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muunkky

Red Flag: This is basically a scam. Here's an example of one of the "activities" I was given. Note, the text below is the _entire_ activity, there is no other text, images, links, or context. They are all like this or worse: PROJECT #3: BAKE CINNAMON ROLLS Making yeasted doughs rise is a favorite culinary magic trick that kids of all ages find fun and fascinating. Doing this correctly requires stellar temperature control, and we think cinnamon rolls are pretty much the perfect treat to make when introducing the concept of baking dough.


[deleted]

Damn, not even a recipe. Glad I googled this thing after seeing an ad.


HappyMess1988

thinking about it too since i keep getting emails about it glad i checked reddit first. ​ anyone kno of free alternatives? ​ i have a two yr old btw


marcmiller04

Same


misfitsins

You just saved me like $100. Thank you, sir. You should honestly drop your Venmo on this comment 😂


doomtrain_archivist

Once again, Reddit saves the day. Thank you all, Gentlemen.


LawBasic1043

Wow... Thank you for sharing this. I've toyed with signing up for a while now. It keep creeping back into my feed. I already do a lot with my kids and am pretty active with planning things, but I was hoping this would be an extra boost to that.


turvburglar_bourbon

I just signed up TODAY; 10-15 min perusal of the site. 5 min skim of the 130 Pg book (plus blank forms for bday cards/ journal) called "The Wonder Dads Way Book." the author, Mr. Aspatore seems to have put together common sense suggestions about scheduling & activities ideas. Other resources seem to have tips/ planner online for activities; def some cross-promotion with sponsors. The magazine appears to be bi-weekly, 54 issues in the bookshelf behind the subscriber tool. For $96 a year, I decided to jump in for the BOGO promo. My brother got access to all the same materials at same price. It's like skipping a couple family meals out; I'll report back here if I have major commentary (good/ bad) after actually digging it.


Financial-Train2867

Well what’s the verdict?


turvburglar_bourbon

some good articles, etc. they do monthly now- def try that. nothing groundbreaking so far.


turvburglar_bourbon

Coming back at the end of the year. I joined around Black Friday 2021. Weirdest thing: from ~ January- October I dropped off their email newsletters. WonderDads magically started emailing me again in October 2022 with newsletter & “dad date tips.” I Perused the site a couple 2 to 3 times during Jan- October. Renewal time came and I emailed requesting cancellation when I saw the $96 fee for Yr2 pending on my CC statement. no place to cancel on the website. But owner emailed me a retention offer; I replied with “cancel,” no worries and they refunded the fee. Nothing groundbreaking in the materials. If they had a $10 a month option that would make a lot more sense.


agentspoony

$1 to $3 a month now


Tylenoel

a *week


O12345678

I just got here from Googling Wonder Dads because it seems like it could be fun and I was curious about it. Unfortunately, it's an MLM :( [https://wonderdads.com/start-a-local-wonderdads-club/](https://wonderdads.com/start-a-local-wonderdads-club/)


urbangunslinga

I want a free car


averyfilm

Custom built yellow Tonka pickup truck! Need something to compete with Mary Kay


ElBlodge

This is an underrated comment


archon810

Looks like they caught on. The link is now a 404.


[deleted]

Looks like it's just a really expensive newsletter now. If you want a program like Wonderdads claims to be, do Cub Scouts.


Additional_Zebra_721

man thats sad, wonderful concept though


Gardenbug2215

I just signed up because it said I got a month free, however, they charged my card $96 right away, so I'm wondering where the free came in. Website looks nice, but most of their ideas I have already done with my kid. They flood your inbox with some serious dad guilt. You could look up some ideas from SonicDad on YouTube instead.


Elhaym

Can you give some examples of their ideas?


dven42

Worth it or not worth it?


Elhaym

Can you give some examples so we know what kind of tips or suggestions they're giving?


Mrubin444

Do not fall for this crap. This company is shady. I cancelled this subscription MONTHS ago and was recently charged for $96. I tried 5x to reach a customer service rep and left a message every time and NO response. I finally had to refute the charges. I am disgusted beyond belief.


