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Can mobile app startups please stop building SMS invite systems into their apps already? The latest example of a venture-backed startup getting dinged by customers for having spammed their entire address book without permission is Sequoia portfolio company Tribe<\/a>. The\u00a0video chat app\u00a0<\/a>hit the App Store last year, and had been well-received until now.<\/p>\n With a number of clever twists on standard video chat, Tribe itself is an interesting product. It can add subtitles to video chats and can identify \u201cmagic words\u201d in conversations<\/a> that are then turned into links to the things you referred to, like directions, the weather, a song, a place, and more.<\/p>\n As of October 2016, the app had been downloaded half a million times, and was seeing around 40,000 daily users. Earlier this year, it also pulled in $3 million in seed funding, led by Sequoia, with the aim of challenging\u00a0dominant chat apps, like Snapchat and Messenger.<\/p>\n But it doesn\u2019t take much to tarnish a brand, and violating users\u2019 trust is an easy way to lose a\u00a0following.<\/p>\n In Tribe\u2019s case, its SMS invite system apparently had an \u201cissue\u201d \u2013 or, at least, that\u2019s the official explanation the company is telling users via its Twitter account.<\/p>\n According to a number of Tribe customers, including those who posted publicly and\u00a0reached out privately, the app sent out SMS invites to everyone in their address books without permission.<\/p>\n That has resulted in people \u2013 including those who were only hearing of Tribe for the first time \u2013 being\u00a0spammed with text message invites. And because some victims\u00a0had more than one friend on Tribe who was affected by the problem, they received multiple SMS invites throughout the day.<\/p>\n One user reported having received 32 spam invitations<\/a>, for example, and another said they received up to 47 invites<\/a> in a single day.<\/p>\n Unlike other apps in the past, like Ever (previously Everalbum)<\/a>, it\u2019s not clear if Tribe used misleading onboarding screens that\u00a0tricked users into inviting everyone in their contacts. That would still be shady behavior \u2013 and the kind\u00a0that can get you at least temporarily banned from the App Store<\/a>. But some users are saying they\u00a0never gave the app permission to invite anyone at all. This would make Tribe\u2019s glitch not just an annoyance, but also an illegal one.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n As one tipster told TechCrunch, they received at least 20 texts from people who said they never sent out\u00a0invites. Many are also saying this on Twitter.<\/p>\n However, another Tribe user pointed out<\/a> that the app was pre-selecting all their contacts on a misleading screen<\/a>, which means those who spammed their address books may have accidentally<\/em> given the app permission to do so.<\/p>\n The problem is that you can\u2019t necessarily prove which is true due to the fact that some parts\u00a0of an app can be updated without having to go through the App Store review process, and it\u2019s possible to A\/B test different user experiences at the same time.<\/p>\n In any event, people are angry:<\/p>\n @HeyTribe<\/a> Installed your app and you spammed my entire address book with invites without my permission. Not cool<\/p>\n \u2014 Greg Seguin (@gregseguin) December 6, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Up to 47 @HeyTribe<\/a> invites today\u2026this is not a good way to build a customer base.<\/p>\n \u2014 Andrew Bleich (@andrewbleich) December 6, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n I’d never even heard of @heytribe<\/a>, let alone downloaded it, and I’ve received 32 notifications from them saying my friends invited me. NOPE.<\/p>\n \u2014 Katie Topper (@toppsyturby) December 7, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n @heytribe<\/a> you fkers are spamming my contacts like crazy. Garbage lead gen. Terrible growth idea. And your UX is stressful and not intuitive.<\/p>\n \u2014 Geronimo Carlo R III (@geronimoLOXY) December 6, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n STOP STOP STOP @HeyTribe<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/udklmxmwsV<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Charlotte Chaffanjon (@CChaffanjon) December 5, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Hey @HeyTribe<\/a>, you immediately lose my trust by automatically inviting everyone in my contacts to your app. LAZY (inappropriate) marketing!<\/p>\n \u2014 Harrison Forman (@htforman) December 6, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n @HeyTribe<\/a> STOP spamming all my professional contacts!!! This is such shady practice. Good luck with your App Store ratings<\/p>\n \u2014 Bowen Li (@bowenlibl) December 6, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n steer clear of @heytribe<\/a>, a new messaging app. it’s full of dark patterns that spam your contact list nonconsensually.<\/p>\n \u2014 Jason Barrett Prado (@jasonpjason) December 6, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n @HeyTribe<\/a> If I’m not interested at 2:29pm when “Alex and 9 others invite me to join,” odds are I’m not at 4:21pm either. Stop spamming me.<\/p>\n \u2014 Rishi Bedi (@rishibedi) December 7, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n . @sequoia<\/a> \u2013 FYI your portco @HeyTribe<\/a> is juicing its user acq numbers by spamming new users’ contacts without permission<\/p>\n \u2014 Cameron Mullen (@MullenCam) December 6, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n did anyone else miss where in the @HeyTribe<\/a> setup process we gave them permission to text all friends to join??? seems pretty sketch<\/p>\n \u2014 Brian Kusiak (@bkusiak) December 7, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Idk who at @HeyTribe<\/a> thought it was a good idea to text ppl’s entire contact list when they download ur app but\u2026STOP. TEXTING. ME. ???<\/p>\n \u2014 Bailey Y. (@bmyu10) December 7, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n @HeyTribe<\/a> hey does tribe message your contacts when you sign up? I didn’t invite anyone, but a few have had texts?!<\/p>\n \u2014 Jozef Maxted ? (@jozefmaxted) December 7, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n yo @HeyTribe<\/a> fuck you for this shameless contact spamming, never downloading your bullshit app<\/p>\n \u2014 srgnt ? (@sargentned) December 7, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n @HeyTribe<\/a> do you have any information for us here?? Why were all of those texts going out to our contacts without our permission?<\/p>\n \u2014 Brian Kusiak (@bkusiak) December 7, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Tribe\u2019s response to customers does\u00a0not include an explanation of what went wrong, or even really, much of an apology.<\/p>\n Instead, the account is individually tweeting back to affected customers a vague message saying that\u00a0it \u201cfixed an issue on our end.\u201d In some cases the account\u00a0adds \u201csorry\u201d to its tweet, but other times it simply answered\u00a0with a more generic reply\u00a0instead.<\/p>\n \u201cThanks for the feedback and we are always looking for ways to improve the Tribe platform,\u201d the account said in response to some of the earlier complaints.<\/p>\n![\"tribe\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/1ae9e_tribe.png?resize=640%2C335\")
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