{"id":37574,"date":"2023-10-20T14:50:57","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/aussie-startup-slammed-for-allegedly-misleading-users-on-celeb-sign-ups-says-were-not-a-major-fraud-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:50:57","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:50:57","slug":"aussie-startup-slammed-for-allegedly-misleading-users-on-celeb-sign-ups-says-were-not-a-major-fraud-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/aussie-startup-slammed-for-allegedly-misleading-users-on-celeb-sign-ups-says-were-not-a-major-fraud-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Aussie startup slammed for allegedly misleading users on celeb sign-ups says: \u201cwe\u2019re not a major fraud\u201d – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"l_sociabl\"<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

An Adelaide-based startup said to be valued at over $9 million has been slammed after many of the high-profile celebrities it had claimed to be offering video calls with said they\u2019d never heard of it and politicians touted to attend its launch party said they had never agreed to appear.<\/p>\n

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Sociabl, an online platform allowing fans to receive a personalised video calls from a celebrity, launched on the App Store this month and held a party in Sydney on Monday to mark the occasion, as reported by StartupSmart<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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The startup has been listed by many as one to watch this year, including by StartupSmart, <\/i>but co-founder Brandon Reynolds appears to have been caught out about many of his claims in an interview conducted by The Today Show <\/i>host David Campbell on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Campbell was himself listed as one of the celebrities fans could buy a video call with on Sociabl, but told Reynolds he had \u201cnever heard of it\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAccording to Brandon you can pay $500 to talk to me through his app and $250 will go to a charity of my choice,\u201d Campbell said in the interview.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never heard of this app.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Campbell\u2019s father, Jimmy Barnes, also denied any involved with the startup.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people have completely lied about my involvement,\u201d Barnes says in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re just using my name to try to fool people into buying a dodgy product. It\u2019s wrong and I have nothing to do with it. If the people behind this don\u2019t stop putting these stories out there then I\u2019ll have to make them stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reynolds has responded to the claims in a post on Medium<\/i><\/a>, saying the startup had \u201cexpress permission\u201d to feature David Campbell and Jimmy Barnes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe program aired spread a lot of false claims about Sociabl and myself that were shallowly investigated,\u201d Reynolds says in the post.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reynolds\u2019 publicist Max Markson tells StartupSmart <\/i>this \u201cmiscommunication\u201d was due to confirmation coming from the celebrities\u2019 social media managers rather than their actual managers.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy understanding is that Jimmy Barnes, David Campbell and Reece Mastin have the same social media manager \u2013 Jake Challenor,\u201d Markson says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJake and Sociabl have been in contact with each other since last November. Jake gave permission to Sociabl for them to feature Jimmy, David and Reece on the app.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it came to light last week that David Campbell knew nothing about it and Jake admitted he had not spoken to David and that Jimmy didn\u2019t know about it, Sociabl took them all off the app.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone else on the app has been contracted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the interview continued, Reynolds was asked if will.i.am, another celebrity listed on the platform, was actually confirmed, to which he replied: \u201c100%\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Campbell then revealed that will.i.am\u2019s manager had said it was not something he was involved with.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the post, Reynolds claims Sociabl has been \u201cworking with\u201d people in contact with will.i.am.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSociabl is in fact working with will.i.am through Polo Molina and Justin J Garza \u2013 in direct contradiction to claims made by the program,\u201d Reynolds says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sociabl also listed comedians Frenchy and Alex Williamson as available for video calls, but their manager Andrew Williams says <\/i>they had never agreed to be a part of it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBrandon from Sociabl contacted me during late October 2015,\u201d Williams says in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI met him on 5th<\/sup> November 2015 in Sydney. At that meeting he outlined the project to me and I decided that it wouldn\u2019t work for my clients. We then noticed recently that he had cited Frenchy and Alex on his launch promotion as being involved.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him then to remove them, for which I got no reply. Having checked again yesterday I saw he\u2019d left them on his website, so we have informed him that he must now remove them or face legal action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reynolds didn\u2019t address these concerns in the Medium post.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sociabl\u2019s website<\/a> was taken down on Monday afternoon, replaced by a message saying \u201ccoming soon\u201d that was soon updated with a link to Reynolds\u2019 statement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the interest of all of our clients we\u2019ve removed all celebrities from the app until further notice,\u201d Reynolds says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sociabl also claims that 50% of the profits from every video call go to charities including White Ribbon Australia, but the charity told Channel 9 they were not involved in any way.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Reynolds, 10 of the \u201ccurrent clients\u201d on Sociabl are \u201craising funds for White Ribbon Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The startup had earlier said in a press release that minister for industry, innovation and science Christopher Pyne and opposition leader Bill Shorten would be attending Monday\u2019s launch party on the Sydney Harbour, but spokespeople for both politicians deny either of them were ever slated to attend.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his response, Reynolds maintains both politicians were at one stage planning to attend the launch.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth Christopher Pyne and Bill Shorten were both acutely aware and at stages scheduled to attend the Sociabl launch,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But a spokesperson for Shorten tells StartupSmart <\/i>the Opposition Leader was invited but had declined.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey invited Bill, he declined,\u201d the spokesperson says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a bit bewildered when we got a few calls last week asserting Bill was attending this event. It was never the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Pyne tells StartupSmart <\/i>he also declined to attend the event.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on <\/i>Facebook<\/i><\/a>, <\/i>Twitter<\/i><\/a>, and <\/i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 An Adelaide-based startup said to be valued at over $9 million has been slammed after many of the high-profile<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}