and they put something called Shaadi seal and that gets me a good response as the other person is sure about me. Hope this helps………
October 12th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Excellent comments
and a great post of course.
October 29th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I am an english girl and someone has put my phone number on the shaadi.com website. then people get annoyed when im ratty on the phone to them especially when they wake me when im on night duty. how do i get my number removed i am happily married
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I think sometimes people using this facilities to run
away from their problem some of them said their commit
make a ridicilious promises to get new girl for the attn
end of the day when the fun over gone
refreshing their self get new identity play around again and again coz promises is foc
is for fun yes but marriage is not easy reply all the mail
and said yes I will going marry u tmrw. Hmmmmm
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Hmm, very interesting. Mebbe we should dial this number and see what it is all about, what do you think so?
November 23rd, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Does anyone know how to advise shaadi.com of possible fraudsters. I met a guy who is definitely shady, his age and location on the profile are not the same as what he told me when we talked on the phone. And the phone number he gave me is not from the city he claims to be. We met a few times and decided to get married, at this point we took the relationship to a more intimate level. And now he does not call anymore or retun my calls. I want to alert shaadi.com, I am woried for other women on the site as they may fall prey to this guy.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Dear Nat, Shaadi has EXCELLENT customer care. They advise you to send in your e-mails to them and complain about fake profiles. Even if you do not have saved e-mails, please inform them about the fake details. Do this asap.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Two of my close friends found their respectives on shaadi.com. One of my husbands friend did too. So i guess its not all complete fraud. you however have to be smart in your choice and be capable to checking for yourself that you arent getting into any mess.
February 1st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Shaadi.com or any other matrimonial site should use some kind of quality control, using fake name should be ok but perhaps due to Global village situation the sites could use notary facilities at various location to verify details like age, height,education, profession, marital status, to provide some kind true data about the potential customer. Of course, the personality or character is an enigma to be explored later in any case.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I have used shaadi.com for 5 years with no success. It is a painful process to get eligible gal through such web-sites. I just wish gals especially Indian gals ask guys out rather than sitting at home (or hiding behind office desk/family) and submitting profiles to such web-sites. Peace!
March 28th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
its reaaly good websites to get invole peple in shaadi.com, anyone can share there feelings on this website. so i’m very impress with this website.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Hi,
Sadly, this is funny but true. I noticed another Shaadi testimonial picture of a girl on ORKUT.COM, and her marital status was SINGLE & AVAILABLE. How could she be a SHAADI SUCCESS STORY, and SINGLE on another site? Go Figure!
April 8th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
I think countries like India needs new paradigms. Shaadi.com is more into exploiting Indian culture that is inhibiting girls/guys asking guys/gals out and build relationships on their own. Such matrimonial sites are more business oriented and not really based on relationship exploring sites. Just look at the content they ask you to fill up that rarely talks about the character of the person. INDIAN GALS SHOULD DIRECTLY ASK GUYS OUT rather than visiting such sites. It would be REALLY REALLY SAD if I see such sites down the road 10 years (say by 2015).