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Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

ftc.gov

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Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#41

Post by toast0 »

JCM9 wrote: post #34

Generally a fan of Prime. I’ll admit the shipping is pretty addictive. The rest of Prime is pretty meh. It’s a good deal on shipping and then a bunch of second-rate other stuff tacked on. On both .com and AWS, Amazon is reaching a stage of maturity where they’re running out of new customers. While still a fan of both, they’re both getting annoying as innovation slows and they get more annoying with a focus on doing t…

> It’s a good deal on shipping and then a bunch of second-rate other stuff tacked on.

It is and it isn't. The cost of shipping is built into the price of most of the items. You get a good deal if you buy things where pricing is more or less fixed, or if you buy things one at a time, but if you purchase several items at the same time, you can often save money if you purchase from a vendor that has better unit prices and charges shipping, or offers free shipping with a minimum order.

I see this all the time with my hobby purchases. Amazon has everything (mostly), but it's more cost efficient to put together orders of multiple parts at other vendors. Sometimes just one part at another vendor works too, if it fits in an flat envelope and they charge appropriately for envelope shipping.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#42

Post by jkestner »

Amazon is bad, but as others note, it’s insultingly transparent more than anything. But the worst in my recent history is Duolingo. Constant pestering to upgrade your subscription, fine, but once you do, it frequently “forgets” the subscription (through the App Store) and goes back to nagging you, only fixed by digging a few screens into the profile and tapping “restore purchases”. Bigger issue when your family is using it and doesn’t understand you’re already subscribed. Paid for two family subscriptions this way.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#43

Post by prasadjoglekar »

crazygringo wrote: post #13

> harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices I'm still confused by this part. I didn't use Prime for a long time. I remember lots of buttons inviting me to sign up, just like YouTube asks me weekly if I want to subscribe to premium. But I don't remember anything seemingly deceptive, and none of the news articles seem to actually provide any details. So what precisely was deceptive? And even the cancellation…

You should read the original complaint. It alleged that Amazon made is really easy to inadvertently sign up for Prime, but much more difficult to cancel. See the PDF below and the screenshots that has.

Upon filing of the complaint, Amazon removed these dark workflows quickly.

https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/FTC-Amazon-c...

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#44

Post by mindslight »

crazygringo wrote: post #13

> harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices I'm still confused by this part. I didn't use Prime for a long time. I remember lots of buttons inviting me to sign up, just like YouTube asks me weekly if I want to subscribe to premium. But I don't remember anything seemingly deceptive, and none of the news articles seem to actually provide any details. So what precisely was deceptive? And even the cancellation…

I'm a stickler for reading details, and they still got me once by making the 'sign up to pay for prime' "offer" looking/reading very similar to the 'free trial' offer. The customer service chat straightforwardly canceled it and refunded the fraudulent charge, but the way all of their dialogs are set up and stylized its obvious they're trying to induce mistaken (ie fraudulent) transactions.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#45

Post by GoatInGrey »

crazygringo wrote: post #13

> harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices I'm still confused by this part. I didn't use Prime for a long time. I remember lots of buttons inviting me to sign up, just like YouTube asks me weekly if I want to subscribe to premium. But I don't remember anything seemingly deceptive, and none of the news articles seem to actually provide any details. So what precisely was deceptive? And even the cancellation…

It's when the button that signs you up for Prime is the blue button marked "Continue" or something similarly vague, on top of defaulting your shipping options to the paid, expedited ones, and changing the card you are using if there are multiple and one benefits Amazon more than the other (i.e. Amazon Store Card, the non-Amex option), where it gets cumulatively ridiculous.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#46

Post by robotnikman »

jkestner wrote: post #42

Amazon is bad, but as others note, it’s insultingly transparent more than anything. But the worst in my recent history is Duolingo. Constant pestering to upgrade your subscription, fine, but once you do, it frequently “forgets” the subscription (through the App Store) and goes back to nagging you, only fixed by digging a few screens into the profile and tapping “restore purchases”. Bigger issue when your family is us…

It keeps nagging me to upgrade to the family plan or plus or whatever. And if I ignore it enough it enrolls me in a free trial of the family plan without me even asking every once it a while. The amount of up-selling they try to push on you now is so annoying.

