[HN Gopher] Amazon intentionally made it hard to cancel Prime su...
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon intentionally made it hard to cancel Prime subscription in
secret project
Author : green-eclipse
Score : 301 points
Date : 2022-03-18 15:25 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.independent.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.independent.co.uk)
| Loic wrote:
| I canceled in January. It takes several clicks through buttons
| and sometimes small links. It alternates the styles with negative
| or positive wording sentences, alternate offers. They try to
| convince you to get an email reminder 3 days before the renewal
| date instead of canceling. After you canceled, the only call to
| action on the confirmation page is to cancel the cancelation. You
| immediately get an email to easily cancel the cancelation as
| confirmation that you canceled.
|
| I was prepared for a dark pattern fight, I was not disappointed!
| duskwuff wrote:
| "Are you sure you want to cancel?" [YES] [NO]
|
| "Wouldn't you rather enjoy the many benefits Prime offers you?"
| [YES] [NO]
|
| "Are you sure you won't miss those benefits?" [YES] [NO]
| KineticLensman wrote:
| I'm reminded of the dialogue box presented by the Analytical
| Engine in the awesome graphic novel, "The Thrilling
| Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage" by Sydney Padua:
|
| *Annulation Lever Activated - do you wish to continue? Engage
| STOP lever to continue. Engage CONTINUE lever to stop."
| duskwuff wrote:
| I was actually referencing a sequence of dialogs in the
| classic video game _Scarab of Ra_ :
|
| * "Do you really want a hint?"
|
| * "You really should try to solve this on your own. Still
| want a hint?"
|
| * "Wouldn't it be more fun to figure it out by yourself?"
|
| * "Last chance to be a hero. Still want that hint?"
|
| (The game is playable online at:
| https://archive.org/details/ScarabOfRaMacintosh, or using
| https://mace.software/scarab-of-ra/ on modern MacOS -- you
| can trigger these dialogs by picking any item from the
| "Hints" menu.)
| ineedasername wrote:
| They do the same sort of thing on Audible, where I'm an on-
| again/off-again subscriber. In one of my temporary departures
| I went through those options too fast and only realized I
| hadn't actually cancelled when I received the following
| month's CC charge.
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| "Special offer: 3 Months for 75% Off!" [CONTINUE] [cancel
| anyway]
| HeckFeck wrote:
| [Cancel Screen]
|
| Are you sure you wish to leave Prime? You _may_ be
| consigning your soul to eternal perdition!
|
| [Return to Bezos the Blessed] [No, I wish to spend
| hereafter in the lake of fire]
| ineedasername wrote:
| [Lake of Fire Screen]
|
| We understand, maybe you aren't spiritual. That's okay!
| We value your business regardless. But you should
| consider that Jeff Bezos is a powerful billionaire that
| may one day bring about the Singularity and become Roko's
| Basilisk. We're not fucking around here, and we're upping
| the stakes: Some gods may be merciful, but Roko Bezos _is
| not one of them_
|
| [Spend no money outside the Amazon ecosystem ever again]
| [Consign an endless number of sentient emulated versions
| of yourself to an emulated lake of fire]
| jrootabega wrote:
| You are eligible for Pascal's Discount!
| mpalczewski wrote:
| The worst part is that the answers to the second two
| questions are sort of irrelevant, yeah, I'd rather enjoy
| those many benefits, but yes I'm still sure I want to cancel.
| Yes I'll miss the benefits, but I'm still sure I want to
| cancel.
| jrootabega wrote:
| "If we asked your twin, who always lies, what you would say
| if we asked if you really wanted to cancel your subscription,
| what would he say?"
|
| "Do you often sing or whistle just for fun?"
| chevill wrote:
| Not sure if you're making fun of scientology or referencing
| FNM. Both are good things to do.
| dpratt wrote:
| I feel sometimes that Prime is against you.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Prime helps customers as a means of helping Amazon. They
| reap the biggest reward, not us.
| ecf wrote:
| A bonus is that they use language which leads you to believe
| your services will immediately end, even if you've purchased a
| year-long subscription and have months left.
|
| It wasn't until the second or third panel where I found a
| statement (in the smallest text size possible) that told me
| services would stay active until previously-billed time ran
| out.
| bbarnett wrote:
| This is the sort of thing which results in chargebacks, after
| an end user is positive they canceled.
|
| Even for Amazon, too many of these can cause issues.
| gzer0 wrote:
| In light of all of these dark patterns, I have gone a different
| route.
|
| I use burner virtual cards, through privacy.com. This way, I
| can terminate my card instead of having to deal with the
| nonsense that cancellation has become.
|
| This might have some repercussions, such as account
| terminations, however, I only use this method on websites that
| I have disposable accounts with. It is well worth my time to
| keep using virtual cards for as long as these dark patterns
| exist.
| [deleted]
| beeboop wrote:
| The problem is that the fine print on Amazon Prime says
| they'll use _any_ card you have on file to continue it if the
| one you initially selected doesn 't work.
| dageshi wrote:
| Yeah, I cancelled a month ago, I was impressed, I think if my
| parents had tried to cancel they'd have found it nearly
| impossible.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| I also cancelled a month ago. It doesn't stop there though.
