Make Sure Your Kids Are Not Playing on This Site
Several popular YouTube users, whose subscribers are mostly children, have been criticized for partnering with and promoting a site that encourages users to gamble by spending money to open a digital mystery box.
Jake Paul (17.7 million subscribers) and Brian ” RiceGum ” Le (10.7 million subscribers) recently promoted MysteryBrand.net , a website where customers pay a fee to open online “boxes” of various pre-selected potential items. … Critics say this is tantamount to gambling at best and cheating at worst.
“Whoever created this website, brother, you’re a fucking genius, ” Paul says in his YouTube video, opening boxes of shoes, an Apple watch and an iPhone that he allegedly won at the Mystery Brand. The video, which has racked up over 2 million views, has been criticized because many of its subscribers are children.
It’s the same with Le, who opens digital box after digital box of shoes, sweatshirts and gadgets, at one point saying, “I’ll just do it, man. Like, it’s actually super exciting because I don’t know what I’m going to get, “before opening the $ 100 box and getting what looks like a towel. Later, he described his strategy as follows: “It seems like the method works for me; Like, I try several boxes, it doesn’t work, I try another one ”.
Guava Juice , a children’s YouTube channel with 12.8 million subscribers and its own line of toys, also reportedly posted a promotional video for the Mystery Brand. It looks like this video has been deleted.
Daily Beast tech reporter Will Sommer delved deeper into Mystery Brand’s terms of service to understand how and where the company operates:
Mystery Brand’s terms of service seem to state that underage users are not eligible for prizes or even refunds, as the site “will void all transactions that were performed by a minor and will refuse to release a winning product without refund. “.
According to another part of the terms of service, Mystery Brand users may not even receive the items they think have won.
“While using the services of the website, you may encounter circumstances in which the goods you have won will not be received,” the document says.
It is unclear who owns the Mystery Brand and where it is located, although the site’s terms of service say that it “is subject to the laws and jurisdiction of Poland.”
Days after posting his Mystery Brand promotional video – and receiving backlash from other popular YouTubers for it – Le, whose channel is primarily focused on children,posted the explanation on YouTube . In the video, he implies that he received more than $ 100,000 for the partnership, admits that he is “in something wrong,” and says the following:
People keep saying that the website is an outline and all, and it looks like you guys can form your own opinion and do your research. But in my experience, you know, I would spend $ 100, and sometimes I would get something like a spinner, and then I would spend $ 100, and sometimes I would get a good item, for example. In fact, you win something, you lose something, and this is, like, the definition of gambling.
The Mystery Brand appears to be capitalizing on the ‘mystery box’ trend, where youtubers buy boxes of unknown content from sites like eBay and open them on camera. According to online video curator Tubefilter , the practice is “being compared to video game loot boxes,” which gamers can spend in-game currency (or, in some cases, real money) on to hack into a virtual box that can contain a variety of goods. “
Tim Perk, a spokesman for Mystery Brand, responded to the backlash by confirming to The Verge via email that the company does not actually own some of the prizes offered on the site.
“We don’t have to physically own these cars or houses to put them in a box as prizes,” Perk said. “If the user won such a prize, we would either offer him the exact monetary value of the prize, or our representatives would personally fly to the winner’s city and help them with the purchase of a car or a house.”
Prizes such as the $ 188 million mansion are extremely rare, Perk said, and added that the Mystery Brand team can “afford to be in person at the winner” in case someone wins. None of this is listed on the Mystery Brand website, including the terms of service or the FAQ page. There is not the slightest hint that Mystery Brand does not own the goods it sells.
Reddit users are arguing about that , is there a legitimate site: some say that they had received their goods by mail, while others say that waiting for weeks or months, never received their goods or receiving the goods that was not branded as advertised.