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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

#81

Post by david_allison »

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...

Direct page link (most in-browser PDF readers support #page=43)

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/amazon-rosca-pu...

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

#83

Post by burkaman »

david_allison wrote: post #81
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...

Direct page link (most in-browser PDF readers support #page=43) https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/amazon-rosca-pu...

Thanks, I guess that works in Firefox too

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

#84

Post by ianferrel »

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.

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

#86

Post by kccoder »

njovin wrote: post #24
altacc wrote: post #16

The UK government has a proposed law that customers must be able to end a subscription in a single clear process and all subscriptions entered into online must be capable of being ended online. Seems that if the US pushed this kind of law it'd have a significant effect on improving online services.

California has already done this, so feel free to report any businesses that aren't allowing US-based customers to cancel immediately. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x... .

SiriusXM needs to be reported mercilessly. Their cancellation process requires chatting with someone who tries to offer you better deals to stay, which of course only last for a few months, then the original price kicks back in. It takes 15 minutes to go through the process. The sad thing is that I'd love to activate their service for a month here or month there, but their cancellation process is too painful to do so, so they just lose out on my business, and piss me off at the same time. A real lose-lose scenario!

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

#87

Post by burkaman »

dcminter wrote: post #44
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,…

Some of the redactions are single words trivially inferred from context; what's with that?

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.

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

#88

Post by nobody9999 »

nceqs3 wrote: post #37

Wild the FTC isn't suing the NYTimes, WSJ, or every other paid news outlet for far more egregious cancellation process practices. Almost as if the FTC is a political weapon.

>Wild the FTC isn't suing the NYTimes, WSJ, or every other paid news outlet for far more egregious cancellation process practices. Almost as if the FTC is a political weapon.

I'd posit that suing news organizations would be perceived as more political than a retailer.

Or am I missing something important here?

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

#90

Post by massysett »

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.

With that obnoxious behavior, why bother buying from Amazon if you don't have Prime? Amazon is a flea market trafficking in commingled imports from numerous unvetted third parties. The advantage of Prime is that it brings this flea market to your door.

Without Prime I don't see much of a value proposition in the flea market. Actually, even with Prime the value is questionable. If my wife didn't like Prime I would shut it off, and then I doubt I'd buy much from Amazon at all. For US customers, Walmart and Target do a decent job these days, without the commingled flea market (Walmart does have third party sellers, but they also tend to keep staples in their own inventory better than Amazon does, and they don't commingle.)

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