The hell with that, the company should be shut down. Some poor soul will think it's a sweet deal. They're putting people at risk of the death penalty without telling them and implying everyone is A-OK.
The ethical thing to say, in big, bold writing, is "we check as thoroughly as possible, but we can't be absolutely certain there's nothing illegal in the bag, and you're responsible to the authorities - to the extent of a potential death sentence - if that happens". In fact, this is hidden away all the way at the bottom of the terms and conditions! Of course, if they did that then they wouldn't have any customers.
You can be ethical in the presence of other unethical actors - that the Government may or may not be unethical does not change whether your activities are ethical.
disruption!
Or not bottom but slightly above the bottom, since people may skim through and read first and last part only as a matter of verification.
> Exactly how is intentionally lying to your customers to the point that you can get them killed ethical?
I suppose its a survival of the fittest, to get rid of those humans ignorant or poor enough to deal with this.
Would it pass the Darwin Awards though?
And don't make the mistake that this business practice goes right for an X amount of times. A scammer on eBay can have hundreds of positive feedback before his exit strategy.
As for the "These guys totally have you covered." in the original article, I wouldn't want to do business with someone who's manner of first impression is to advertises themselves as a hardcore gamer, a dancer (with that stale face), and a beer drinker. Doesn't give me confidence at all!
So journalists conduct their interviews in 140-character messages nowadays? I can't help but agree with the co-founder that hit-pieces should be based on actual interviews, not a Twitter conversation, ff we're going to consider this as journalism of course. If it's just amateurish blogging then I guess that would pass.
Anything longer than that, or running in circle refusing a clear answer, should be interpreted as "no" by the users, which is what the article says.
He's the average victim who would fall for a $99 fare. He certainly can't believe the risk would be that high, hence he's upset with "a hit piece"; He probably just read a bit on the internet about what it means to be OBC. He may not even have a lawyer and it could be a side project. They describe themselves as average bros, probably not because they've thought it through for marketing reasons, but just because that's their identity. Simple guys organizing something cool, patching a genius opportunity that no-one has taken before, and targeted ad hominem by a blogger. He just can't understand it any other way.
Not every question that can conceivably return a bool answer should be answered that way in PR.
that's an unfair comparison, because this is a loaded question (implying you were beating your SO). The question being asked in the blogpost is asking for clarification, with no assumption behind it.
Maybe that is the actually the case (I'm not an expert in the field), but the underlying assumption of that being a hard requirement is present. Now, if Airmule thinks that they don't need to do exactly that but have another means by which the couriers could be protected, they can't reasonably answer "yes" (because they aren't organized that way) nor "no" (because that's a misleading answer from their point of view).
"Not a common carrier - this page on our website describes exactly what protections are provided: <link>"
He never told them he was writing a piece and gave them a chance to read it or comment, AFAICT.
Consumer Review doesn't have to disclose the fact that they will review a car when they buy it from a dealership, but they probably should ask GM to comment when they say "it seems to us, without having driven one or heard from anyone who has driven one, that GM are making their cars so they explode on impact".
Do they have to disclose that they are Consumer Review when they talk to GM?
The Twtitter profile for user @TPrphet states that he is a blogger for a site called Seat31B.
Also the blogger may not have had any intention of writing a blog post prior to the exchange.
That being said, I always reserve the right to blog about anything I think is interesting or important to my readers, and this subject meets the bar given the seriousness of the potential consequences here. "Move fast and break things" is something you can do in a social app but lives are potentially at stake here.
It's also fair for me to move quickly. Airmule is out in public advertising $99 flights to Beijing right now. Why should I have to wait until Rory is back in the office on Monday to write about it?
It's fairly normal to write blog posts without interviewing anyone. If the facts are clear, why spend the time? There isn't a law that says that I have to schedule an interview with an airline before I blog about their economy class cabin, and there isn't a law that says I have to schedule an interview with a startup founder around his backyard tile laying project and Costco shopping trip.
Note that my readers are largely young backpackers - think the /r/shoestring and /r/solotravel crowd. I would have written an entirely different blog post--and one that the founder would have been completely happy with--if the answers had been different. It's unfortunate that they weren't.
It's probably "err, yes, you might get the death penalty", but I don't know that, because nobody from the company was reached for comment.
If the founders were doing the right thing here, they probably wouldn't have felt the need to dodge all my questions. I'd have gotten clear answers with evidence to back them up. Normal companies do this.
Also, if Airmule wanted an interview, they could have replied asking for a phone call and giving me their phone number.
For folks who claim I didn't clearly represent myself: My Twitter handle identifies me as a Seat 31B blogger, I emailed them from my seat31b.com address, and I publicly stated on Twitter that I was planning to blog about this. I don't know how it could possibly be any more clear. Yes, like many people in the startup community I do more than one thing (I am also involved with multiple startups) but given that these very different lines of business (a dating app and an information security consulting firm) I don't think there could be any reasonable confusion.
None of this actually happened, so I think it's pretty clear what's going on here.
Caveat emptor. Just those responses are a red flag, if the subject is legal risk surrounding smuggling to PRC. They don't want you to know.