5 ms·

The grapevine says this place is a dog and pony show.

doitLP 8y ago
I would believe that. I paid for a kit, never got a confirmation. Waited a few months and finally contacted customer service. They said it would be shipped soon. It never was. I cancelled the order, asked for (and got) a refund. No follow up, nothing. Not even a GDPR email during the wave of them earlier this year, something I would expect from such a business. I don’t know, maybe I’m paranoid after reading Bad Blood but something ain’t right. Their marketing machine still churns though. From time to time I still see ads.
- techiferous 8y ago
  Yep. They still owe me the $80 or $90 I paid for a kit. I followed up with them multiple times and never got a resolution. This was a couple of years ago.
  - uBiome_Support 8y ago
    Hi there! Please email us at support@ubiome.com and we'd be happy to look into this.
    - techiferous 8y ago
      I did. Multiple times. I do not want to relive the experience of trying to get my money back. I also don't want to support the growing tendencies of companies to not care about customer complaints until they hit social media.
  - cycrutchfield 8y ago
    Why didn't you just file a chargeback?
- tossmee_awwwy 8y ago
  Given the health and medical play, I think they're questionable in at least a couple of ways. - There are no actions to be taken based on microbiome data - There's no government oversight to the quality of their sequencing or bioinformatics - The reviews don't indicate the kits are useful https://www.highya.com/ubiome-reviews https://www.highya.com/ubiome-reviews Maybe a good comparison would be if Theranos gave you a 'subjective wellness score' instead of standard test results
  - refurb 8y ago
    You summed up my concerns better than I could. I remember when uBiome launched out of UCSF. I remember thinking “ok, they’ll sequence your microbiome and then...what exactly?”
    - funfunfun 8y ago
      I gave my data files from uBiome to a microbiologist and was told 'these data are too low in quality to analyze'
      - refurb 8y ago
        Yikes. To be honest, the microbiome space is interesting and may hold promise for therapeutics - and maybe uBiome will be a leader in it. But there is a very good chance that nothing will come of this whatsoever.
    - Nzen 8y ago
      a fantasy: I get intestinal distress from food/water while on vacation. I take antibiotics to clear the problem. At a later date, I have a fecal transplant [0]. It couldn't be mine, because that was the site of the problem. Instead, I order a culture that matches my previous microbiome distribution. [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/probiotics-if-you-dont-just-just-poop-them-out-they-may-muck-up-your-guts/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/probiotics-if-you-do...
      - 8y ago
- dougmccune 8y ago
  My wife and I both got kits (reasonably quickly shipped) and got our results, also reasonably quickly (within a few weeks of sending them back if I recall). But the results were almost identical between us, even though we have very different digestive health systems/symptoms. There was one metric that was totally out of normal range, but the reading was exactly the same between the two of us. We were definitely left not being able to get any useful information out of the data and not trusting it at all. I think my wife emailed them asking why the results were basically identical to mine (including the totally abnormal metric), and I don't think she ever got a reply.
  - drollcrops 8y ago
    Sorry for the personal question, and feel free to not respond, but do you and your wife engage in analingus?
    - rojobuffalo 8y ago
      You must be one of the guys I team up with sometimes on playstation. (tbh it's a fair question in this context)
    - refurb 8y ago
      It’s not unusual in the slightest for people living together to have very similar microbiomes even in the absence of direct contact like that. I always pose the question - your gut was sterile when you were born, so how do you think the bacteria got their in the first place? The answer is oral-fecal transmission. You get fecal bacteria on your hands, you touch an object, someone else touches it and they put their hands in their mouth.
    - dang 8y ago
      Please don't do this here.
  - bsder 8y ago
    > I think my wife emailed them asking why the results were basically identical to mine (including the totally abnormal metric), and I don't think she ever got a reply. Well, to be fair, one of the working hypotheses about human mating behavior is that one of its goals is to equalize the biome of the female (bacteria, viruses, etc.) to that of her partner before she gets pregnant. So, husband and wife having the same biome is not surprising. And, even if you have the same biome, your systems will almost certainly react differently depending upon the expressed receptors.
markbio79 8y ago
Grapevine is true. What they are doing is extremely questionable. They are billing insurance thousands of dollars for tests that are rudimentary and only look at absence or presence of microbes. Look at Better Business Bureau and Customer Reviews, https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-francisco/profile/clinic/ubiome-1116-878472/complaints https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-francisco/profile/clinic/ubiom... https://www.highya.com/ubiome-reviews https://www.highya.com/ubiome-reviews