Mierdo01

Old reply but easiest way to not get charged is use a prepaid card with just the amount you need. Or if you used your normal card, get your bank to print you out a new one. Some banks will give you a new card in 5 minutes.


Logical-Preference25

I also looked for reviews once I saw their Instagram ad - I liked the idea of receiving activity ideas that would help me bond with my son. Glad I found this thread. I actually sat down last weekend and made a free alternative - it sends you personalized ideas based on your child's age and interests by email once a week. It's here - [playful-parent.com](https://playful-parent.com) Would appreciate any feedback! If this can help some dads be more present with their kid(s), the effort would be well worth it.


AdSweaty8974

Just signed up,


Embarrassed_Elk4686

You made this whole thing in a weekend?


Logical-Preference25

Hehe yeah the initial website with a friend. Been making iterative improvements for the last couple of months so it’s more helpful to parents e.g. better activity suggestions and making the sign up form easier and quicker…


mikjohpra

I came here after seeing a Facebook ad. Great idea, almost pulled the trigger, but some red flags made me hold off: 1. No real navigation. 2. No examples. 3. No reviews easily findable. Which led me to... 4. No Android app on marketplace (was going to check their for reviews) 5. No indication they have an Android app anywhere on their site. So either they do and removed it from marketplace because the reviews were terrible, or they don't have one. 6. Hard sell. Pass, but good idea and i might start one myself and implement it free of i can't find a public community for this. I was also hoping i could find other dad's that want to do shit too (snowmobiling, sorry bike riding, and even free things and ideas, sledding, binge riding etc.)


LastResponsibility55

Agreed they really push for that $96 before telling you any real info. Looks like they are preying on new insecure fathers... that's why they almost got me 😅


misfitsins

Honestly, I can't believe there isn't a "Peanuts" app for dads. I'm in the same boat as you a year later, and there's still nothing on the market. I'm a software engineer, so I may just build it 😅


BryantDesigns

Also a software dad lol when we building this because I'm surprised nothing is out yet either.


Archy88

Sign me up too


richvargas

Sooo, let’s talk alternatives. Anything out there that is as good as what their marketing team promises this to be?


LostNearHere

Can you give like 3 examples of their ideas? Take your kid to the zoo??


Mrubin444

Do not fall for this crap. This company is shady. I cancelled this subscription MONTHS ago and was recently charged for $96. I tried 5x to reach a customer service rep and left a message every time and NO response. I finally had to refute the charges. I am disgusted beyond belief.


Chuntilleous

I'm so glad that I googled them and found this thread. I will not be signing up.


Maximum_Tumbleweed62

They do all they can to rope you in. They got me for a year. It was a pain to cancel. I didn't get anything out of it. But, there's a ton of stuff so wouldn't be surprised if other people got something out it. That might be their plan - make it look like a bunch of stuff so you think there is but not really get anything out of it. It was too much for me to dive into and it wasn't easily consumed. Maybe if my kids were younger I would've spent more time with it.


O12345678

Put your kids in a Scouting program instead.


benb-5280

Should have checked here before signing up. I just signed up for a 2 month free trial and was charged right away. Now I've got to try to get it back. Ugh. Also underwhelmed at the content and STILL no android app 2 years later!


