Smooci Advertiser Thread

[Sammy1968]

Just spent an amazing week in Bangkok.

I had intended to use smooci extensively, but was disappointed to find that the premium access service was still closed.

In the end I went with girls from BP and CL as well as GoGo and Massage girls.

The lack of access is costing you revenue.

[BigJimSlade]

Let me preface this by stating I have been using the smooci app fairly frequently since its launch and plan to continue with it. It fills a niche and works for my particular preferences on how I get my introductions to personal assistants tasked with getting my proverbial rocks off. That said, please consider my thoughts stated below not as anything but the way it is as I see it. Hopefully, this will trigger a productive conversation leading to some form of positive development. I won't hold my breath for that but it is the hope. This is what I just posted as a review after a completed appointment.

I understand the motivation to monetize this app in some way. What I cannot understand are the problems created when given the following plausible scenario:

A new user is faced with a deceptive advertisement in the form of misleading or false information. For instance, a companion's true age, height and weight. The new user is not familiar with the app and does not yet wish to pay for premium features. Let's say a decision is made based on the misrepresentations. The result is a loss of time and potentially money for the new user. In this case, the Smooci app could have revealed information it had hidden from the new user. For instance, the detailed reviews of other users may have guided a new user away from the companion selected. How can an application developer build a business model around facilitating the creation of disappointing and negative experiences? Having information that would better inform a consumer and then offering that information for sale or else suffer the risk of possibly being defrauded does not sound like offering a premium feature. It is more like playing the part of an accomplice. This problem is compounded by the fact that the same users that contribute to the accumulated information being sold are themselves subjected to the same roulette wheel of quasi extortion.

Perhaps renegotiating with the agencies for a small commission would be a means of compensating yourselves as the app developers at the same time be less of a potential criminal liability. It would also encourage user feedback. I, for one, cannot overlook how I am expected to be the Guinea pig, quality controller, performance evaluator and paying customer all at the same time. This will be my first and last contribution to the rating system.

[SmoociApp]

1) Premium:

Initially we were told the payment system would be down for 2 days, and then 2 weeks, but as we are seen as a low priority client it's taking a long time getting accurate updates. As a result we are now in talks with a new payment provider based in Europe and hope to be working with them within the next 4 weeks.

We are also working on adding a bitcoin payment option for those looking for more anonymous payments, and we hope to have this integerated very soon. Once this is ready and / or we have a new pay processor we will launch the premiums again.

2) Full Name:

Ultimately we need the name on the hotel room to pass over to the agency or companion so that they can confirm the booking is genuine. As to whether giving part of your name will be sufficeient, it really depends on the agency / companion as it's up to them to click accept or decline the booking. I would assume most agencies / companions would be OK with this.

3) Freelancers:

We've said we're close to being able to bring freelancers on several times and you are all still waiting so I don't want to put a date on it. But I'm confident it will be very soon. We have built an app which freelancers can download and which works as a virtual agency for them, allowing them to accapt and manage their bookings in full. It hit a few bugs as we went along but they seem to be all ironed out now and we're just doing some final testing and making cosmetic changes to it.

[Paolo99]

I have RTFF and I wonder if we could have more reports on the ladies that has been seen via Smooci? I am heading out to BKK in a few months time and I would appreciate any info about ease of getting the lady to your hotel room (I. E was she on time etc?) as well as the quality of the service.

/ Kirsia.

Have a look at the Bangkok Escort Thread, some of them have been reviewed there.

[Bbboy05]

I have used Smooci for several bookings during my stay in Bangkok a couple months ago, and will continue to use it to book escorts given the competitive pricing. In all of my previous bookings, I provided my Thailand based mobile number, as well as the name of the hotel I was staying along with the room number. In all of those instances, I had Smooci booking staff calling the hotel and transferring the call to my room. Normally, that would be fine however if I am not in my room, how will that work? Will my booking be rejected since the call would have gone unanswered? Or will they know to contact me on my provided mobile number?

[Chresquire]

A couple quick questions for SmoociApp:

1) Premium: Do you know when the payment for Premium will return, as I will be visiting Thailand in mid-August and would like to purchase a months subscription to gain access to the reviews. Furthermore I was wondering what types of payment you will be accepting, as even if the billing is discreet I would prefer to pay either by bitcoin or something like an American Express Gift Card that I can buy with cash in my home country.

2) Full Name: I know this has been raised as a potential issue previously in this thread, but I'm not entirely comfortable giving out my full name when booking a girl as your system seems to require. If I put in my first name and the first letter of my last name and fill out the rest (E-mail, Hotel, Room #) do you think that would be sufficient?

3) Freelancers: This is just my personal curiosity, but I was wondering when you thought the Smooci App would be rolled out to FL's?

Thanks, and kudos on creating what looks to be a great app that I hope I'll be using quite a bit on my next trip!

[SmoociApp]

Is this why the Premium membership is offline?

