Fudging the numbers?

[ths1977]

When you are first building a site would you consider fudging the numbers so that new users don't feel as though they are the first ones to try/use your service?

For instance:

Now servicing almost 30,000 customers

It's not really fibbing, 30 users is "almost" 30,000 :)

What's your take on pumping up your numbers when you are first starting out?

Edit: I am not saying do this to receive seed funding or anything of that type. I have heard stories of paypal doing this or something similar in the beginning.

[lucy24]

What do you need numbers for at all? Just make the service look good. When't the last time you saw a hit counter?

Sure, 30,000 is better than 30. But a dishonest 30,000 is worse than 30 even if the real figure is 3,000. A business that's prepared to lie egregiously about one aspect of their service will can no longer be trusted on other aspects.

[Swanny007]

That sounds sleazy to lie big. I would just rephrase it and leave out the number. Try to get some real testimonials from actual customers and create a testimonial page and use other trust type things to gain trust.

[GoNC]

I would say it's a VERY bad idea. You get caught and you'll lose all credibility. You may as well kiss your new business goodbye.

Further, it may be illegal. Look up the lawsuit against Lifestyle Lift for publishing fake consumer reviews online.

We had a company try to compete with one of our sites like this about 7 years ago. We sell ads, and we were advertising our number of unique visitors pageviews. In a very deceptive move, they began advertising their "hits", which were obviously a lot higher than our pageviews (I hope everyone here immediately understands why).

They didn't last a year. People fell for the deception at first, but then immediately realized it and never returned as a customer. Unfortunately, we STILL suffer because of their lie; less savvy business owners still associate that lie with online advertising, and now think that all online advertising is a scam.