Posted by 
UPDATE 1: Scroll below on how one player had success with an appeal. IANAL and YMMV
UPDATE 2: I’ll be updating this as time goes on, but I want to make clear that at this time, I do NOT believe Healthy Wage has ulterior motives with regard to profitability. They are trying to do the right thing as they view it to be. When they claim they do not want to encourage somebody to engage in unhealthy weight loss practices, and the cancellations are required to achieve that end, I will accept that. But I still believe the execution of this was atrocious and they scored an own goal here. I told the marketing manager I would keep an open mind, and I will do so.
Here’s the text:
Greetings,
We regret to inform you that your HealthyWager challenge has been administratively terminated. We know that you received an email inviting you to sign up and you were able to do so, but this was an error. You were actually not eligible to participate in a yo-yo HealthyWager challenge. This error allowed certain people to join a yo-yo HealthyWager challenge that could potentially encourage unhealthy behavior which we are not allowed to support. You may be eligible for a yo-yo challenge in the future, but not at this time.
Pursuant to the HealthyWager Services Agreement, we are cancelling your HealthyWager challenge and refunding your payment(s). We suspect that you may not want your challenge to be terminated, so we have automatically appealed the decision on your behalf. The result of the appeal is to confirm the decision, which is final.
We apologize for the surprise disappointment. We know this might be a major bummer and you might even feel angry. Please don’t let this stop your motivation. Press on toward healthy goals! You can still use HealthyWage for Jackpot and step challenges. The yo-yo rule does not apply to our Jackpot challenges (any existing enrollments in these challenges will be unaffected), and, of course, it does not apply to step challenges. You can also elect to join up to 10 Jackpot and/or step challenges at one time.
Best of health,
The HealthyWage Team
Two people in the Facebook support groups I hang out in got their HealthyWagers annulled. They were previous winners who signed up again around New Years, after being invited by email to do so and being told the yo-yo rule was being waived for them.
Healthy Wage is apologizing, but they will not state why they were ineligible. I spent a lot of effort verifying that eligibility was generalized for this promotion—although I always said you should independently verify it by emailing them. But even that didn’t protect these two people.
I am in a Facebook group with some of the other ambassadors, where we discuss issues between ourselves and the marketing manager, whose name is Amanda Stewart. I got a thread going on this one as well.
This is a major fuckup by Healthy Wage. Although the people are being made whole—it would be a catastrophic fuckup if they weren’t—they spent real money and bought into this thing and now the company is welshing on them. And they won’t give the actual reason why they are ineligible and other people are not.
Maybe I will get an email of my own this week?
I’ll keep you all posted.
From the marketing manager:
I was informed by our team that we had to remove some yo-yo participants who were not supposed to be permitted to do the challenge again. Since this is the first time we’ve ever allowed yo-yoers to come back and do another HealthyWager, it’s been a little bumpy and canceling challenges is not something HealthyWage plans to do again in the future. If someone receives the email and has questions, they can contact reply to the email/contact support at info@healthywage.com.
I then asked this:
[] ok… so what’s the criteria for locking out certain people? Is there a reason that is delineated in the service agreement?
Obviously they can be trusted because they can do jackpots. Presumably they can do a non-yo-yo HealthyWager.
Will customer service actually communicate the ineligibility criteria for them if they choose to start a ticket?
And the response:
Michael Wheaton unfortunately, I cannot confirm the criteria as there were a few different factors our team was looking into when deciding if a participant was not eligible. If someone received this email and would like more details, they can contact customer support who will help answer their questions.
So some people are locked out of doing this because…reasons.
This is unacceptable, and if they ever want to run such a promotion again they have to be up front, RIGHT NOW, on why some previous winners cannot take part. It is obviously not something simple, like they made too much money last time or something.
People are pissed off in the groups, talking lawsuits and stuff. They might take a hit in BBB ratings if they don’t do something about it now. Depends on how many people got the business.
1/29/20: At least 3 people in one Facebook group—one of which got an email but the wager is still active; has a ticket in requesting a refund.
I emailed the marketing manager again. I’ll post that exchange (unless it’s confidential) once it gets completed.
Here’s what I wrote the marketing manager. I was worried about money issues, so I wanted them to put that to bed for good.
I really hope Healthy Wage hasn’t put themselves into a position where the cannot pay winners and might go bankrupt.
You must have known that you were inviting people in who had a history of winning. The calculator model requires very limited biometric data to generate prize quotes, and I am sure it’s based on broad statistical data. I would think a relatively small percentage of the people who normally join have had success losing lots of weight, and that is factored into the model. But you have specifically targeted people who you know have been successful at not just weight loss, but at weight loss wagering with Healthy Wage.
I saw some people got $200 prize boosts, but those were specific offers to certain people who lost their wagers. My wife was offered only $100. But this yo-yo was across the board, and I was certain of it I always told people to confirm personally with the company if they didn’t get an email, and I was not aware of anybody being denied the opportunity to sign up again.
I am now aware of 4 people who got their wagers annulled. The people in the groups I am in are wondering about the integrity of the company now. It does not help that the criteria for annulling the wagers is still secret. I don’t see how you can offer this type of promo again with what had been going on.
