In their own words...
We're sharing selected quotes from employees of The Knot Worldwide - The Knot, WeddingWire, dba, "WeddingPro" to highlight the harmful impact of the company's alleged fraudulent practices on small business owners... What have The Knot's own employees told us about their business practices?
“We facilitate fake leads - not viable leads.” It has to do with a nuanced algorithm we created using our own AI – it toys with the vendors.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Sales Director Level Employee
"The company turns-on viable leads to a vendor when the vendor first signs up, and when the vendor's contract is set to expire - ghosting them for the 10 months in between. “It toys with the vendors out of the gate and when expiring and the contract is coming to an end – it’s boosted to create false hope and a fear of missing out if they don’t renew.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Director Level Employee
“We are lying to them.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Sales Account Executive
“We know we have a monopoly.” The company has raised prices on the vendors astronomically.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Director Level Employee
“The program add-ons we sell are worthless” “We are selling them with lies.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Sales Account Executive
“(Sales) Reps are incentivized not to get back to complaining vendors – ‘Not your problem, just keep selling’ – it’s the fear of cancellations which impact our budget and compensation.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Sales Account Executive
“A guy I was pitching told me he only had $300 left in his bank account. I told him the best thing to do was give that $300 to The Knot – invest in this advertising - knowing he’d get zero ROI.” “My sales director told me to tell the prospective vendor to take out a CC to pay for this.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Sales Account Executive
“They don’t care about the employees or the vendors. The Knot cares about their pockets and the bottom line and anything that gets in the way of that they will plow right through.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Director Level Employee
“The program add-ons we sell are worthless” “We are selling them with lies.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Sales Account Executive
“The sales directors are telling the salespeople to say whatever they have to say to make the sale - turn off the sales recording device (that records the sales call with the vendor) and make extreme promises to close the deal.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Sales Account Executive
“So you gotta keep everybody going. So, in order to do that, you do have to gaslight the people, you know, like, you've absolutely got to.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
“I heard you were fed-up with the way there were lying to clients”
- C Suite Executive
"It's mentally draining because you are manipulating people into buying, and the the rebuttal process is - you know - basically, you don't let them off the phone….Apparently, I'm a good manipulator, you know - it's not a great thing, but you are taught how to manipulate people.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
“The sales tactics used were often quite sleazy. There was immense pressure to upsell and close deals, even when it was not in the clients’ best interest…..Management prioritizes numbers over relationships, leading to a culture where integrity took a backseat to sales goals.
- The Knot / WeddingWire / (dba WeddingPro) Sales Employee review on Glassdoor.
“This company is terrible. They just keep raising quotas and demand that we force feed our vendors a product that doesn’t work (and they refuse to fix) If it doesn’t work, they make us gaslight the vendors into thinking it is their own fault.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Sales Employee review from Glassdoor
“We know our website platforms are already oversold and the advertising programs will not deliver ROI. It does not work for 80% of our vendors.”
- Knot / Wedding Wire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
“If they (vendor) try to cancel, no one will get back to them and they use excuses like, 'I was out sick.' - It’s super intentional.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Director Level Employee
“b/c it's necessary to advertise with, but we don’t care about them and just keep raising rates, etc. they don’t get ROI, and then we increase prices - lol.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Vendor/Customer Support Employee
“The company has sketchy morals and will do anything to make a sale. They don’t actually care if their product is good or helping people. Money runs the ship, not the user experience.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Senior Product Manager; review on Glassdoor
“ Your boss fully knows this is not going to work for this person….they are listening in and in Slack messaging, telling you 'say this' - they shadow our calls.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
"I didn’t care if they wanted me to sign it (NDA) if they were willing to pay me.” “I had to get out because the company was trying to get money at all costs.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) VP Level Executive
“New business reps can lie and say anything to get the sale. The clients can’t get out for anything. They are locked in for 12-month agreements, no exceptions.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
“Shady sales practices, misguiding customers, treated poorly.”
- The Knot / Wedding Wire (dba WeddingPro) Vendor Retention Specialist review on Glassdoor.
“But what they (vendors) don’t realize is that these leads that they are getting they could get like 10 leads but 9 of them could just be vendor recommendations and not like actual direct leads. The clients are going to go Ape Shit! They are terribly unscrupulous. What more can they do to screw these poor people over?!”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
“The company incentivizes sales reps to play hard ball to 'stick it to the clients'. It's getting brutal - and nobody cares because the company has created an environment where you have to kind of care about yourself.” – Incentivizing reps to look out for their own interests and not that of the client because they could potentially get a zero-dollar commission check.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
“I’m not Erin Brockovich, but they are deceiving small business owners who don’t have the money - by providing false information. A lot of the reps are telling vendors, ‘You’re going to have a booking by the time your second monthly payment comes in. It’s just not honest.”
- The Knot /WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
“From the top down, I think they are corrupt.”
- The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
“Not only do I have to sell, I have to handle so many cancel calls, upset auto-renew calls, it's simply ridiculous. The ROI is the pits, and there's really nothing you can say to people but I have to. The process now is new business sells it with a bunch of lies,”
-The Knot / WeddingWire (dba WeddingPro) Account Executive
"For having more than two decades of history and being a webservices company, the software and data environment seem very immature and stakeholders don’t seem worried about that at all."
- The Knot / Wedding Wire / WeddingPro Data Engineer review on Glassdoor.
“The company culture…..is TERRIBLE. It is led by fear mentally ….They just threaten us that if we do not we will lose our jobs. (Think Boiler Room but making far less money) …
- The Knot Wedding Wire WeddingPro Sales Employee review on Glassdoor.
You may get in touch with us via: theknotwhistleblowers@gmail or securely at theknotwhistleblowers@proton.me and for press inquiries : (369) 212-5337