| I've ordered stuff from Amazon since then and every order
| still prompts me to use Prime or select it for the fastest
| shipping. Interestingly I'm still getting my packages on
| average of 2 days without Prime. The only downside is having
| to spend the $25 minimum for the free shipping, but I tend to
| buy things that exceed that price anyway.
| isleyaardvark wrote:
| How long did you have Prime? I ask because I never had
| Prime and at some point they added they added the prompts
| as an upsell.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| I spend enough on Amazon that it's still worth the extra
| percentage cash back on the Amazon card, but I'm not sure
| how much longer if these price increases keep up.
| anotherman554 wrote:
| You have to be spending 7,000 a year to break even on
| prime, because the Chase Amazon card gives 3% cash back
| if you don't have Prime.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| I cancelled a couple of months ago (was on a Student
| membership and wouldn't let me extend). Things still take
| only 1 or 2 days to ship, but they hold off on shipping it
| for about 3 or 4 days.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > Things still take only 1 or 2 days to ship, but they
| hold off on shipping it for about 3 or 4 days.
|
| I've had prime for quite a while, and I still get this
| for some items... But they're usually upfront about it
| and say the expected delivery is in X days before I
| complete the order.
| loeg wrote:
| > Interestingly I'm still getting my packages on average of
| 2 days without Prime.
|
| Yeah, the way they make Prime work and affordable for them
| is to locate warehouses everywhere, close to recipients.
| People have been observing 2-day non-Prime delivery times
| for years now. They'll also usually offer you a month-long
| free Prime trial once a year and you can do a batch of
| holiday shopping or whatever.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Likewise, cancelled in Feb because I'd like to buy from
| smaller merchants directly when possible. I can buy toilet
| paper from Amazon still and get free shipping, so... no
| loss, really? Amazon was already nagging me to bundle
| separate shipments together on "prime days", so it
| literally makes no difference to me.
|
| The dark patterns on cancelling my subscription were so
| disgustingly manipulative that it made it really easy to be
| happy with my decision to leave, though. I admit to feeling
| a tinge of regret when I quit a service that politely
| allows me to cancel because that actually gives me some
| respect for the service. With Amazon, Spotify, Facebook,
| and Instagram, they try SO hard to make it impossible to
| leave that it cemented the decision completely in my mind
| and eroded the last bit of respect I had for those
| platforms.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| It is a linguistic maze. The readership here is literate and
| even we endure mental strain navigating this viper's nest. I've
| went to buy a paperback and found myself signed up with Prime
| with just one wayward click, and I was being very cautious.
|
| Now imagine how it is for those less familiar with letters. How
| many folks only notice they've a Prime subscription when the
| montly bank statement arrives?
|
| It's a shame. I used to think so highly of Amazon.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| We need to fix this.
|
| We should take this completely out of companies' hands. The
| incentives are too perverse and too prevalent for anything
| good to come out of playing dark pattern whack-a-mole through
| legislation or, worse, "promoting dark pattern awareness" or
| some other brand of blame-dodging hogwash. Companies are
| stealing money and getting away with it. We have the
| technology to stop them. We should stop them.
|
| I suspect the easiest way to do it would be to give credit
| card company cancellation buttons legal bite: unless someone
| signs physical papers and does credit checks (e.g. for
| housing and utilities), nonpayment _must_ be respected as a
| request to cancel and not creatively misinterpreted as an
| invitation to extend credit, charge fees, and accumulate
| interest.
| quinnjh wrote:
| What is the technology to stop them?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Non-payment by credit card networks
|
| But they'll never take that leap of faith absent a law
| mandating it. There's not enough competition between the
| major issuing networks.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Nah, CC providers would love to provide subscription
| management and cancellation services. They implement
| dumber and more expensive gimmick services all the time.
| They'd implement this one in a heartbeat if they could.
|
| Right now, they can't, because they have no privileged
| way to cancel a service on the user's behalf. They can
| withhold payment, yes, but under current consumer
| contract law withholding payment doesn't imply
| cancellation. We should change the law so that it does.
| Once the law changes, they would implement "cancel
| buttons" and "subscription management" so fast your head
| would spin -- and then they would flood TV and youtube
| with ads about it, and they would bug you every time you
| logged into your CC statement for the next year.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The self-interest on the credit card company's part
| requires they have a financial incentive. I don't think
| they care about customer satisfaction enough.
|
| ... the way to do it would be to disincentivize
| subscription companies from having credit card companies
| involved in cancellations.
|
| (1) Pass laws to empower credit card companies to cancel
| services on a user's behalf, if the user so requests +
| _(2) Allow CC companies to collect a fee from the
| subscription service when they do so_.
|
| CC companies will implement the feature as a profit
| source, but subscription services will also be
| incentivized to flow cancellations through themselves
| (because it's cheaper) thus leading to more streamlined
| cancellation.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| I can cancel any subscription on paypal web site. Banking
| system should adopt that: list every subscription on bank
| website and allow one-click cancel.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| It's not the Banking system's choice. It's a matter of
| contract law between the customer and the service. Once
| the contract law is changed, the Banking system can
| implement the feature.
| huijzer wrote:
| > Companies are stealing money and getting away with it.
|
| Are they? I think that those companies misunderstand how
| easy it is to lose trust and how difficult it is to gain
| it. Humans are extremely good at remembering who can be
| trusted.
| [deleted]
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| I've never had issues requesting a chargeback if a service
| auto-charged me that I didn't desire to use or be charged
| for.