Hopefully you are catching them all this week and you won’t do another round of this.
Most of all, I hope you aren’t in financial trouble now. I am honestly reluctant to promote the company at this time. I have always said the company is fair and pays out winners, but if there’s a problem here I need to know this now.
I got this back from her:
Michael, this has nothing to do with money. HealthyWage is well capitalized. All cancellations were done for health reasons. Some people have lost and gained weight way too quickly. We have to make sure participants are using the challenges in a way that helps them accomplish long-term, sustainable, lifestyle change. Keep in mind, this is our first time permitting yo-yoers to participate and our system was a little bumpy. We are still in the process of removing people and should have that complete by the end of the week. We hope to be able to offer yo-yoers the opportunity to participate again in the future.
Thank you for your support.
So, there’s no money crisis—they can make good on their wagers. According to Healthy Wage, some people have history of losing or gaining weight too rapidly, and even though they won their HealthyWager previously, somebody decided they should be locked out of a future HealthyWager than involves losing the same weight the lost before.
Unfortunately, that analysis was never shared with the marketing team nor the customer service team. So instead of targeting certain people to play again, they just made it available to every previous winner generally.
They still shit the bed here. This looks awful. I don’t believe they are deliberately welshing on wagers by doing this, but rather that they are displaying gross incompetence.
It would be useful to get more clarity on the criteria used to make the eligibility decisions here, and what evidence was relied upon. Also, if ineligible players may become eligible again, what actions can they take to do that?
Appeal it!
Here’s the text from a successful customer service ticket:
I kept my original email from Healthy Wage inviting me to start a new wager and forwarded it to them today with the following message:
I received an email today telling me that my Healthy Wager has been cancelled. I want to know why my wager was cancelled, but others who joined under the offer to start a new wager (waiving the yo-yo rule) were not cancelled.
The offer you extended to me via email is a written contract. I met all the qualifications outlined in the email and my starting weight was verified, and you collected my payment. I am going to pursue legal action if my Healthy Wager is not reinstated.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely
[name]
The response:
HealthyWage Help Desk, Jan 29, [time]:
Hello [name],
Thank you for reaching out. This is our first time permitting yo-yo participants to register for another HealthyWager challenge and our system was a little bumpy.
I’ve reviewed your account and determined that we can reinstate your current challenge.
Best of luck in your challenge.
Best Wishes,
Crissy
HealthyWage Support
Can’t guarantee it will work—I would think that if you did in fact lose or gain too fast, too much, they might have you too deep on their shit list to reinstate you.
But it provides confidence against aspersions that they are welching on wagers they now regret having offered.
So I got the following this afternoon:
Hi Michael:
We love your enthusiasm for weight loss bets and how you love to help people and look out for them. That’s all very important to us, which is why we value our relationship with you.
We have a request concerning the yo-yo situation: you know we aren’t the “bad guy” and that we aren’t canceling bets that we haven’t thought carefully about. Please try to give us the benefit of the doubt rather than assuming the worst. You’ve been working with us for a long time. You know we pay our winners. Please give us the benefit of the doubt. 99%+ of bets will not be canceled and your bet will not be canceled.
To which I responded:
I will! Things happen and if you contain it then everything will be fine.
So I am keeping an open mind.
I’m guessing it’s a moral dilemma? You want to honor your commitment to keeping the wagers, but you don’t want to countenance what you believe is an unhealthy weight change pattern if you have evidence of that.
If it’s less than 1% that got the hit then they must be really salient. I’m wondering how that direction didn’t internally get transmitted to the customer interface personnel. But like I said, things can happen like that.
The communication did have issues—particularly with the automatic appeals process where the appeals window is closed before the person knows what is going on—or happens without the player authorizing it in the first place. I am aware of one person who got reinstated after a review, so that’s good.
I appreciate knowing I am in good shape though on my wager.
So to reiterate—I don’t believe they want to deny people money that they deserve. To this day I am not aware of a single player that did not get paid out on a winning wager—although many years ago when the verification process was less mature, one winner I talked to on the official Facebook feed fell through the cracks and spent a few months in one before they straightened things out with her.
Having said that, a number of things are still puzzling me:
—With such a small percentage of yo-yo players having what they view as problematic weight change histories, why not let them play and deal with any funny weight loss behavior as it happens during the wager, if it actually does?
—If these folks were setting off flags during their earlier wagers, then why didn’t you address the issue at the time? You paid them off—isn’t that admission they were following the rules before?
—Perhaps they were marginal cases and you made a business decision to pay them off rather than challenge them. If that is the case, would you be willing to be open about that?
—How do you do this promotion in the future? Do you put some limits on the bet ranges that are allowed? What about prohibiting any bets that require a weekly weight loss rate greater than a certain percentage, since that was the primary issue with the cancelled players the last time? In fact, you can let the cancelled players ease their pledges on this go-round if you think they are going too rapidly now, instead of just cancelling the wagers.
Just some thoughts. I’ll have more tomorrow. Good luck to all of you!
Weight Betting Odds 