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Wait, you mean I shouldn’t take the first offer I get just because they say it’s the best? The next thing we’re going to learn is that there really isn’t someo

Wait, you mean I shouldn’t take the first offer I get just because they say it’s the best? The next thing we’re going to learn is that there really isn’t someone coming in later who’s super interested in the used Honda. This seems overly nannyish.

leereeves 4y ago
Fraud is still fraud even if a reasonable person shouldn't trust the claims.
- avg_dev 4y ago
  Simple as that. > According to the FTC, Opendoor said it would pay market value for people’s homes while saving them money on costs. That way, people selling their homes would make thousands of dollars more than they would on the open market. But, the FTC says, it wasn’t true.
  - teraflop 4y ago
    And most importantly (according to the complaint), Opendoor knew it wasn't true. They were deliberately adjusting offer prices downward from their own estimated market value, and they had lots of internal data showing that the result was that customers made less money by selling to Opendoor, but they continued to say the opposite in their marketing materials.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Yeah, literally who says it's "nannyish" that blatantly lying to consumers is wrong. Holding businesses to any kinds of standards is wrong I guess. Actual dystopian vibes.
felipesoc 4y ago
It's false advertising whether nannyish or not.
CobrastanJorji 4y ago
Making a bad deal is perfectly legal. Lying about the product you're offering is not. OpenDoor was reportedly making several false claims, including "we make money from fees (and not by immediately reselling your house for a profit because we bought it below market value)" or "we charge about the same in repair costs as you'd pay on the open market" or "we buy your house at market value (and not intentionally below what we think is market value)."
- londons_explore 4y ago
  OpenDoors crime wasn't making those claims... the crime was making those claims without keeping sufficient evidence that they were true. I'm sure they could have proven all those claims. They could have said "Last year we made $XX Million from fees". Sounds like a big number, but might still have only been tiny compared to market movements. They could have said "we charge about the same in repair costs as you'd pay on the open market" by just finding one quote from a builder to back it up. They could have said "we buy your house at market value" by just having a model of market value which tended to lowball valuations - rather than having an accurate model and then putting a " * 0.9" on the output of the model. One way to do that for example would be to build the model on historic data, and ignore the fact that house prices are at all time highs right now. And house prices have been the 'highest ever' for nearly every year in the past 200 years.
  - Jorge1o1 4y ago
    Yes and no. It goes beyond lack of data and well into fraud (knowing deception). See, for example, point 34 of the report: >Opendoor has used an automated system to generate expected market values for homes. In many instances, Opendoor’s employees have manually adjusted these values before presenting them to consumers as offers. Opendoor’s internal analyses showed that these manually adjusted offers were several percentage points below Opendoor’s assessment of market value. Beginning later than 2019, Opendoor instituted a policy to reduce its manually adjusted offers to [REDACTED] below what Opendoor assessed as market value. In other words, they’re promising above-market value while actually quoting below even their OWN estimation of market value (which is undoubtedly revised down)

leereeves 4y ago

Fraud is still fraud even if a reasonable person shouldn't trust the claims.

avg_dev 4y ago
Simple as that. > According to the FTC, Opendoor said it would pay market value for people’s homes while saving them money on costs. That way, people selling their homes would make thousands of dollars more than they would on the open market. But, the FTC says, it wasn’t true.
- teraflop 4y ago
  And most importantly (according to the complaint), Opendoor knew it wasn't true. They were deliberately adjusting offer prices downward from their own estimated market value, and they had lots of internal data showing that the result was that customers made less money by selling to Opendoor, but they continued to say the opposite in their marketing materials.
SQueeeeeL 4y ago
Yeah, literally who says it's "nannyish" that blatantly lying to consumers is wrong. Holding businesses to any kinds of standards is wrong I guess. Actual dystopian vibes.

felipesoc 4y ago

It's false advertising whether nannyish or not.

CobrastanJorji 4y ago

Making a bad deal is perfectly legal. Lying about the product you're offering is not. OpenDoor was reportedly making several false claims, including "we make money from fees (and not by immediately reselling your house for a profit because we bought it below market value)" or "we charge about the same in repair costs as you'd pay on the open market" or "we buy your house at market value (and not intentionally below what we think is market value)."

londons_explore 4y ago
OpenDoors crime wasn't making those claims... the crime was making those claims without keeping sufficient evidence that they were true. I'm sure they could have proven all those claims. They could have said "Last year we made $XX Million from fees". Sounds like a big number, but might still have only been tiny compared to market movements. They could have said "we charge about the same in repair costs as you'd pay on the open market" by just finding one quote from a builder to back it up. They could have said "we buy your house at market value" by just having a model of market value which tended to lowball valuations - rather than having an accurate model and then putting a " * 0.9" on the output of the model. One way to do that for example would be to build the model on historic data, and ignore the fact that house prices are at all time highs right now. And house prices have been the 'highest ever' for nearly every year in the past 200 years.
- Jorge1o1 4y ago
  Yes and no. It goes beyond lack of data and well into fraud (knowing deception). See, for example, point 34 of the report: >Opendoor has used an automated system to generate expected market values for homes. In many instances, Opendoor’s employees have manually adjusted these values before presenting them to consumers as offers. Opendoor’s internal analyses showed that these manually adjusted offers were several percentage points below Opendoor’s assessment of market value. Beginning later than 2019, Opendoor instituted a policy to reduce its manually adjusted offers to [REDACTED] below what Opendoor assessed as market value. In other words, they’re promising above-market value while actually quoting below even their OWN estimation of market value (which is undoubtedly revised down)