|
| I've done this to the NHL, Comcast, Sirius, Uber, etc.
| Considering some places don't even offer a way to contact
| support (Uber), chargebacks are the only way to handle this
| sometimes.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| I have lost every single chargeback against Sirius -
| calls are recorded and even amex sides against the
| consumer.
|
| I'd love to hear your strategy.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| I want the world to allow this!
|
| > "But I already do it" (paraphrasing)
|
| Not legally. If you hit "Agree" on a contract that says
| you will pay until cancel and then you stop paying
| without canceling, you're still legally on the hook for
| the payment. Technically. Most companies won't actually
| send you to collections. But they can, and sometimes they
| do, which is why credit card companies can't make GUIs to
| bring your subscriptions front and center with nice user
| friendly "cancel" buttons. Sometimes they still try to do
| this, but behind the scenes someone has to cancel on your
| behalf so it isn't reliable.
|
| Upgrading your strategy from "technically illegal" to
| "legal and normal" is how we bring it to the masses :)
| maicro wrote:
| Yeah, my Grandma (chemo-brain-fog-addled at the time, now
| just terminal-cancer-brain-fog-addled...) accidentally signed
| up for Prime while buying a Secret Santa gift, had to help
| fix that (she didn't even know that she had an Amazon
| account, much less that she had a monthly Prime
| subscription).
| Nexxxeh wrote:
| Slightly off-topic, but I'm sorry for your situation. I'm
| glad your grandma has you to help.
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| Yeah the text is confusing too when you have the free trial, it
| makes it sound like your benefits stop immediately, making you
| want to wait till the last minute to cancel, when you can
| cancel straight away and keep for thirty days.
|
| As a non prime member they make it hard to buy things too, with
| extra screens trying to offer you another trial for a week for
| 99p and always defaulting to offering that and paid delivery.
|
| For me, Prime is way too expensive, i don't want there crappy
| video streaming service.
| hervature wrote:
| I think I agree that Prime by itself is not worth it. But if
| you get the credit card, the extra cash back on $4,500 worth
| of purchases on Amazon makes it pay for itself. This is being
| extremely generous by pretending you can get 2% with another
| card. Personally, even comparing with local stores and buying
| the cheaper option, it pays for itself. Then there is cyber
| Monday where I basically get all the Christmas gifts which
| add up real quick. Plus, I really like not having to minimum
| spend to get free delivery.
| jdmichal wrote:
| > This is being extremely generous by pretending you can
| get 2% with another card.
|
| At Amazon? No. But with two cards I get:
|
| Grocery: 3%
|
| Gas: 2%
|
| Restaurants: 3-4.5% [0]
|
| Travel: 3-4.5%
|
| And I'm not even trying all that hard... There's entire
| groups dedicated to min-maxing this stuff that can probably
| blow the above right out of the water.
|
| [0] Depends on how I redeem the points.
| hervature wrote:
| Yea, I would put myself in that group. Most of this
| obviously comes down to personal spending habits. The
| only category that is really applicable to Amazon is the
| grocery category. For the purposes of the Amazon website,
| I would counter that the subscribe and save is often much
| cheaper than the store. I'm a little surprised that my
| original comment got downvoted that Prime + credit card
| makes sense if you spend $4.5k on Amazon. I don't eat
| meat and so my protein purchases alone through Amazon
| equal $500/year. People on HN I guess think that spending
| $4,500 per year on food and other essentials is
| unreasonable.
| Retric wrote:
| I doubt many people can buy 400$/month of stuff from Amazon
| without regularly getting screwed over by fake or expired
| products.
| torstenvl wrote:
| I easily buy that much on Amazon on average. I spend
| $100/mo on Amazon just on sugar free Red Bull.
|
| Yes, I may have a problem.
| throwanem wrote:
| "May?"
| [deleted]
| blibble wrote:
| that's not Red Bull that you're drinking..!
| gs17 wrote:
| If Whole Foods counts (no idea what the specifics of the
| card are), it's not too hard at all. It's very easy to
| spend over a hundred a week there if you're feeding more
| than one person.
| [deleted]
| Retric wrote:
| Worth checking out, but it's possible to get much higher
| rewards on a single category like groceries.
|
| "6% Cash Back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6,000 per
| year in purchases (then 1%). " Blue Cash Preferred(r)
| Card from American Express which Whole Foods accepts.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| "(superstores, convenience stores, warehouse clubs, and
| meal-kit delivery services are not considered
| supermarkets)"
|
| Which is to say _most_ Walmart stores, or a more liberal
| interpretation "plebs need not apply". Though I found
| out it does work with the pick-up option, but I
| absolutely loathe not being able to look at what I'm
| buying.
| gavinsyancey wrote:
| That card has a $100 annual fee -- Prime is not much more
| per year.
| carlmr wrote:
| I wish they had prime delivery without the video for the old
| price. I really don't care about that.
| Frost1x wrote:
| Don't worry a competitor will quickly swoop into the market
| and offer such an alternative, forcing Amazon to decouple
| these services, improve their video streaming or reduce
| bundled costs. They are in no way in a monoplistic type
| situation with such high barriers to entry that competition
| doesnt regulate them. /sarcasm
| silisili wrote:
| Walmart will deliver to your door today, for free, or
| send things two day shipping. No video service that I'm
| aware of, cost is 98/yr.