I would believe that. I paid for a kit, never got a confirmation. Waited a few months and finally contacted customer service. They said it would be shipped soon. It never was. I cancelled the order, asked for (and got) a refund. No follow up, nothing. Not even a GDPR email during the wave of them earlier this year, something I would expect from such a business. I don’t know, maybe I’m paranoid after reading Bad Blood but something ain’t right. Their marketing machine still churns though. From time to time I still see ads.

techiferous 8y ago
Yep. They still owe me the $80 or $90 I paid for a kit. I followed up with them multiple times and never got a resolution. This was a couple of years ago.
- uBiome_Support 8y ago
  Hi there! Please email us at support@ubiome.com and we'd be happy to look into this.
  - techiferous 8y ago
    I did. Multiple times. I do not want to relive the experience of trying to get my money back. I also don't want to support the growing tendencies of companies to not care about customer complaints until they hit social media.
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  Why didn't you just file a chargeback?
tossmee_awwwy 8y ago
Given the health and medical play, I think they're questionable in at least a couple of ways. - There are no actions to be taken based on microbiome data - There's no government oversight to the quality of their sequencing or bioinformatics - The reviews don't indicate the kits are useful https://www.highya.com/ubiome-reviews https://www.highya.com/ubiome-reviews Maybe a good comparison would be if Theranos gave you a 'subjective wellness score' instead of standard test results
- refurb 8y ago
  You summed up my concerns better than I could. I remember when uBiome launched out of UCSF. I remember thinking “ok, they’ll sequence your microbiome and then...what exactly?”
  - funfunfun 8y ago
    I gave my data files from uBiome to a microbiologist and was told 'these data are too low in quality to analyze'
    - refurb 8y ago
      Yikes. To be honest, the microbiome space is interesting and may hold promise for therapeutics - and maybe uBiome will be a leader in it. But there is a very good chance that nothing will come of this whatsoever.
  - Nzen 8y ago
    a fantasy: I get intestinal distress from food/water while on vacation. I take antibiotics to clear the problem. At a later date, I have a fecal transplant [0]. It couldn't be mine, because that was the site of the problem. Instead, I order a culture that matches my previous microbiome distribution. [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/probiotics-if-you-dont-just-just-poop-them-out-they-may-muck-up-your-guts/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/probiotics-if-you-do...
    - 8y ago
dougmccune 8y ago
My wife and I both got kits (reasonably quickly shipped) and got our results, also reasonably quickly (within a few weeks of sending them back if I recall). But the results were almost identical between us, even though we have very different digestive health systems/symptoms. There was one metric that was totally out of normal range, but the reading was exactly the same between the two of us. We were definitely left not being able to get any useful information out of the data and not trusting it at all. I think my wife emailed them asking why the results were basically identical to mine (including the totally abnormal metric), and I don't think she ever got a reply.
- drollcrops 8y ago
  Sorry for the personal question, and feel free to not respond, but do you and your wife engage in analingus?
  - rojobuffalo 8y ago
    You must be one of the guys I team up with sometimes on playstation. (tbh it's a fair question in this context)
  - refurb 8y ago
    It’s not unusual in the slightest for people living together to have very similar microbiomes even in the absence of direct contact like that. I always pose the question - your gut was sterile when you were born, so how do you think the bacteria got their in the first place? The answer is oral-fecal transmission. You get fecal bacteria on your hands, you touch an object, someone else touches it and they put their hands in their mouth.
  - dang 8y ago
    Please don't do this here.
- bsder 8y ago
  > I think my wife emailed them asking why the results were basically identical to mine (including the totally abnormal metric), and I don't think she ever got a reply. Well, to be fair, one of the working hypotheses about human mating behavior is that one of its goals is to equalize the biome of the female (bacteria, viruses, etc.) to that of her partner before she gets pregnant. So, husband and wife having the same biome is not surprising. And, even if you have the same biome, your systems will almost certainly react differently depending upon the expressed receptors.

markbio79 8y ago

Grapevine is true. What they are doing is extremely questionable. They are billing insurance thousands of dollars for tests that are rudimentary and only look at absence or presence of microbes. Look at Better Business Bureau and Customer Reviews, https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-francisco/profile/clinic/ubiome-1116-878472/complaints https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-francisco/profile/clinic/ubiom... https://www.highya.com/ubiome-reviews https://www.highya.com/ubiome-reviews