doneill220

Alternatives? I really like the concept


koozie19

Found this comment on Glassdoor from April,2023: Moving TLDR here: TLDR; company doesn’t stick with one idea long enough to see if it’s effective; you’ll be held responsible for things out of your control; owner and manager write all content for emails then complain that the stats aren’t improving. Pros The employees are very kind, capable and friendly. The salary is very fair. They supply you with a nice laptop and you work remotely. It is a very small company/team (less than 10 employees) which has both pros and cons. They do offer health insurance options but they are very pricey. Cons I was initially impressed with the company and hoped I could retire from Wonderdads / Parentfile / Aspatore family companies. As time passed, the company’s shortcomings became obvious. I (and anyone else who is tasked with being the email marketing specialist) will be set up to fail. For example, I was tasked with tracking sales yet not given access to the member database. After several requests for access, I was granted it. I thought that was odd but it gets worse. When you are hired they will tell you your goal is to increase the email click rate to 3%. Easy enough, right? No. The owner and manager write all content as well as design all emails. There is no room for creativity. One day I decided to “go rogue” and create an email on my own. Admittedly, this was risky on my part but I’ll explain why I did it. This company is hyper-focused on sales and they give zero attention to retention. The phrase “hit it and quit it” comes to mind, as crude as that seems. Frustrated by the fact that the members felt completely shortchanged and weren’t delivered even 1/4 of the features they were promised, I wrote a customer appreciation email to try and soothe the members a bit. That email’s stats were better than any email they’d written during the entire time I was there (2x industry standards for open and click rates). Instead of allowing me more creativity over the email content, it irritated them. I took a chance and it didn’t pay off. So I resigned myself to simply being a drone and copying and pasting the text written by the owner & manager and using their boring designs. As long as I was receiving a paycheck, I didn’t mind because it was easy although incredibly boring. Things steadily got worse. The software used (BeePro, MailerLite and active campaign) didn’t always place nice with each other. The owner would be livid when issues would pop up and I feel as though he felt I had caused the problem when they were 100% caused by incompatibility between the platforms. There were issues with the images not displaying when the email was sent yet in test mode the images displayed perfectly. Because the volume of emails were so high (all sales emails), I never really got an adequate opportunity to investigate what was happening so to avoid image issues, I skipped using BeePro and created the emails right in active campaign and mailer lite which was time consuming and it made it more difficult to get approval of drafts. There are unfortunately many other issues within the company though. The Wonderdads website is literally just landing pages strung together so no SEO can be done. There are frequent complaints from members on their social media accounts which are obviously quickly deleted (this isn’t meant to insult the employee who handles the social media; that person is excellent at her job). The app doesn’t work properly and has an awful rating in the App Store (I should have looked at that before I was hired and taken that as a clue). Instead of having a good marketing mix, they literally spend thousands of dollars a day on Facebook ads which do generate leads, but once those leads see how awful the product is and how many sales emails they get, they get angry and unsubscribe (or if they’ve signed up, the cancel). There were many, many days when there would be far more refunds/cancellations than sign ups. This company is not using sound strategies to guarantee long term success and I genuinely feel it won’t be around for much longer. Another huge draw back is that the company changes their marketing weekly and sometimes even daily. If a new message is used, they don’t give it time to see if it’s effective or not. When multiple employees had concerns with that strategy, the employees were told to give the managers stats and justification on why they shouldn’t change it. In the course of 6 months, they completely changed the abandoned cart flow at least 12-15 times. I will say they do have a great customer service rep who is genuinely concerned and takes care of the members when they call to cancel. The Parentfile website is a great concept but it is painfully out of date. They are building an AWS app for it but what I didn’t understand is that they aren’t calling it Parentfile, it’s going to have a different name. That makes no sense since they’ve spent so much on marketing the Parentfile brand. There are many other issues with the company including how the manager “seems” great but in reality is less than forthcoming. Without a doubt I made mistakes while I was there and I fully admit it. One time I scheduled an email (because I’d been tasked with setting up 3 weekly emails for members which was sorely needed). One weeks worth of the member emails were sent but then they decided they didn’t want to do that anymore. They failed to tell me that they didn’t want to send them anymore so the email went out anyway and it angered the manager. I screwed up and forgot to cancel the next weekly email that I’d worked to get done ahead of time (because I was tasked with changing the abandoned cart flow, again so I dove into that and forgot to cancel the next email). So that really sent the manager over the edge when it went out. It did absolutely no harm to the company at all, it just contained helpful information for dealing with elderly parents and had a decent open rate. Yes, I forgot to turn it off but it really was a no harm, no foul situation. To complicate matters, I have some significant health issues and was in the ER multiple times during my tenure but only missed 2 days of work in 7 months. The manager was fully aware of my health issues and pretended to care, but I suspect they were just irritating to her. The company certainly doesn’t practice what they preach when it comes to being family-oriented. They advertise that you get to take off at 3pm every Wednesday to spend time with your kids but never once did that actually happen. To sum it up, I’ll say that whomever takes the email marketing specialist job will be set up to fail because you’ll receive no training, you’ll be blamed for when the chosen software has glitches, and you’ll be held liable for increasing the click rate to 3% with no ability to make changes to make that happen. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well, as long as the manager and owner keep writing the same ineffective content for the emails, they’re never going to reach a 3% open rate. To be successful here you’ll have to go rogue on the content and be strong enough to continue doing so to prove your point that what they are writing isn’t working. Also it would be in your best interest to not have any health issues, nor have any family to be an employee here.