|
| Target, Home Depot, and Costco are currently upping their
| delivery game as well.
|
| Amazon is huge, no doubting that, but has nothing close
| to a monopoly for online shopping. Competitors have
| really amped up in the last year or two.
| r00fus wrote:
| Reading that resulted in a rollercoaster of emotions.
| Yeah, government action will be needed for above to
| happen, but Bezos already seems to have bought them
| off...
| r00fus wrote:
| I kind of wish the inverse - they have some really good
| shows on Prime video, but I don't buy much anymore on
| Amazon (local stores have really stepped up the same-day
| delivery game).
| ridgered4 wrote:
| Odd. Since you get free delivery on Amazon for all orders
| over $25 without Prime, the delivery is the less
| interesting part of the bundle for me.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| It doesn't make it "sound like", at least in Canada.
|
| I sometimes get the trial to ship something to my parents. It
| literally tells you that your trial will immediately end....
| Only for it to not.
|
| It's like they considered it at one point then decided not to
| but forgot to remove the wording.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > I sometimes get the trial to ship something to my
| parents.
|
| So you're abusing a trial to get something for free that
| actually costs the company money.
|
| But then you complain that the company tries hard to keep
| you from cancelling the trial? How does that make any
| sense?
|
| You are well within your ethical rights to take advantage
| of a trial offer. And the company is well within their
| ethical rights to try to convince you to stay. Three clicks
| online to cancel is hardly a burden.
| spike021 wrote:
| I know someone who recently left one of Amazon's services
| {Video, Games, Music, etc.} and they basically had a free
| membership for dogfooding. When they left Amazon, the free
| membership was automatically set to renew on the monthly date
| for the full price of $20 or whatever it was.
|
| i.e. they'd been charged 0.00/mo on X date every month while
| working for that org and then they checked after quitting and
| noticed it was set to auto-renew on the next date for the full
| price.
|
| They didn't get any kind of notification about it beforehand.
| Canceling that was apparently the same kind of affair as this.
|
| I guess part of it comes down to their ex-org's bug surrounding
| how a dogfooding prod subscription is granted/revoked but in
| the end they were treated just like a real customer.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I canceled around December and it was shockingly easy. Just a
| few clicks and it was done. It even gave me a prorated refund
| for nearly the full amount of the cost of renewal (I forgot to
| turn off autorenew and it had been a couple weeks after the
| renewal). It was actually the easiest cancellation experience
| I've ever had.
|
| I kind of wonder if they have an algorithm to check your
| purchase history and if you've given Amazon enough profit over
| the years (which I certainly have with over 23 years of
| purchases and at least 15 years of prime) then it just makes
| the cancellation a piece of cake.
| green-eclipse wrote:
| Maybe different countries have different laws or regulations
| on this sort of thing? I don't know.
| ksala_ wrote:
| I think people just have a different definition of hard. I
| cancelled my Prime membership several times in the past (not
| using it too much, changing countries etc) and it's
| definitely not a single button - the process is clearly done
| to have some attrition and make you reconsider cancelling it.
| But you just have to click your way past 2-3 screens worth of
| reminders of how amazing your subscription is and after that
| you're done. Personally I would not call it hard (hard for me
| would be one of those services where I have to ring support
| to cancel!) but it could be easier.
|
| I was definitely amazed by the refund part, that was nice and
| something I didn't expect. Iirc the refund is also based on
| your actual usage of prime features, not just how much longer
| your subscription is going to last, which is extremely
| consumer-friendly.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I just cancelled Audible (an Amazon property) and the process
| was similarly confusing. In fact, it seemed to not even allow
| me to cancel unless I used my credits first. So I had to go
| purchase a book with my final credits and then come back to the
| cancellation page. Then after clicking through some non-obvious
| buttons to cancel, it gave me one last button that I almost
| clicked because they made it seem like it was a confirmation
| button. But it was actually a button meant to undo my
| cancellation. Very dark pattern.
| VSerge wrote:
| I am surprised that Amazon had the gall to call this project
| "Iliad". I am even more surprised that anyone could consider a
| design decision anything else than intentional. Dark patterns are
| by definition intentional. Is this a question that courts or
| legislators are struggling with? Surely this is beyond any
| reasonable doubt.
| xg15 wrote:
| You can easily statistics-wash your reasoning into something
| that seems at first glance beneficial. If I remember
| Pinterest's blog post about their nag-screen correctly, the
| argument would go something like this:
|
| - We continuously improve the UX of our services using an
| empirical, data-driven approach.
|
| - One of the KPIs we optimize for is retention of Prime
| customers.
|
| - Our A/B tests showed that the changes introduced by Iliad
| significantly improved the retention rate.
|
| - Therefore we decided to roll-out the changes globally, so our
| whole userbase can benefit from the improvements.
|
| It's still intentionally introducing a dark pattern, but you
| don't have to use any ugly words anymore when taking about
| it...
