Did Video Professor Spend Too Much On Lawyers And Not Enough On Its Product?
from the try-my-product... dept
Video Professor, a company well-known in these pages for its penchant for suing both its critics and message boards that hosted its critics, not to speak of trying to suppress competition by misusing trademark law, has apparently hit hard times, a TV station in Denver is reporting:
A person with knowledge of the situation told the 9Wants to Know investigators that Video Professor's approximately 50 employees were called to a meeting Monday and told they were being placed on unpaid furlough.Of course, every time it filed one of these cases it just drew more attention to consumer complaints about its sales practices, and stimulated journalists to look into the company. Video Professor rarely found such attention flattering, even in his hometown media.
Phones at Video Professor's corporate office and customer service center were answered Thursday by an automated message notifying callers the offices were closed for the day and to call back at a later time.
A call to Video Professor's CEO and pitchman, John Scherer, drew a return call from a company spokesman who would not answer questions or elaborate beyond a one-sentence statement: "The company is going through a reorganization that involves some temporary furloughs."
Is there a lesson here? Did Video Professor spend so much on legal fees that it couldn't improve its product sufficiently to satisfy the market?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: criticism, trademark
Companies: video professor
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The product?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The product?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
VERIZON
HP
DELL
APPLE
SONY
MICROSOFT
and all other corporate money stealing execs and shareholders!
For the Corporation, by the people : against their will.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sometimes the lowest lifeforms really do die away
I know. I almost got burned by them, were it not for my willingness to do battle long enough and loud enough with a supervisor.
Had they had the courage back then to post the "here's what this is really going to cost you" content in an easily found and seen location on their site, or mentioned it during the sales cycle, and had they charged some "Time-Life-Books" scale fee for their stuff, they might have had a semi-viable and even sustainable business model. Now, they just need to go away. Permanently.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
video professor thieves
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: video professor thieves
Credit card companies and banks have a great deal of liability if they do not help you in these processes and they tend to want to make customers happy (assuming they get their 20% interest).
If they do not assist, contact the attorney general in your state.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: video professor thieves
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: video professor thieves
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Video Professor practices are all about finding the weak and slaughtering them.
Is this right? No.
Suggestion: make sure to listen and read
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Obama preyed on weak sheep ok, John Scherer committed crimes against people. Oh well ya he didn't do this! You get 3,4, 10 people down the line to do your dirty work for you. Please don't defend and blame the consumer for this. This is a crime and consumers, American citizens need to be protected from this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Peopleclaim to the rescue
Don't let them get away with it!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Peopleclaim to the rescue
Truthfully, there was a time when a 72 hour refund was as simple as a call to the office. Then also, I remember a time where the person (ya the 1 person) in charge of refunds went on vacation! I got to the point where I just had to tell people after you speak with them 2 or 3 days in a row!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
regarding refunds... interesting
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
VP LOL
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Video Professor Scam
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Turned The Tables
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
dirty thieving cowards
[ link to this | view in chronology ]