Hmm, this depends on the customer. If the customer is savvy, they know when they're being 'duped' and know about dark patterns and such. Financially savvy people who practice good financial hygiene don't get 'deceived' as much. Most people don't care that much if they're charged monthly for Prime, it's a minor detail in their spending budget.
FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
161–170 of 272 posts
Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Career limiting means you'll see less career advancements. So you mean career-limiting at that particular company? I understand. Thanks!
You may also get a bit of a reputation that may follow you around. In areas with very close knit industries it can hurt your opportunities.
Yes, it might! But there are lots of employers who value employees who are focused on customer experience.
It's probably limited my opportunities some, but I can't really tell. There are plenty of opportunities out there, and if a company doesn't want me because I'm willing to be honest and argue for what I think is right, then that's a company I don't want to work for anyway. So it all works out for the best for everybody.
Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
#163Tangential: Does anyone have a good alternative to privacy.com? I really don't want to use Plaid to integrate but I basically need disposable/controllable cards for online purchases because so many places have poor security and dark patterns.
Even if there was a privacy.com alternative (I'm not aware of one), they would almost certainly use Plaid. As far as I can tell it's the financial-institution-backed industry standard these days.
Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
#164As someone who managed to successfully cancel Prime, and then tried to purchase an item on amazon.com, it took me over a minute to figure out how to not accidentally sign up for Prime membership when trying to checkout. There was only one place I could click that would allow me to advance to the next screen (simple text), the text was super small placed below a giant image, and my cursor didn't change to indicate tha…
That is horrible UX. I feel for the designers that are bossed around by the short sighted people who rationalize manipulating customers at Amazon and hope they have the courage and means to move to a better workplace where they can build something with positive-sum value.
I don't feel for the designers.
Whenever I see horrible UX from big tech it creeps into my mind that the people making it are some of the highest paid in the world and these companies are some of the richest in the world. It's either intentional or we are all suckers.
Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same. This was scary to me. It means Amazon knows they are kings of online retail and have no problem abusing customers now. Walmart online is sometimes cheaper, but also sometimes more expensive. Makes it really hard to make the switch. I have refused to give money to bad companies, but with the rest of the world being manipulated into giving them money, I realized I never made a dent.
> Walmart online is sometimes cheaper, but also sometimes more expensive. Makes it really hard to make the switch. I respect that you have to make decisions based on your own financial situation. For me, getting a few things for less money with the possibility that you might suddenly get hit with a big charge for something you didn't actually sign up for voluntarily is not worth it. To me it's like putting off fixing…
>I respect that you have to make decisions based on your own financial situation.
Idk, I worked for a lot of companies, and I'm not sure any would pick the same product when its more expensive elsewhere under the fear of an unexpected charge that has never occurred before.
I suppose I should be preparing for a volcano to emerge in the north east US too. :P
Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's not Music or Video Weird. Around here, Prime does give access to video. I know folks around here who have prime just for that. I doublechecked just to be sure; it still is like that (according to a quick google search).
Video streaming is broken. 4K is a lie, UI and UX is clumsy and uninviting at best. There's predatory sign-ups for supplemental packages that customers have no idea about until they've been charged (sometimes for more than a year). Customer Service then tries to only refund for 1-6 months, unless the customer hires a lawyer. TV and Movie Titles that were available for free one week suddenly disappear (without warning…
> Customer Service then tries to only refund for 1-6 months, unless the customer hires a lawyer.
Capital One had (when I was employed there) a process where if someone calls and disputes a Prime charge, they just call a specific number at Amazon and it gets removed instantly. No questions asked and bypasses the normal dispute process.
Call your credit card company, not Amazon.
Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what would be the first step to proposing such legislation? Several large donations to the re-election funds of various congress critters.
That’s just a light knocking on the door. If they even hear it to open that door, you’ll find sitting comfortably inside the much more well funded lobbyist from Amazon whispering sweet nothings into the ear of the Congress critter you just wasted money on
This is depressing. On a more cheerful note, the FTC has already proposed a rule [0] called "Click to Cancel"
> Proposal seeks to make it as easy to cancel enrollment as it was to sign up
Fingers crossed. This FTC is a welcome change, thanks to having a young tech-savvy chairwoman who was a scholar. (The norm seems to be "old corporate executive.")
[0] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/...
Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
#168As someone who managed to successfully cancel Prime, and then tried to purchase an item on amazon.com, it took me over a minute to figure out how to not accidentally sign up for Prime membership when trying to checkout. There was only one place I could click that would allow me to advance to the next screen (simple text), the text was super small placed below a giant image, and my cursor didn't change to indicate tha…
Wow, that image is terrible. I usually consider myself pretty good against dark patterns but it took me forever to find what to click to not sign up. Once I realized both the gray areas aren't what you click, I couldn't see any other options.
That seems like what I expect a crappy deceptive startup to implement in order to try to boost metrics for the next round of investment. It's not the kind of shady UX I associate with the largest tech companies. I seriously would not have expected that from Amazon, so I'm very happy the FTC is stepping in here.
Not to mention that this is very much against Amazon's supposed values, including "customer obsession" [1] -- to "work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust" [2]. This is very much the opposite of that, when customers discover they've been deceived into signing up.
[1] https://www.aboutamazon.com/about-us
[2] https://www.aboutamazon.com/about-us/leadership-principles
Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
#169Amazon is quickly moving towards a place where their plumbing/infra is better than their consumer facing product.
That is AWS & Amazon fulfillment.
Amazon shopping site is garbage at the level of peak eBay BS. Video/Music/Alexa are afterthoughts. Kindle is extremely mediocre hardware & software for how long its been around, but they priced out competition. Fire phone. Etc.
It's as if Amazon is really great at building the glue for other people to build their products on top of, but horrible at building products themselves.
Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process
#170As someone who managed to successfully cancel Prime, and then tried to purchase an item on amazon.com, it took me over a minute to figure out how to not accidentally sign up for Prime membership when trying to checkout. There was only one place I could click that would allow me to advance to the next screen (simple text), the text was super small placed below a giant image, and my cursor didn't change to indicate tha…
Same here, cancelled prime and still receive packages in 1-2 days generally. I never really used any other of the services under prime like video or music, so I don't miss it one bit. Also shifted most of my online purchasing to target anyways, I find the products and experience to be far superior, and I have a local store to go to also. I spent my prime budget on a shipt subscription and get target items delivered i…
For computer stuff, I switched to Staples, to be inspected at local store before acceptance. No more scratched monitors from Amazon Prime sold as "new".