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Ah yes with enough gymnastics one could end up in a paperclip
| maximiser situation.
| xg15 wrote:
| A paperclip maximizer would at least have a supportable
| goal. I don't think that's the case here.
|
| A lot of the rethoric around "data-driven UX" just pretends
| that the company's goals are always perfectly aligned with
| the customers' - when of course in reality, they are often
| completely at odds.
|
| This makes it easy to talk about "improvements" and
| "optimisations" and make it seem like those changes would
| be in the interest of the _users_ - when in reality, the
| changes are primarily improvements for the _company_.
|
| E.g. "retention" is really a poor proxy for user
| satisfaction. Yes, a user can stay because they like the
| service. They can also stay because they haven't yet found
| what they were looking for, because they don't know how to
| unsubscribe or because they are addicted. Retention doesn't
| care.
|
| However, what retention is a very good indicator of is how
| well a user can be monetized. I think, the fact that after
| so many years, retention is still one of the primary KPIs
| shows pretty well how serious the talk about "user
| satisfaction" really is.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Internal project code names are sometimes sarcastic, and are
| never meant for public consumption. It's obviously embarrassing
| the way it's presented, but it's not like someone was sitting
| around twirling their mustache plotting something evil.
|
| Here's a more charitable interpretation to consider:
|
| "We have worked hard to make Prime a good deal for customers.
| But we also know that a lot of customers don't know about the
| benefits. They just know that if they sign up for Prime they
| can get free shipping. So they do so and then they cancel. Are
| we sure that customers know about all the benefits that they
| get from Prime before they cancel? Maybe if they did, they
| would not be so hasty. Do they know about Music and Photos and
| Video? Maybe if they did, they'd keep it around. Let's show
| them the options during the cancellation flow to make sure they
| REALLY know what they're giving up. And let's flip around the
| yes/no buttons to make sure they actually read it - similar to
| what security confirmation messages do when you're about to do
| something irreversible."
| tgv wrote:
| > I am surprised that Amazon had the gall to call this project
| "Iliad".
|
| Because it sends the customer on a trip that takes forever
| because of luring sirens, amongst other traps?
| brimble wrote:
| Rather, it's a 10-year-long war.
| dopa42365 wrote:
| Recently canceled my Prime (nothing wrong with it, but I don't
| buy enough stuff to actually save money on shipping etc), it took
| like 20 seconds and 5 clicks, whatever.
|
| Hate the game, not the players.
| prytania wrote:
| File this under 'not a story'. Every subscription service ever
| tries to convince you to stay before cancellation. At least you
| don't have to 'email support' or call as I've had to do in the
| past. The meal delivery services are the worst of the worst when
| it comes to this
| [deleted]
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I canceled prime, but they make it super easy to accidentally
| resign up for it when ordering.
| icedistilled wrote:
| I did a prime trial and then cancelled it... only to get a bill a
| bit later for prime. My account showed cancelled, I did not have
| active prime. I had to call in and the phone help explained that
| the auto bill option was checked... Nowhere on my side of the UI
| was an auto bill option shown and in what bizarro logic would
| auto bill stay active after cancelling?
| testplzignore wrote:
| Are there services that are _easier_ to cancel than Prime? I don
| 't use many online suscription services, so I don't know. Of the
| services I have used, Twitch is the easiest. Prime takes more
| clicks, but its just a few extra seconds. Maybe I find it easy
| because I've canceled so many free trials.
|
| A dark pattern I really hate is when you have to use the desktop
| version of a website to change certain settings or cancel.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Anything using Apple's subscription management is easier. It's
| one reason why many rush to defend Apple's restrictive App
| Store policies whenever the subject comes up.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Yeah same for android. I get that fees are high and the play
| store has it's issues... BuI still always try to subscribe
| through the store just to avoid the trouble of having to
| track down subscriptions. The price is also much more
| transparent, so there's no bait and switch between
| annual/monthly prices.
|
| The ideal would be to have a a website like privacy.com here
| in Canada but there's no service or even bank that allows you
| to have disposable credit cards. I wonder if it's due to
| regulatory differences
| chihuahua wrote:
| Netflix and Zwift are easy to cancel.
| ccn0p wrote:
| is this even surprising? anyone else notice how when returning
| something for a refund, the refund option to actually return your
| money is a hard-to-see link unlike the other options? it might
| even be a little javascript click away if I recall.
|
| the perfect example of interfacing your cash into their pockets.
| jquast wrote:
| Pretty certain I was a part of their experiment, not Prime
| related, I just wished to close my account entirely. They kept
| replying that "someone will contact you in 24-48 hours", but
| nobody would. I got more aggressive each cycle, waiting 3 days, 2
| days, then 1 day, the process was cyclical, I could not close the
| account.
|
| When I changed my name to "FUCK AMAZON" my request was
| immediately processed, prior comment
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23720203
| tapatio wrote:
| I'm tired of Amazon. I cancelled Prime and switched to Walmart+.
| Pretty good so far!
| [deleted]
| caymanjim wrote:
| The FTC has been pushing back against "click to subscribe, call
| to cancel". Back in October, they released a statement against
| such practices, warning that they "may be illegal" or something
| along those lines (I can't find a good source and forget the
| details). From what I understand, it was a somewhat soft
| statement meant to serve as a warning against this dark pattern,
| indicating that companies may be legally liable, but not outright
| banning the practice. It read more like a warning shot to get
| companies to shape up or face stricter regulation.
|
| I wish they would take a harder stand. If you've got one-click
| signup and don't have one-click cancel (fine, maybe you can add
| in a confirmation click, or even an immediate email with a
| confirmation link it it), you should be fined enough to make it
| hurt. $10k per impacted user or whatever.
