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

cnbc.com

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

#171

Post by delfinom »

duringmath wrote: post #96
hotpotamus wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. As someone who hasn't been careful enough and been caught by Amazon's deceptive practices myself, I hope they get them as good and hard as the law allows. If they have to put a boot on Bezos's spaceship, that would be an amusing benefit of the whole thing. I don't appreciate being subject to one dark pattern after another just to buy an sd card or a bath towel.

[flagged]

NYT subscriptions is easy to cancel.

Just subscribe to the NYT in the first place via Google Play instead of using their own site, lmao.

But seriously, Sirius XM hold the record for being absolute cancer to cancel.

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

#173

Post by lotsofpulp »

steveBK123 wrote: post #169

Amazon 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 buildin…

Or Amazon is great at recognizing where the profit margins are and staying away from low profit margin/high liability business areas.

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

#174

Post by everybodyknows »

burkaman wrote: post #26
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I wouldn't say the process of unsubscribing from Prime is 'deceptive' but it sure has many steps. They tried just about everything to persuade me to stay except offer to bring back two day shipping. (I know many of you in urban areas are getting one day shipping but those of us in less favored geographies, such as the same ZIP code as AMZN warehouses, have seen two day shipping turn into five, which makes Amazon unco…

The complaint says they internally called the cancellation process "the Iliad Flow". See page 43 for a full description: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/amazon-rosca-pu...

Also a click-by-click guide! It's a funny world of ours, where the best UI documentation available is found in a government legal action.

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

#175

Post by taude »

scrum-treats wrote: post #143
Beldin wrote: post #135

Earlier 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…

I enjoy my prime video. Not really sure what the complications are for you. Even the non-techies in the house can easily click into it from the app on our TV.

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

#176

Post by jjgreen »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #164
gmd63 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We should all be able to "git blame" those dark patterns

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

#178

Post by taude »

timmytokyo wrote: post #101
squeaky-clean wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in NYC and two day shipping here is a crapshoot nowadays. Sure it says 2-day shipping on the store page, but counting my past orders, 6/10 were delayed delivery, usually taking 5 days. The last 2 times I tried buying bulk paper towels on Amazon (I had them set as a recurring purchase every 6 months) they have been lost in transit. Also really frustrating, if I go to "Order Details" for an order that was delayed,…

Now that Amazon is mostly low quality drop-shipped garbage from fake brands like KULUZU and PORKTI, fast and cheap shipping are about the only thing they have going for them. If that's gone, what's left?

Everyone talks about this drop-shipped garbage and fakes. But I have yet to see this. And I feel like I order a lot from Amazon. Every week our house is getting at least a couple packages.

What kind of products people ordering that they're getting fakes? I've ordered a variety of books, art supplies, shoes, some tech like batteries and cable (typically from Anker store), coffee beans, some audio streamers, Legos, notebooks, stuff for pets, gardening supplies, etc...

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

#179

Post by everybodyknows »

burkaman wrote: post #19

FTC complaint: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/amazon-rosca-pu... Significant redactions around Amazon executives being aware of a "nonconsensual enrollment problem" and blocking any changes. > the primary purpose of the Prime cancellation process was not to enable subscribers to cancel, but rather to thwart them. Fittingly, Amazon named that process “Iliad,” which refers to Homer’s epic about the long,…

> Amazon named that process “Iliad,” which refers to Homer’s epic about the long, arduous Trojan War.

Wonder who allegorized as the customer for them, say Priam, Hector or Cassandra?

The first two are of course slaughtered, while the last is merely enslaved, IIRC. So I'd bet on Cassandra.

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

#180

Post by csydas »

dcminter wrote: post #100
burkaman wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't see any that were that obvious, but it sounds like the redactions are at Amazon's request, so they probably went for anything that could conceivably be construed as private information.

E.g. lines 7 and 9 it's "checkout" or "upsell". Probably the latter. Can't be the same as the longer redacted term on line 7 - though I suppose it might be an abbreviation for it and they're protecting their internal product/codename for some lawyerly reason?

it could just be as simple as a group of persons as amazon didn't want certain words associated with them on a public government document. Lot easier to deflect accusations of overly aggressive upselling when you can just say "the report released by the government never once mentioned upselling" and just pretend that you don't need to answer the question based on that.
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