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Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

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Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#111

Post by camhart »

bluetidepro wrote: post #5

> Additionally, the order bars Epic from blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorized charges. This could be bigger than people realize. This is very common in many tech companies like Uber/Doordash/Sony/etc. where if you do a chargeback, you often get blacklisted on their service. It would be amazing if this starts to end this practice, and you can actually have authority to get your m…

There is the business side of this to consider. Disputes are expensive--companies are forced to pay significant fees whether they win or lose the dispute. A dishonest customer lying to their bank about your product/service should be able to be banned from using your product/service. Otherwise, what's to stop them from maliciously charging then filing disputes over and over again?

To be clear, I'm talking about a different case, where the customer doesn't reach out for help, and doesn't give you an opportunity to correct the problem (which most banks ask them to do first but they just lie about it). With my business, this is the case for 9 out of every 10 disputes (and I have a very low dispute rate). The other 1 time is they just mistakingly reported it as a dispute because they didn't recognize it, but after you reach out they correct it with their bank (but guess what, you still have to pay the dispute fee when that happens).

When your SAAS product costs $5 / month, and the dispute fees are $15 / dispute or more, and customers go back and file disputes on the previous X months of charges, and they never give you a chance to make it right, it becomes a problem worth banning them over.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#112

Post by ridgered4 »

SimonPStevens wrote: post #17

Quite frankly in-game purchases has destroyed an entire industry for me. Mobile games are so filled with this junk I don't even bother looking at them any more. I avoid anything on PC that has a store, repeating season passes or virtual currency of any kind. It's even coloured my view of the types of add-on DLC that 20 years ago would have been a legitimate expansion pack, purely because it feels too similar to the d…

I already live in a pay to win world so the idea of unwinding in one seems insane to me.

My biggest beef is when this is added in an update after I bought a game that didn't have it.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#113

Post by YeahNO »

rootusrootus wrote: post #94
tagyro wrote: post #84

My comment is going to get downvoted (or worse, ignored), but here I go again: We, as software engineers (or working in the field), have the power to not implement these features when our employer asks us to do it. Everyday we read about organisations using dark patterns in their (software) products and then we come to HN to complain about it. How did these features get built? By whom? Yes, I realise not everyone has…

I think a lot of us do push back on the product owners and designers when something seems obviously bad. But I don't think it's good advice to encourage people to unilaterally declare themselves the gatekeeper just because they write the code.

Articulating why a certain function is bad design or is actively harmful is not the same as gatekeeping. I have lost opportunities because I chose to follow my ethics over my bank account. I do not regret those decisions.

Software developers should have a professional code of ethics. Other professions have them, why not computer scientists, computer engineers, and software developers? There is the ACM/IEEE-CS Software Engineering Code, but I don't know any professionals outside academia that remain ACM members, IEEE membership might remain relevant for computer engineers, so I may well be wrong in that regard.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#114

Post by johngladtj »

afterburner wrote: post #103
luckylion wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could regulate that: if you want to close the account (and thus withdraw all the bought items), refund all the money they paid for it.

That won't work for something like Steam. It would mean you got unlimited games for free.

How so?

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#115

Post by JamesonNetworks »

grog454 wrote: post #100
tagyro wrote: post #84

My comment is going to get downvoted (or worse, ignored), but here I go again: We, as software engineers (or working in the field), have the power to not implement these features when our employer asks us to do it. Everyday we read about organisations using dark patterns in their (software) products and then we come to HN to complain about it. How did these features get built? By whom? Yes, I realise not everyone has…

> software engineers (or working in the field), have the power to not implement these features when our employer asks us to do it. Realize that you're statment is a euphemism. What you really mean is we have the choice between implementing a dark pattern or finding another job and letting someone else implement it. Stated this way it's a lot easier to understand people's behavior.

GPT-4 def wont care

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#116

Post by devmor »

drstewart wrote: post #57
spacemadness wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see these being difficult logistical problems for companies but that gives them no right to socialize the problem by playing hardball and holding accounts hostage. That problem is in their domain to solve, and sorry that being a profitable business is tough but, again, solving this is not on the customer.

How is it "socializing the problem" other than being a buzzword phrase that's been thrown around lately in other contexts that feels like it fits?

Yeah that phrase doesn't really apply here. They're not pushing the solution onto any portion of the population - they're just straight up blackballing users.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#117

Post by devmor »

Thaxll wrote: post #83
paulmd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this too. This just needs to be the rule generally. Steam and Amazon do the same thing - get hacked and get charged for some items, if you dispute the Steam charge you lose your $5000 account, that's not a fair playing field and effectively negates the protection offered by credit card networks. Hopefully steam resolves it, that's always the first line of defense, but if they don't, you still can't c…

Most use case are not hacks aren't they? If you charge back because not happy for example? Every time you charge back Steam or Epic has to pay $10 or so to the bank if I recall.

There are many acceptable (to the financial institution) reasons to perform a chargeback.

Treating them all in the same manner is a business problem on the merchant's end.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#118

Post by Errsher »

grog454 wrote: post #100
tagyro wrote: post #84

My comment is going to get downvoted (or worse, ignored), but here I go again: We, as software engineers (or working in the field), have the power to not implement these features when our employer asks us to do it. Everyday we read about organisations using dark patterns in their (software) products and then we come to HN to complain about it. How did these features get built? By whom? Yes, I realise not everyone has…

> software engineers (or working in the field), have the power to not implement these features when our employer asks us to do it. Realize that you're statment is a euphemism. What you really mean is we have the choice between implementing a dark pattern or finding another job and letting someone else implement it. Stated this way it's a lot easier to understand people's behavior.

Ah yes, the banality of evil.

s/implementing a dark pattern/performing any immoral or unethical act/g

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#120

Post by mrguyorama »

grog454 wrote: post #100
tagyro wrote: post #84

My comment is going to get downvoted (or worse, ignored), but here I go again: We, as software engineers (or working in the field), have the power to not implement these features when our employer asks us to do it. Everyday we read about organisations using dark patterns in their (software) products and then we come to HN to complain about it. How did these features get built? By whom? Yes, I realise not everyone has…

> software engineers (or working in the field), have the power to not implement these features when our employer asks us to do it. Realize that you're statment is a euphemism. What you really mean is we have the choice between implementing a dark pattern or finding another job and letting someone else implement it. Stated this way it's a lot easier to understand people's behavior.

That has always been a massive copout.
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