|
| Here's a random not-great article about it:
| https://www.birminghamtimes.com/2021/11/ftc-cracks-down-on-c....
|
| The Economist still follows this dark pattern and it's pissing me
| off. I signed up for their print + digital, realized their
| digital content sucks, and now that I'm not commuting on mass
| transit anymore, I don't read the magazine enough to justify a
| subscription. A year later it auto-renewed because they require a
| phone call to cancel and I get sick of waiting on hold.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Your comment makes it seem like the article is placing Amazon
| in the "click to subscribe, call to cancel" category.
|
| It doesn't, and they aren't. "1 click to subscribe, 3 clicks to
| cancel" is hardly a burden, and it shouldn't be implied that
| it's in any way comparable to what the NYT/The Economist/etc
| do.
| evandale wrote:
| I really hope this happens in Canada as well. There's a trend
| of these subscription services (coffee, food boxes, cat litter,
| etc.) that make it impossible to cancel without calling,
| chatting or emailing. Worse than that, they don't let you
| cancel, but they will suspend the service for x months. _Even
| worse than that_ , they don't even allow you to remove your
| credit card without contacting them which really should be
| against some consumer protection laws. How can they keep my
| credit card info and not allow me to easily delete it?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Worse than that, they don 't let you cancel, but they will
| suspend the service for x months_
|
| Strangely, Netflix has gone in the opposite direction. At
| least in the U.S.
|
| Pre-pandemic, I used to occasionally put my Netflix DVD
| account on hold for a month or two when I would be traveling.
| It was no big deal.
|
| This past summer, I needed to put it on hold again, and
| that's no longer an option. Instead, you can only cancel the
| account now. Netflix holds on to your queue for six months in
| case you change your mind and sign up again, which worked a
| lot better than I thought it would.
|
| I guess Netflix has proactive lawyers and human beings for
| managers, instead of whatever kind Amazon has.
| currency wrote:
| Netflix wants out of physical media. They're hoping you
| forget to sign up again, and, when you remember, realize
| your queue has disappeared and decide not to renew.
| yAak wrote:
| My guess is that Netflix found people were more willing to
| pause, than cancel, and that the net result of removing
| pause left them with more revenue.
| nomagicbullet wrote:
| Would changing the subscription to a card that's about the
| expire work to stop the charges? Or changing it to a "virtual
| card" number and then canceling the card?
|
| I'm not advocating for scamming any service provider but in
| this case I'd have to assume that an invalid payment would
| automatically cancel the subscription.
| caymanjim wrote:
| This ought to work, and I wouldn't consider it a scam in the
| case of a subscription service. Payment fails, cancel
| subscription, everyone's [moderately] happy. If you're using
| it to get out of services-already-rendered, that's scammy, I
| suppose, but if it's a service you didn't want and weren't
| using and would have cancelled if they didn't make it
| impossible, then screw them.
|
| I pay monthly for a Digital Ocean VPS. I get charged at the
| end of the month, based on my usage, for services already
| provided. Trying to weasel out of that would be unethical.
| But the Economist charges me in advance, for an annual
| subscription, that I would have cancelled if they didn't make
| it impossible. I have no problem with changing that payment
| method to a dead card so that the next renewal attempt fails.
| I don't think that's unethical at all, and because they're
| doing evil things, I wouldn't feel bad even if they did
| suffer in some way.
| valenterry wrote:
| Maybe, but legally the company could probably force you to
| pay if they want to follow up on it.
| _moof wrote:
| "Click to subscribe, call to cancel" is illegal in California.
| If you can get a company to believe that you're a Californian,
| either by giving them a different address and/or by using a VPN
| based in CA, their site will magically change from a snakepit
| of dark pattern BS to one that provides one-click cancellation.
| (And if it doesn't, they're breaking the law.)
| [deleted]
| deanCommie wrote:
| Here's a more charitable interpretation to consider that's not
| "Mwahaha let's make it impossible for people to cancel Prime so
| we can make more money":
|
| "We have worked hard to make Prime a good deal for customers. But
| we also know that a lot of customers don't know about the
| benefits. They just know that if they sign up for Prime they can
| get free shipping. So they do so and then they cancel. Are we
| sure that customers know about all the benefits that they get
| from Prime before they cancel? Maybe if they did, they would not
| be so hasty. Do they know about Music and Photos and Video? Maybe
| if they did, they'd keep it around. Let's show them the options
| during the cancellation flow to make sure they REALLY know what
| they're giving up. And let's flip around the yes/no buttons to
| make sure they actually read it - similar to what security
| confirmation messages do when you're about to do something
| irreversible."
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Microsoft did a similar thing with XBOX live in the past. Someone
| had improved the UI for cancelling, and when that went live an
| increase in cancellations was immediately noticed by management,
| who then ordered that the feature be reverted.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| The Kindle has a huge dark pattern where to turn off the wifi to
| save the battery life, you have to turn ON Airplane mode. There
| is no labeled wifi switch. I am sure it is so they can keep the
| screen saver home page advertisement up to date.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
| coderintherye wrote:
| While this is a part of the terrible UI/UX of the Kindle, I
| highly doubt it is for keeping the ad up to date as it this is
| also the way it exists on ad-free Kindles. Kindle have just
| always had fairly poor interface decisions.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Or they could just be too lazy to change it on the ad free
| kindles
| beeboop wrote:
| More likely that having different software interfaces
| depending on ad version is implicitly admitting they're
| changing something for the sake of ads
| vorpalhex wrote:
| In order to cancel your Prime subscription, you must solve the NP
| completeness theorem...
