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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

#191

Post by gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 »

tracker1 wrote: post #150

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.

Good looking out, I was going to cancel the other day and losing access to all my audiobook content WAS the impression I got, which caused me to hesitate. After reading your comment, I've gone and cancelled and yep, still have access to all my stuff. Fuck dark pattern bullshit.

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

#192

Post by watwut »

scrum-treats wrote: post #132
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.

Agree. It is negligent and unqualified management at the root of this. Talented employees who know better and try to do better are dealt dirty hands; forced to either commit illegal acts like this or face intense psychological abuse, the PIP train, and ultimately termination. Sometimes they realize what is happening and they quit. Either way, Amazon facilitates and even encourages this behavior, as people receive rai…

>Talented employees who know better and try to do better

... typically leave these companies. I know multiple people who made such choices, leaving company that asked for something unethical.

If we were talking about low paid employees with no options, the "they are forced to" would be reasonable argument. But in here these people have choices and are just unwilling to take slightly less paid job.

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

#193

Post by timmytokyo »

taude wrote: post #178
timmytokyo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, not…

Taking some of your examples:

Look up "pet sweaters". Resulting brands listed in order: Dxhycc, Fitwarm, ANIAC, Jecikelon, Queenmore.

"Audio streamer": WiiM, Andover, iFi, Arylic, Douk, ACEMAX.

"USB cable": Jelly tang, AINOPE, Ruaeoda, etguuds.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

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

#194

Post by jimnotgym »

I wanted to make a point about Prime videos recommendation engine.

In several years of membership it still has not managed to recommend a single thing I'm interested in. How are they so bad at this?

On the other hand, none of it is quite as bad as Marketplace Web Services, or even SP-API it's replacement.

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

#195

Post by ydant »

bluepod4 wrote: post #189
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 free shipping, it's not free grocery delivery, it's not Music or Video, it's not discount prices on Amazon retail website, and it is most certainly not any assurance of authentic goods. FWIW, I use it for Prime Video, Prime First Reads ((where you can choose from 1-2 free books per month)) and Prime Reading. A long time ago, I did use it for faster delivery. There was definitely a difference. But the items…

> (Also, I’m not sure if you were aware, but technically you can split the cost with multiple people (i.e. friends or relatives) if you set up an Amazon Household account)

It's just two adults now (and a limited "teen" program which doesn't acknowledge the realities of kids living at home past 17). I have four adults on my account, but two of them are grandfathered in and still receive my "prime benefits", but aren't shown anywhere in my Amazon account that I can find.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

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

#196

Post by burkaman »

whoknew1122 wrote: post #187
burkaman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Disclosure: Work for AWS. My only experience with Prime is as a customer (and the odd beta for new types of programming). I wouldn't read much into the internal names of things at Amazon. They're picked at random by nerds. I've seen apps internally named after space, Dragon Ball Z, Lord of the Rings, coffee and candy, etc. I'm pretty sure I've used another, completely different thing that's also called Iliad. It's no…

I believe you that some internal names are random, and it's possible that this one is too, but obviously Amazon doesn't have the benefit of the doubt here. What is clearly malicious is that Project Iliad was intentionally designed to reduce cancellations among the population of users that already wanted to cancel (as opposed to reducing cancellations by making the service better). Here's some of the evidence that is redacted in the FTC complaint: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-prime-ftc-probe-custo...

> Internal documents also show that Amazon intentionally drew out the process of canceling a Prime membership. Under a project code-named "Iliad," Amazon created multiple layers of questions and new offers before a Prime member could cancel their subscription, in hopes of reducing member churn. The number of cancellations dropped by 14% at one point in 2017 following the launch of Iliad, and fewer members were navigating to the final cancellation page, one of the documents said.

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

#198

Post by brewdad »

benatkin wrote: post #34
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkout pages never offer "cancel" buttons or "back" buttons. They are designed to corral you into the checkout process without recourse to returning to shop around some more. This is, of course, easily bypassed with browser controls, but I agree that it is a dark pattern which can trap less savvy people into pressing forward, because it seems there's nowhere else to go.

"Back" has the old anxiety of Confirm Form Resubmission, so a cancel or close button would be better.

When all else fails, for any site like this, I close the browser tab. If I choose to reopen the site, I'll be back on the home page and my cart may or may not be empty.

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

#199

Post by brewdad »

stronglikedan wrote: post #33
benatkin wrote: post #15

I need to buy a mattress and I had one in my cart from a week ago and last night I picked a different mattress and went to the checkout page. Then I saw there were two mattresses in it. It had the dark pattern of no cancel button so I had to click back and now I'm considering getting it elsewhere. Oh, and they also tried to get me to sign up for a Prime trial.

Sorry to say, but there's a "delete" option for every item on the checkout page. Just click the quantity dropdown and change it to "delete". Simple as.

Not on the "checkout" screen.

It is there for the "cart" screen but once you get to checkout, you are stuck either proceeding or abandoning the page.

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

#200

Post by temp_account_11 »

JohnFen wrote: post #162
bluefirebrand wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

I totally understand and respect your ideals. I wish more people were like you. But at the same time you fail the see the nuance for why others might make a different decision. I think it's reasonable for someone to take a moral stance here, and I can also respect someone that choses to stay at the job that's the best at providing for their family. That's the insight I was providing.
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