Please Don’t Support Groupon

dragonschilde:

Trigger warning for mention of molestation/sexual assault

I’m going to say this upfront – this post is going to get really personal but reblogs are welcome, as are comments.

Anyway. My adopted dad was at one point a portrait photographer and ages ago he ran a Groupon. He’s not a photographer anymore because he molested both my sister and I. Three or so years ago I finally found the courage to tell my mom what happened and she kicked him out. There were criminal proceedings and he ended up being charged with a felony for child molestation and a misdemeanor (communication with a minor for amoral purposes). I’m not going to bog you down with all the other repercussions of his actions. All of the court proceedings and charges are public record so anyone could access them if they wanted to.

Less than a month ago, when a friend was looking for someone to do professional head shots, Groupon ran an ad (on their mobile app) asking if she was interested in my Dad’s photography business. The ad stated that if enough people responded, they would contact him for a new Groupon offer. The ad had our family’s home address attached (where he no longer lives).

While shocking, the ad in and of itself wouldn’t be a problem if Groupon had been willing to remove it. However, they have shown (via an exchange of multiple emails) that this issue is not very high priority. The emails have been mostly automated and when we finally got a hold of a person they basically told us to do research to find the contact information for another Groupon employee instead of giving us the information of the appropriate person. Please, please, please don’t support this company.

tl;dr Groupon ran an add for an for a person convicted with a felony for child molestation (who is a registered sex offender) that published the home address of his victims. They have been uncooperative about removing the ad. Please, don’t support them.