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| "To cancel your membership please send an email to
| $larger_factor@amazon.com, where $larger_factor is the largest
| prime factor of 25195908475657893494027183240048398571429282126
| 204032027777137836043662020707595556264018525880784406918290641
| 249515082189298559149176184502808489120072844992687392807287776
| 735971418347270261896375014971824691165077613379859095700097330
| 459748808428401797429100642458691817195118746121515172654632282
| 216869987549182422433637259085141865462043576798423387184774447
| 920739934236584823824281198163815010674810451660377306056201619
| 676256133844143603833904414952634432190114657544454178424020924
| 616515723350778707749817125772467962926386356373289912154831438
| 167899885040445364023527381951378636564391212010397122822120720
| 357"
| [deleted]
| jeppester wrote:
| Hopefully it will turn out to be a very shortsighted strategy.
|
| I for one am not going to sign up again.
|
| Still, there should be a rule that cancelling must be at least as
| easy as signing up.
| lfkdev wrote:
| surprise?
| azalemeth wrote:
| I've never really understood the value proposition of Prime.
| Spend a _lot_ more money monthly so that you can... Spend more
| money with free shipping attached, and get some (variable
| quality) videos thrown in for free?
| mft_ wrote:
| It's genius, in a slightly dark manner. I/we bought a new house
| a couple of years ago and have obviously needed lots of
| different stuff, large and small, as a result. Our choice of
| local shops is relatively restricted and I'd estimate that >90%
| of everything bought online (by volume) has been from Amazon -
| it's fast, free, and reliable. That Prime subscription pays for
| itself several times over in postage costs saved, before you
| consider any of the other relative perks it brings. It's an
| enabler - and means that Amazon is your first choice to look
| for something you need, before any other site.
|
| If you want to look at it purely mathematically, I find that
| typical postage from an independent online retailer costs ~EUR4
| for something by small. So if I purchase more than 2-3 items
| per month, the cost of Prime is already earned back.
| rkk3 wrote:
| I cancelled the other month on impulse, to see if I'd miss it.
|
| The initial wording implied that by cancelling I'd be giving up
| the remaining duration I had already paid for. After closing that
| window and starting the process again, I got different wording
| that made it clear I would keep access until the renewal date.
| Scumbags.
| mzvkxlcvd wrote:
| I have a different interesting "problem".
|
| I have prime and I don't know why. No one is paying for it, but i
| get prime shipping on everything. If i try to look at my prime
| settings i have the option to sign up for prime. not complaining
| though.
| cooervo wrote:
| I tried it on adobe and it was a pain as well, f adobe hopefully
| figma steals a lot of their market
| nerdawson wrote:
| Adobe take it to another level. Their free trial shows a
| monthly price if you don't cancel but then it locks you into a
| 12 month contract.
|
| I nearly got stung by the same trap on ShutterStock a few weeks
| back.
| paxys wrote:
| "Secret project" as opposed to every other feature in development
| at the company that is 100% public? I get that it is a shitty
| move, but let's not make it sound overdramatic for no reason.
| qgin wrote:
| Very sensationalized.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| I use Privacy.com to help with this kind of dark pattern B.S.
| Spivak wrote:
| Honestly good for Amazon getting caught saying the quiet part out
| loud. Maybe it will lead to some legislation banning the practice
| but probably not since "anything that's good for business" is
| seen as some intrinsic good even if it's at the expense of
| Americans.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Amazon - directly and indirectly - generates a massive amount
| of (tax) revenue for government. It's hard to imagine W.DC, let
| alone state / local gov, suddenly growing teeth and a backbone.
|
| We're better off coming up with our own solution(s). Or at
| least trying.
| nvr219 wrote:
| I don't know about canceling Prime, but I did delete my account a
| couple of years ago and I remember that process being much easier
| than I expected. Didn't have to call anyone, for example (like
| some other companies).
| ozzythecat wrote:
| Anyone whose worked at amazon isn't going to be surprised by
| this. Much of Amazon's retail/consumer organization is heavily
| product management driven.
|
| PMs are under pressure and incentivized to release features or
| somehow show impact that translates into some bottom line metric.
| If you can show your work attributed X% decrease in cancellations
| or Y% increase in bottom line profit, especially with a small
| engineering team, that's your fastest path to promotion. This
| leads to a culture of churning out "features", often at the
| expense of the end product or the expense of customers.
|
| I guarantee you there were a/b test results that were summarized
| and twisted around in a document, presenting the test results as
| a net win for customers.
|
| And there are second and third order effects - constant tweaks
| and duct tape on top of monolithic systems that prevent Amazon
| from being innovative. The company makes shockingly little
| investment in this area, and when you couple that with engineers
| constantly churning, it becomes clear that product teams deliver
| some dark pattern or other unhelpful feature because the poorly
| strung together architecture limits any real innovation.
|
| The engineers may have their own opinions, but at the end of the
| day nobody gives a shit about what they think except on design
| and scale concerns. What's the operational/support cost of X? If
| we promise Y to our leadership, can we deliver it by this date?