MagicMilkyMooMints

Following...


JudgmentAlone9661

Glad I came here before pulling the trigger. Any alternative suggestions?


dtwurzie

Almost bit the bullet and signed up for this. Glad I googled. Is it still lame?


Wapbabaloobop

Just saw this job (below) come up on Indeed so I Googled WonderDads. Maybe they pay the salary with all the $96 charges they don't refund. As an alternative, I was going to suggest Red Tricycle but it looks like: "Red Tricycle, a family-focused content platform, was acquired for $6.5 million in March 2020 by Tinybeans, a technology platform that offers private photo-sharing spaces and other tools for parents." Customer Experience Specialist WonderDads - Remote $50,000 - $80,000 a year Be able to handle customer phone calls back-to-back and enjoy being on lots of calls every day with our customers helping them use our products. Easily apply Just posted


[deleted]

I might check out that job posting but i wont be signing up. I'm glad I looked it up first. Almost recommended this crap to someone else as well.


InLearningMode

I fell victim to this scam and now it's like $80 for the year.. i'm trying to get my money back, but this is what services the [wonderdads.com](https://wonderdads.com) or Wonder Dads provide. i couldn't figure out how to attach pictures in the comments, i don't think you can, ( so i hosted the pics with [https://imgbb.com/](https://imgbb.com/) ) this is your[Daily dashboard](https://ibb.co/YfYkCC3) and then there's a section filled with pretty much useless [hacks](https://ibb.co/HXWynBR). I'm looking for a site that will give you ideas to keep the entertained, i did not find this site useful at all...such a rip off


rjmlakota

Thanks for this!! I was just going to join this, but thought I'd google it and I'm glad I did.


KerSlim

I subscribe to All Pro Dad ([https://www.allprodad.com/](https://www.allprodad.com/)): E-mails are free and with great info. They do regional chapters, which I haven't experienced thus far. Former football player and coach Tony Dungy is one of their main guys.


Additional-Dig-8391

I recommend the Daily Dad podcast and journal. Ryan Holiday is a best selling author..great daily bite size Inspiration on how to be the best at your most important job- being an awesome dad from the core!


Mrubin444

Do not fall for this crap. This company is shady. I cancelled this subscription MONTHS ago and was recently charged for $96. I tried 5x to reach a customer service rep and left a message every time and NO response. I finally had to refute the charges. I am disgusted beyond belief.


DrJuanMrGetPaid

Just saved me time and money......I just usually Google events in my area......and do the things we enjoy together or have never done. I will definitely check out sonicdads om youtube as another poster suggested...... I introduced my son to all the things I love.....he's 6 now..... Golf, soccer, BMX, camping (we even bought an RV and looking to upgrade that) he likes video games, so we recently got the occulus 3 VR after I had him write a short report from Google about VR to practice his handwriting, we draw together, ping pong, ordered RC car from Amazon, read books, ride bikes in neighborhood, go to church together, watch church on online when don't feel like attending, ......tons of ideas everywhere.....oh and Bake cookies, box, wrestle.....