No this isn't the case, we don't have any issue with the locally governments, the issue we have is with regards to our pay gateway. The site can function but we can't currently accept premium memberships.

Unfortunately it could be another week or more before we are able to accept payments, but other than that, smooci will be operating as normal. We are signed up to quite a big pay gateway, but they have had some technical problems and are undergoing major updates. As we are a new client with tham and not processing high volumes we are low on their priority list so we just have to be patient and wait for them.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[WarmStone25]

The only thing to worry about is the potential for government interference. If this app becomes too successful, then it will probably lead to the kind of trouble that Uber and Airbnb are having with government authorities.


This app will give so much opportunity and freedom for both guys and ladies, that government authorities for sure won't like it. And unfortunately, they'll probably use an underhanded approach to shut down an app like this.

Instead of honestly saying that this is about taxes and control of the people. They would give some other reason to create animosity and division within society, so that people can't resist what they want to do. Divide and rule. This is an old saying Romans used to have. And that's what governments use even now to control the people. When the people are divided and are set against each other, then it's easier for government authorities to control them.

They'll probably say that they want to protect women from exploitation. And it won't be hard for them find a lady or two, who will endorse their message in the media.

Is this why the Premium membership is offline?

[SmoociApp]

I tried to sign up for a premium account today, but the site says that Smooci won't be accepting new memberships for a while. Anyone know when they are resuming? Will try emailing them directly too, but I noticed Smooci reps are pretty active on this board, so maybe they can respond.

Thanks!

Hi, sorry about that. The premium sign ups are offline while our pay merchants do some quick upgrades. It's out of our hands but we are told it should be complete in 48 hours.

This doesn't affect any features on our site, we just can't accept payments while they are undergoing the upgrades.

[Optional]

I tried to sign up for a premium account today, but the site says that Smooci won't be accepting new memberships for a while. Anyone know when they are resuming? Will try emailing them directly too, but I noticed Smooci reps are pretty active on this board, so maybe they can respond.

Thanks!

[WarmStone25]

Smooci Premium.

I was planning another trip to Bangkok. So I thought I would take out a Premium membership just to see what it was like. I clicked on the relevant buttons for a 3 day membership. Everything went through smoothly and quickly. The reviews provide a lot of comments from customers which are useful if the number of reviews is of a significant number. It should be possible to make up a short list from these. Some girls have proportionally more poor reviews than other girls and would appear to be less reliable than others. The chances of a good session would be less with them. The comments are varied in content and length, some complaining that a girl would not do what she advertised she would do, or disappeared into the bathroom for 30 minutes, for example. Other comments are nothing but positive. I received e-mail confirmation about the transaction including one from the payment service. Three days later the transaction appeared in my bank account, as expected. If I was in Bangkok and wanted to date girls I would find this service useful because of the feed back that it gives and it would increase my chances of a good session.

[EihTooms]

The review system has not changed much since we first launched. The rating and comment part has remained the same throughout and is not exclusive to premium members, it's avaialble to every member.

My apologies for not realizing that. But when I click on "Go Premium" at the top of your website page, I see this as a feature available to those who Go Premium:

"Read user comments.

Have you ever noticed how every single user comment on an escort agency website is a glowing report on how Joe Bloggs had the most amazing time of his life?

Premium members get to read each and every user comment left on a companion, from the good, to the bad, to the not so ugly. We don't hide or edit any negative reports on companions booked on our platform, so as well as seeing the average review score a companion has received, as a Premium member you will be able to read about all their past experiences in detail."

Are you now saying this feature is available to everyone and not just those who Go Premium? Or did you mean everyone has been able to send you an email feedback comment all along, even before you started the above exclusive Premium feature? Well, yes, I did know someone could send an email feedback comment to you before.

As already stated, you cannot submit any kind of review or comment without selecting a 1-5 star rating, and that has always been the case for all types of members, and it's clear on the review forms.

While we appreciate your concerns about the star ratings blog we wrote, we made a conscious decision to not push this blog on our site and decided that the ratings alone were a good indication, and the comments gave them the best context, rather than a set of rules that took away some of the subjectivity. We also quickly realized that adding too much info to the review pages caused a lot less people to complete the reviews. So while you have a difference of opnion on this, our opinion remains unchanged and we are working hard on things we see as much bigger abd more important issues, such as the launch of independents on to our site and expanding to other locations.

We get a lot of feedback sent to us, and try to use the forums to also get feedback, but to be very honest with you, you are the only one who brings up our ratings guide, and you have done so several times and on more than one forum. It really isn't reflective of the feedback we are getting and I don't think it's benefical to us or fair on the other users to steer so much of the conversation to this point. We have some major points we want to discuss and get feedback on, such as the way we use premium memberships, adding more accurate and verifiable profile info, adding greater safety for the clients and companions, getting independents onto the platform.

We do appreciate you are trying to help, but it can be a little frustrating at times for one person to keep steering the conversation in a different direction and feel like we are missing out on other valuable feedback from a broader selection of members.

