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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

#201

Post by kyawzazaw »

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…

Prime video works fine (am in US)

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

#202

Post by mey »

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…

Twitch without Ads was a nice benefit until that got removed years ago. We have gotten rid of our Prime membership as well. The death of it was really the 3rd party sellers and fighting to find the correct item.

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

#203

Post by taude »

timmytokyo wrote: post #193
taude wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting. I think I typically must have specific things I'm looking for. Like for example, I probably wouldn't look up "pet sweaters", but WOULD look up something like "canada pooch dog sweater". Which, takes me past all the seo-ad-targeted junk.

And now, the more I think about it, I'm typically using amazon's search for zeroing on something specific. I wouldn't even do "car charger for phone", but would do something like "Anker USB-C Charger for Pixel 6a".

And likely, most items I'm going for I'd be referred to from a site, like America's Test Kitchen or something.

In short, I guess I don't "search for discoverability" on Amazon at all, and that's how I stay out of their optimized mess.

EDIT: I also don't really purchase things that aren't independently reviewed elsewhere, like using ATK for some kitchen items, etc...

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

#204

Post by willio58 »

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…

Jaw dropped looking at that. Absolutely disgusting business practice. Glad the FTC is stepping in.

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

#205

Post by lljk_kennedy »

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…

Yeah the internal codenames in engineering aren't malicious, i.e Apollo makes sense. But a project name? Na, that's picked intentionally.

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

#206

Post by philistine »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #152
scrum-treats wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe it's not the same in all regions (I'm in France), plus sample size of one and whatnot, but I actually enjoy Prime Video. I don't watch many movies / series, so its being cheap matters a lot to me. It has enough shows to keep me busy. There's a visible toggle to only show content that's "free for me", so I don't end up accidentally clicking on something that's not included. Plus, everything that's not free for p…

Of all the FAANG companies, Amazon is by far the one with the most differences between countries. Internationalization makes discussions around Amazon’s practices near impossible.

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

#207

Post by z3c0 »

hospitalJail wrote: post #110
z3c0 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cut out Amazon recently and there's something to be said about specialized online retailers. I used to think the idea of having a different retailer for each category was a bygone relic of the past after Amazon, but I'm starting to enjoy the better selection and customer support I get from companies like Chewy, Sweetwater, Costco, etc. A one-stop retailer is a convenience, but they suffer from the classic "jack of…

I tried to confirm this with 3D printing filaments. Amazon is somehow cheaper than everywhere I looked.

I find that Amazon's prices are their trap, and it gives the illusion of having more. I buy lots of cheap components for creating music, and I get far better quality for my dollar from Sweetwater than I ever have on Amazon, even if Amazon's prices were lower.

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

#208

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by StressedDev »

badRNG wrote: post #186
Dwolb wrote: post #145

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.

> What an example of how local optimizations within an organization can destroy long term customer value. It's not clear that they haven't profited more by having people retain prime through these patterns than they have lost through losing consumer trust.

Eventually it will catch up with them. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow but in 10 years time, I bet Amazon’s retail business will have declined.

People are not stupid and they learn. They will go to the place which works best for them and if Amazon stops working for them, they will go somewhere else.

One final comment is Amazon says one of its corporate values is customer obsession. On the retail side of Amazon, I am not seeing a lot of customer obsession. I am seeing a lot of short term thinking which gets Amazon more money today but will hurt their business in the long run. Here are some examples:

- Horrible content discover for books, movies and TV. Amazon just returns the results of a database query. It does not try to help you find content you will like. In TV shows, it lists each season as a separate show (web site, about 5-7 years ago).

- No way to distinguish between high quality non-fiction books and disinformation.

- Its book categories are very badly done. One example is I once went looking for computer science books. There were duplicates in the top 50 (i.e. one book listed more than once) and almost none of the books were computer science books. They were either “How to use technology X” books or “How to ace the programming interview” books. Some were also public policy books. This was about 10 years ago.

- Canceling Prime took too long and was far too hard. I will never subscribe again after I saw how they treated me when I unsubscribed. Note Netflix is easy to subscribe to and unsubscribe from.

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

#210

Post by JohnFen »

temp_account_11 wrote: post #200
JohnFen wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But at the same time you fail the see the nuance for why others might make a different decision.

Umm, I totally see why others would decide differently. Everyone makes their own choices and trade-offs.

I was just trying to point out that if the objection is that doing those sorts of things is a career-killer, that's objectively not true. It might mean that certain specific companies won't like you, but you won't be rejected by the industry overall.

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