ECF.Buzz Reviews 

We have just noticed this 1 star review by Ben. It is unfortunte that he forgot to cancel his sub but that is not our fault. Many subscription websites use the same format and one like Crunchbase, who charge £300, does not offer any refund if you forget. We do the best we can and many peeps appeciate our efforts for a £36 annual sub. Ben does not which is his right. All businesses that funded from 2011 to 2017/18 are included in the Company Tracker, along with updated comments on progress - so long as they are UK companies. After this date some are certainly missing. So his claim is simply untrue. It is a shame he couldnt be more honest. The site has many articles with very useful advice on investing and starting companies as well as the Company Tracker, expert's reflections and of course the blog which holds a long record of many failed businesses and the few successes since 2011. If Ben has really only lost £6 whilst investing then he is either not trying hard enough or fibbing. He clearly doesnt understand what a Zombie is. We dont believe this review is a fair reflection on our work. You are welcome to contact us before joining to discuss .

Goodness there are some real tossers on the internet. We know what we know and that is Ben is a fraud and the other two must be his mates or trolls. We know this to be a verified fact as we have not taken any new memberships since February 2023 (we closed won the Stripe account) and these guys could not read any content without being members. They are not members. QED they are liars. ECF Buzz has tried to change the face of CF but has failed. So is closing. We have served over 2000 customers and had 3 complaints over the period. Oh and Ben you are a liar - there is no way someone as thick as you could make a penny out of Crowdfunding. You cant even manage your own bank account! Even bright peeps cant.

Not worth the subscription fee, unfortunately. Company Tracker does not include all businesses that have pitched via Seedrs/CC despite claims to do so (around 1/5th of my invested businesses are missing, despite funding since 2011 and still trading). Impossible to discover this until you've paid sadly.

New content and insights are rare, the news section is largely an aggregator of third party articles, the forum is dead (a few posts a year perhaps), and the site is full of bugs and poor design/UX.

I realised in January that it was around a year since I'd subscribed, so logged in to cancel, but got a website error when trying to do so, and rather than dealing with it then, it slipped my mind. Out of nowhere I had a £36 Stripe charge on my card, and realised it must be the renewal, so I logged back in to attempt to cancel again, and got the same error. Emailing instead to request my account be cancelled I mentioned the bug with their website, requested my account be closed, and asked for a refund - having been given no prior warning that my card would be charged, email or otherwise, and having faced issues cancelling.

I received a short and perfunctory email from the owner, informing me that my account was cancelled and that he was refunding me minus the Stripe charges, PLUS an admin fee. This amounted to £6 of fees out of £36. Stripe, who I am familiar with, would charge ~£0.70 for a transaction like this. Even if it was reasonable for this to be charged to me, it means I was charged a £5+ 'admin fee' to perform a service that I only required assistance with because the functionality on the website was broken. Incredible.

It's pretty hilarious that the owner of this site rails against crowdfunding websites on Twitter for being scammers, when he is charging "admin fees" for performing basic services that his website can't because it's broken. As it stands, ECF.buzz is the most money I have lost on a crowdfunding investment.

American Express thankfully as helpful as ever with the request to regain the full amount.

Buzz score: 0.

Edit:

I have just seen the "response" to this review...

It's really telling that they choose another larger business being bad at customer service on subscriptions as an example of why it should be fine for me to accept this level of service. It's not difficult to have a reminder email sent before renewing/charging a customer. Had you done this I probably would never have left this review.

In response to the claim that "it's a shame I couldn't be more honest", I'd love to point out that they then proudly say they cover "All businesses that funded from 2011 to 2017/18" which actually proves that they're still mis-selling their product offering on their website, given it's 2023 and it still claims "Up to date information on *all* companies that have funded since 2011", which was kinda my point. I guess it's fine if you want an investment website that is 5-6 years behind on updates, run by someone who accuses you of being a liar for pointing out that they don't offer something their website actively claims to.

For what it's worth; nothing in my original review was untrue whatsoever regarding losses. This has now changed, roughly 5% of my overall invested capital is a loss, but this has thankfully been offset by gains elsewhere, realised in one case via a secondary sale.

My original rating remains, and the attempt to paint me as a liar only reinforces it; there is no fibbing in this review, and I'd suggest the only zombies are those posting on the ECF Buzz forum.

It's a shame they can't be more honest.