If anyone has any recommended alternatives where I can learn Japanese I'm interested. Despite all the crap Duolingo has, it has been very convenient when it comes to spending 30 minutes at the end of the day doing some Japanese lessons.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#47

Post by BeetleB »

crazygringo wrote: post #13

> harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices I'm still confused by this part. I didn't use Prime for a long time. I remember lots of buttons inviting me to sign up, just like YouTube asks me weekly if I want to subscribe to premium. But I don't remember anything seemingly deceptive, and none of the news articles seem to actually provide any details. So what precisely was deceptive? And even the cancellation…

> And even the cancellation part, it's just two confirmation screens.

Call me a fool, but I fell for this and paid them for several months.

First, I don't think it was just two screens (the article mentions 3).

Second, unless you read really carefully, they made it appear that you had indeed unsubscribed, when you hadn't. I think the messaging was something along the lines of "OK, you have access to it until the end of the month". I was a monthly subscriber, so I took it to mean it would stop at the end of that month. But what they were really saying was something along the lines of "... and maybe you can think about it some more to see if it's worth it for you, and if you still want to cancel, click here". Only it wasn't as obvious as how I wrote it.

> It honestly seems about the same as any other website subscription I've ever had.

Not for me. For all the subscriptions I've canceled, Amazon Prime was the only one I fell for and ended up paying continually. Yes, other sites may have multiple steps, but the verbiage was always much clearer that you still hadn't unsubscribed.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#48

Post by AlotOfReading »

Aurornis wrote: post #38
tomComb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it was never as bad as for most telecoms.

It was nowhere near as bad as the giant gym chains or any other number of businesses. I can think of a lot of membership and subscription services that have been far harder to cancel that I wish the FTC would do something about. A few extra clicks to cancel Prime is nothing in comparison to the gauntlet required to cancel some gym memberships. I remember a story where someone forgot to cancel their gym membership bef…

They did that. The FTC had a simple click-to-cancel rule that was supposed to start enforcement this year. It was struck down on procedural grounds during appeal in July.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#49

Post by Retric »

Aurornis wrote: post #38
tomComb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it was never as bad as for most telecoms.

It was nowhere near as bad as the giant gym chains or any other number of businesses. I can think of a lot of membership and subscription services that have been far harder to cancel that I wish the FTC would do something about. A few extra clicks to cancel Prime is nothing in comparison to the gauntlet required to cancel some gym memberships. I remember a story where someone forgot to cancel their gym membership bef…

Scale is important here. Small harm across tens of millions of people adds up.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#50

Post by phil21 »

toast0 wrote: post #41
JCM9 wrote: post #34

Generally a fan of Prime. I’ll admit the shipping is pretty addictive. The rest of Prime is pretty meh. It’s a good deal on shipping and then a bunch of second-rate other stuff tacked on. On both .com and AWS, Amazon is reaching a stage of maturity where they’re running out of new customers. While still a fan of both, they’re both getting annoying as innovation slows and they get more annoying with a focus on doing t…

> It’s a good deal on shipping and then a bunch of second-rate other stuff tacked on. It is and it isn't. The cost of shipping is built into the price of most of the items. You get a good deal if you buy things where pricing is more or less fixed, or if you buy things one at a time, but if you purchase several items at the same time, you can often save money if you purchase from a vendor that has better unit prices a…

It’s exceedingly rare for a vendor to be cheaper on shipping (and in total) than Amazon is for me. Especially if you consider shipping speed and return hassle/expense.

Really depends on what you buy, but about half the time I buy from a vendor direct I end up regretting it if I’m in a hurry or not 100% certain of the product before ordering.

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