DietBet

I played a $50 bet this January, lost the weight and showed the proof.

I have an email saying that they had my final weight recorded and the app had me marked me as losing 100% of what I needed to lose.

They marked me as losing and still took my money. It's harder than it should be to find how to contact them about it.

Overall, I'm pretty angry at the shady behavior. Don't bother. Just leave the money in a place out of sight and reward yourself with it should you hit your goal, and keep the middle man out of it.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

Don't have illusions of winning much money like they present it as. I won three bets with $170 of my money. I walked away with $11 in winnings.

Yes, I lost weight (which is good) but didn't win like they promote.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I participated in a $150 "main event." After a few weeks, roughly 18% of people in the game did not meet the goal. This lead to a final payout of $150 for a net profit of $0.

DietBet advertisements showcase the amount people that "win" on their site. Based on their definition I "won" $150 from my $150-bet being returned. I would not be surprised if their "10-25% fee" goes mostly towards marketing, evidenced by their frequent giveaways during the events for people who invite others to the site.

From a business standpoint, it is an admirable model. The company risks nothing, takes a large chunk from the gross of games, and keeps the consumer's money in limbo the entire time. The cheerful message of weight loss hides the telltale signs of a pyramid scheme, the company markets the possibility of big paydays to continue inflating the client base with gullible users. A quick glance at the payouts from past games this year shows that the margins are getting smaller and smaller, in some cases non-existent, for winning players despite the number of participants staying the same.

Bottom line: DietBet is not going to last as a company because they are milking their customers for as much as they can get away with. Stay away and motivate yourself to lose weight.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I was hesitant to start DietBet, but their site gave me some comfort in that they had a "no loss guarantee." This guarantee ensured you'd at least get your initial investment back if you won the DietBet.

One of the DietBets I signed up for was for charity, and I was happy to support a good cause. After all was said and done, I won, and the amount I won was less than what I paid. Here I am thinking, "I won, why did I not get at least my initial investment back?" Their "no loss guarantee" ensured that.

So I contacted customer support and chatted with them. They brushed it off saying that some money went to charity. I pointed out that even with the amount that went to charity, there was still enough money for everyone who played to get their money back. And according to the "no loss guarantee," DietBet was supposed to take less of a cut so that everyone was ensured they get their money back. They went to such lengths as to change their website to include an addendum to the "no loss guarantee" that prevented charity events from benefiting from this. They then sent me a link to it in their response to the new updated part of their site which wasn't there hours before, but they tried to pretend that the wording that negated charity events was always there. They did all this just to save a very small amount of money!

Such terrible customer service and shady behavior! They can't even stand behind their own policy, probably because they've never had to use the policy until now. At any rate, it's just a terrible company, and I will never use their service again, and I suggest you don't either.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I canceled registration via email within the 7-day cancellation period. According to DietBet’s policy, bets are fully refunded as long as you cancel within 7 days. I canceled after 4 days, after encountering a pretty serious technical bug on their website.

DietBet customer service emailed back acknowledging my cancellation request and said they’d issue me a refund. They never issued the refund, and never responded to my last reply. When I contacted them inquiring about the status of the refund, they claimed they didn’t have a record of it. Even after I forwarded them the entire email thread promising the refund, plus screenshots, nothing.

It’s a total scam! A dishonest company that doesn’t honor their own policies.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I lost the weight. I paid the fees. Now, though, at weigh-out, the app and the interface don't work. I have had to go through support to get my weight verified, AND they've only done it for some of the games. I ONLY knew of this "flaw" because the same thing happened last week, so I lost my money.

IF you're willing to contact support every time you need something and IF you can manage to find their email, then it's worth it. I WILL NOT ever be associated with this again as they make it impossible to collect when you win. I WILL get my money because I refuse to be a victim a second time, but unless you're willing to cause a scene, you won't see your money back.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

As others have stated, this is a money making scheme. Off the top, they charge $5, and say it’s for using the app...but the app sucks and is literally just a comment section. Now, some games have pots in the $250k and up, with 9k players. With just the admin fee they’re collecting over $40k from people in ONLY ONE GAME. From that $250k they take 25%, which means from this one game, they collect over $100k from people and payout crap. Lastly, you have to get the money in points or PayPal payout? They didn’t make me use PayPal when they took my money, but have to payout through PayPal. Honestly, I won’t ever recommend DietBet to anyone unless they want to pay a company to comment to each other...save your money. Do a DietBet with friends and family or something.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

My hope when I joined the DietBet challenge was first to lose weight. I like the carrot and stick approach. Admittedly, like many things I set to do, I tend to procrastinate and put off. I did manage to lose weight every month and tried to keep my number so that I could pull a "Rocky" and work extra hard the last month. Prior to entering the last month of the challenge I received an email from DietBet informing me that I was omitted from the challenge based on the amount of weight that I lost, they wanted to look out for my "safety." You can interpret that however you want, but even if I wasn't able to achieve my goal, I surely would have lost more weight during the last month than any of the others. Thanks for nothing, diet bet. You suck!

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I've joined two DietBet games. I joined the first because the host (Fatgirlfedup) promised to share what she ate and discuss things that had helped her. She lost over 300 pounds so I was very excited to get started! She posted twice the entire month. One of the times she posted she told us to remember to drink water. I thought she was having a bad month. I came close to winning my DietBet and wanted to try again. I chose the same host, figuring she had a bad month. We're all human so I was willing to give it another try. Again, she posted two or three times. I was so disappointed. I joined an online weight loss community and found motivation there. I won my second DietBet. Now I've found out that Fatgirlfedup doesn't participate in any of her DietBet games, apart from a couple of posts. There have also been many people complaining that she doesn't deliver her promised giveaways. She uses the giveaways as incentives for people to join her games. She has been steadily regaining weight while still promoting DietBet. She has also been seen drunk in her Instagram stories and has recently been accused of sexually harassing a male friend. I cannot believe DietBet promotes such a person to represent their brand. People need to realize that the host matters when you choose a game. I cannot recommend DietBet any longer. However, if you do decide to play, stay away from Fatgirfedup's games.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

So I won my DietBet. Now I'm trying to get my winnings. Since I don't use PayPal, I gave them my wife's PayPal. Still haven't received it. First they say they sent me a confirmation that it was okay to send it to here - never received. Then they told me to log into a site - that doesn't exist. Several chains similar to this. On and on. Now they say it was sent 3 days ago. I think they are trying to wear me down! It's been over a week.

Have you noticed you can only give them a good "like" and not a bad "like"?

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

My family and I did a private game. Our "bet" was $40 each with 10 of us playing. $5 of each bet gets taken as a fee by DietBet. There were 10 of us playing so you would think that's a pot of $400 minus $50 fee, equaling $350.

At the end of the game 5 of us made our goal. So you assume that's $350 divided by 5 is $70.

The 5 of us received a payout of $38.20! Uh, what?! What DietBet doesn't tell you upfront is that they take another fee at the end! So over half the money we all paid out went to the company! It's a total scam!

Length of Use: Less than 3 months

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend