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FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

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Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#141

Post by bluefirebrand »

JohnFen wrote: post #134
temp_account_11 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you mean by "career limiting"? Career limiting means you'll see less career advancements. > speaking up like that should be considered a good thing. Agreed. But in practice it's unfortunately not always seen that way. > If it's not, why would you want to continue working there? Because I weight several factors when deciding where to work and there are other benefits to working here.

> 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.

Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#142

Post by JohnFen »

registeredcorn wrote: post #137
JohnFen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I stopped using Amazon a couple of years ago and haven't missed it even a little bit. They're not substantially better than most others.

Would you mind listing a few alternatives you use? I generally try to avoid Amazon when I can, but have had problems finding a general good site. In case anyone is wondering what I use, here's a short list: Computer/electronics, I visit Newegg. (I haven't been thrilled with them moving into other areas like Auto parts, etc. but they seem alright for the time being.) Hardware or similar, I go with Tractor Supply Co, H…

It would be a long list. I buy from local stores rather than online whenever I can. If I can't, then I buy directly from the manufacturer of whatever it is I'm interested in buying.

Except with electronic parts. For those, I typically go with Digikey. For electronic devices and computers, I go to a local recycler. They have what I need about 80% of the time.

I've never had a situation where Amazon was the only option, and rarely a situation where it was the best option.

Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#143

Post by scrum-treats »

Beldin wrote: post #135
scrum-treats wrote: post #114

As 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…

> 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) or require payment for continued availability (e.g., TV series), even though you pay for Prime and it was free for Prime last week.

For Amazon Music, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36372298.

I could go on...

When you start looking at all these patterns, across all these services (e.g., Prime, Alexa, Music, Video), it's clear that one type of team must be dictating all of this (e.g., Music and Video). It's all predatory, in the same style; homogenous. Talk about placing a bet on the wrong horse.

Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#144

Post by tredre3 »

rdschouw wrote: post #102
ianferrel wrote: post #84

I recently discontinued a Prime membership we'd had for years and it was eye-opening how annoying and persistent the attempts to get us to sign up for it again are. Every time I buy something, I have to find the tiny link instead of the big button. One time the tiny link was broken and I literally could not complete my purchase until I tried a few hours later. On the other hand, it was not difficult to cancel.

Yea it's pretty awful. They also by default select a faster shipping method which costs $6.99 (most of the time per item, sometimes multiple shipping charges for the same order). Every checkout I have to go through: 1. no, I do not want a prime membership for $1.99 for 1 week 2. no, I want free shipping on these items (careful check if the order is split up in multiple shipments) 3. no, I want free shipping on this i…

Same, I get two full screen ads for prime with a little "No thanks" when I try to checkout. Even at the final step you get the paid shipping option selected by default, then you have the prime option flashing "SAVE $19 and get it tomorrow!!!", and finally the free but not prime shipping option (which I actually want).

I personally accidentally resubscribed to prime once because of all this nonsense, so I can't imagine someone who is less careful.

Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#145

Post by Dwolb »

Slight OT, but wow.

What an example of how local optimizations within an organization can destroy long term customer value.

Many comments below discuss how Amazon has lost customer trust through these practices.

Most likely the PM or business lead was praised at the time for the short term revenue bump gained from these dark patterns.

Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#146

Post by scrum-treats »

jwestbury wrote: post #23
londons_explore wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience has been getting worse for customers, but better for shareholders. Can't please everyone! Life Pro Tip: Be a shareholder, don't be a customer.

I was an employee and a shareholder, but my customer experience is part of why I'm no longer either, and why I won't be again in the future.

This is exactly it.

Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#147

Post by dylan604 »

adoxyz wrote: post #5

The whole Amazon.com experience has been getting worse and worse as the years go by. Everything from the products they sell, quality control, customer service, dark patterns in the UI, etc. I wonder how long until you have to call someone or mail in a 1,000 word letter on why you don't need Prime to cancel it.

Can you use chatgpt to write that letter?

Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#148

Post by registeredcorn »

pwg wrote: post #103
93po wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I looked at this for a solid 10 seconds before seeing the "no thanks" and that was even with your bright red arrow pointing at it. The must have user tested this to hell to find the absolute perfect combination of design elements

This is the "trick you into signing up" page that is inserted if you are not currently a prime member. I've been clicking the "no-thanks" link for years -- as I've never signed up for, nor ever wanted to sign up for, amazon prime. But, as I know it is going to show up, I'm not surprised by it in the least, and I know where to go to get past it without accidentally signing up for prime. Maybe the FCC complaint might f…

If I remember correctly, they've also moved around the "No thanks" over the years. I seem to remember the "No thanks" option being below the "Enjoy Prime for FREE for blah ..." area a while back. I could swear the prompt changes sometimes between this more standard screenshot above, and some weird pitch geared specifically towards college students, where the "No thanks" option is considerably harder to see.

I was trying to reproduce the prompt that I was thinking of and found an equally obnoxious prompt:

https://i.imgur.com/8HNjFHl.png

If you accidentally click on prime, you are shown this

https://i.imgur.com/hL60GFc.png

Which makes it seem like you can't even remove the "free" Prime trial, unless you look extremely closely.

Alternatively, if you do click on free shipping, but not on Prime free shipping, you get a popup showing this

https://i.imgur.com/AHX2KNg.png

Which defaults to trying to steal any gift card balance you have in order to pay for Prime.

I knew that Amazon was awful, but it's really gotten so far out of hand that it's surprising they haven't had the sort of legal trouble Microsoft had back in '98.

Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#149

Post by abawany »

moi2388 wrote: post #35

Good. Let’s hope the fine is so high it means the end for Amazon. But I doubt it, so we’ll probably see them continuing to offer shitty UX for years to come.

According to other comments here, they called the cancellation process "Iliad" - someone likes their Greek mythology and war porn, I guess. I suppose one should be grateful they didn't call it Oedipus - that would be one way to almost guarantee customer retention.

Re: FTC sues Amazon over ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process

#150

Post by tracker1 »

IMO, The Amazon Audiobook sub/unsub is even more deceptive... it looks like you might lose your existing purchases if you cancel (you don't). But since I no longer commute, I had a pile of credits to where I was going to lose them, they extended me a couple times, in the end, I went on a spree of anything I was loosely interested in and just cancelled.
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