Actually, there were several other posters here and elsewhere who brought up or commented on your Star Rating System/Guidelines, some who even proposed alternative or (to their mind) improved versions of the Guidelines. I never proposed alternative versions of it. For weeks I have only responded to other comments or reports about it, including yours, and not "brought it up" as an out of context new idea or subject not recently mentioned in the threads by others. And one of my comments was that I now agree with you and other posters that apparently virtually no one who uses Smooci or an escort service, and maybe only me in all of Thailand, cares all that much whether their chosen girl will actually deliver a requested service listed or promised ahead of time. They are just not all that into a means to better verify "truth in advertising" on that issue. I fully acknowledge and accept that fact now.

But when I see an example of an early Smooci essay review that quite literally illustrates a point I'd been making all along with regard to the handling of those Guidelines and while essentially being told that just isn't going to be a problem, I don't think it is out of line or a matter of "steering" anyone away from the point of it all for me to comment on it. And I also don't see it as unfair or "steering" for me to simply ask how you or anyone else can come to a convenient conclusion about a specific factor you'd like to proffer based on those Star Ratings when, as you have mentioned yourself, very few people have ever dug deep into your site to find and click on the Guidelines and read them and therefore no one is really working "to the same scale" basis or standard for those Ratings.

Good or bad, anyone trying to suggest your Star Ratings represent this or that factor to support whatever point they'd like to make at the moment, as you did elsewhere a few days ago, still has to explain why they would conclude such a thing, based on what, in order to give their conclusion any credibility.

With all due respect, whenever I see a post by anyone stating the girls' Smooci Star Ratings represent whether or not they are likely to actually deliver a requested and listed service, or any other factor, I think it is fair and very much to the point for someone to ask why they would conclude such a thing, based on what known standard or scale represented by those Ratings, and then politely wait for the answer. For example, I'm still waiting for your answer to that question re the conclusion you proffered about it elsewhere.

[SmoociApp]

One big issue I'm seeing with Smooci is the need for a hotel. I'm planning to move to more long-term BKK rentals, like airbnbs and contract apartments, but that means I won't be able to use Smooci since I can't be reached via a room-number phone call.

I must have completed well over 30 bookings at this point, plus I have premium, so that should give a good enough idea that my bookings are genuine. In my opinion, just premium alone should be enough for me to not need the phone verification. That and a local Thai number.

Are there any options here for me, besides just not using Smooci and instead doing offline P4P?

You shouldn't have any problems making a booking for a private residence within Bangkok.

The way it currently works with regards to a private residence: we would accept the booking and pass the info directly to the agency / companion to accept or reject. Most agencies will accept this quite quickly. They would also be shown if the booking was from a premium member, or someone who has booked before, to further still increase the chance the booking would get quickly accepted.

It's not a fool proof system, but we currently see a high percentage of non-hotel bookings going through without problem, and we are looking to improve this further as the system develops.

[Shiba7]

One big issue I'm seeing with Smooci is the need for a hotel. I'm planning to move to more long-term BKK rentals, like airbnbs and contract apartments, but that means I won't be able to use Smooci since I can't be reached via a room-number phone call.

I must have completed well over 30 bookings at this point, plus I have premium, so that should give a good enough idea that my bookings are genuine. In my opinion, just premium alone should be enough for me to not need the phone verification. That and a local Thai number.

Are there any options here for me, besides just not using Smooci and instead doing offline P4P?

[SmoociApp]

The essay review option is new and available only to the premium / pay subscribers and so I did not know you can't submit an essay without rating first.

The review system has not changed much since we first launched. The rating and comment part has remained the same throughout and is not exclusive to premium members, it's avaialble to every member.

As already stated, you cannot submit any kind of review or comment without selecting a 1-5 star rating, and that has always been the case for all types of members, and it's clear on the review forms.

While we appreciate your concerns about the star ratings blog we wrote, we made a conscious decision to not push this blog on our site and decided that the ratings alone were a good indication, and the comments gave them the best context, rather than a set of rules that took away some of the subjectivity. We also quickly realized that adding too much info to the review pages caused a lot less people to complete the reviews. So while you have a difference of opnion on this, our opinion remains unchanged and we are working hard on things we see as much bigger abd more important issues, such as the launch of independents on to our site and expanding to other locations.

We get a lot of feedback sent to us, and try to use the forums to also get feedback, but to be very honest with you, you are the only one who brings up our ratings guide, and you have done so several times and on more than one forum. It really isn't reflective of the feedback we are getting and I don't think it's benefical to us or fair on the other users to steer so much of the conversation to this point. We have some major points we want to discuss and get feedback on, such as the way we use premium memberships, adding more accurate and verifiable profile info, adding greater safety for the clients and companions, getting independents onto the platform.

We do appreciate you are trying to help, but it can be a little frustrating at times for one person to keep steering the conversation in a different direction and feel like we are missing out on other valuable feedback from a broader selection of members.