|
| Most of the recent hiring when I left, especially for engineers,
| were study abroad students from China or India. They wouldn't say
| anything being afraid not to rock the boat, especially because of
| their work situation. If a manager puts them on a development
| plan, they will most likely get fired and have to leave the US.
| The company has found this structure so advantageous to its
| business that if not for Indian and Chinese talent, in my
| opinion, Amazon in its current cultural state would implode.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > PMs are under pressure and incentivized to release features
| or somehow show impact that translates into some bottom line
| metric.
|
| So are PMs at all companies?
| Animats wrote:
| Just buying from Amazon without using Prime requires getting past
| three dark patterns. "No, I don't want free delivery" is one of
| them.
|
| Amazon still offers "free delivery" without Prime, but the web
| site gives you a date further in the future. In practice, they
| usually deliver faster than that. There are dark patterns to keep
| you away from that option, but it works fine. I don't have Prime
| and haven't paid for Amazon delivery in a long time.
| skydhash wrote:
| I guess they use farther warehouses when doing free delivery
| without prime. I bought a keyboard on Wednesday and they said
| Monday. On Thursday, it was still being processed, so I just
| paid the next-day delivery ($10), and the progress rewinds back
| to the beginning, so I think they switched warehouses.
| seandoe wrote:
| In other news, water is wet.
| patwolf wrote:
| I suspect Amazon uses a lot of dark patterns. Multiple times I've
| discovered that I'm subscribed to some Amazon digital
| subscription that I had no idea about. I do read my credit card
| statements every month, but there are enough Amazon purchases on
| there that I don't notice a small monthly subscription charge.
|
| When I've tried to cancel them, it takes me through a confusing
| series of dialogs that I have to read very carefully to make sure
| I'm doing the correct thing.
| virgilp wrote:
| Not sure if they do this, but: I signed up for prime for free,
| forgot to cancel, and got billed. I cancelled when I saw the
| charge, and then instead keeping my subscription for 1 year (or
| month, I don't remember), Amazon actually refunded me. Yeah they
| had a bunch of dark patterns, but that refund was a pleasant
| surprise. Hope they still do that.
| remus wrote:
| > Yeah they had a bunch of dark patterns, but that refund was a
| pleasant surprise. Hope they still do that.
|
| The pessimist in me suspects they only do this to minimise the
| number of people who go on to complain to regulators and
| minimise the amount of legislative scrutiny they have to face.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Pessimist in you optimistically assumes there's legislative
| scrutiny for them to face.
|
| I would argue it's actually an optimistic thing: there's
| either legislative scrutiny OR Amazon isn't managed
| exclusively by assholes, either way it's an optimistic
| outcome.
| awinter-py wrote:
| one future here is for gov to mandate 'dark pattern-prone' biz
| processes to be handled by open APIs or third parties
|
| like email client's 'unsubscribe' button but for everything
|
| designing this feature would be a natural fit for apple if they
| were actually pro consumer rights, rather than trying to destroy,
| then become, facebook
| AlphaGeekZulu wrote:
| In Germany a new law will take effect on July 1st 2022, that
| obligates online shops to provide an "easily accessible, clearly
| visible" cancellation button on their websites, that allows to
| cancel any contract that has been established online or via App.
|
| The entire procedure is described very explicitly in the law and
| breaks down to a 2-step process:
|
| 1. mandatory cancellation button, which, if pressed, leads to a
|
| 2. confirmation page, where a defined set of parameters is
| requested and a confirmation button then cancels the contract.
|
| In my eyes the defined set of parameters on the confirmation page
| can easily been abused to make the process more difficult for the
| user.
|
| The parameters required are:
|
| 1. Type of cancellation
|
| 2. Unique identification of the user
|
| 3. Unique identification of the contract
|
| 4. The desired end date of the contract
|
| 5. Means of electronic communication for cancellation
| confirmation (email)
|
| Topic 2 can be made very difficult and is in my eyes superficial
| - if the user logged into his account, he is identified IMO.
|
| Topic 3 is ambivalent, how do you identify an contract? By title
| and date, by ID? In my eyes there should be a popup with existing
| contracts to choose from (which can easily be done if the user is
| logged in).
|
| Topic 4 is prone to errors, because many contracts have notice
| periods. So the user has to do research on his contract and if he
| gets the lifetime/notice periods wrong his cancellation will
| fail.
|
| Information (unfortunately only in german):
|
| https://www.voelker-gruppe.com/stuttgart/kuendigungsschaltfl...
| slim wrote:
| I think the law should mandate cancellation at your bank (and
| no more harrassement from the service)
| raverbashing wrote:
| > Topic 3 is ambivalent, how do you identify an contract?
|
| It is not ambivalent. Most places have an account number. (It
| is needed because you might have more than one contract with
| the same company)
| AlphaGeekZulu wrote:
| OK, so I just tried to look up my Prime account number. All I
| can find, pretty hidden, is an order number, which changes
| with every prolongation. Legally, I have one contract, that
| prolongs every year if I do not cancel. This contract has no
| ID (it is my email address, sort of). So if I enter the Prime
| order number in the new cancellation form, would I cancel the
| entire contract or just the running instance?
|
| My parents wouldn't know what to fill in the contract
| identification field of the cancellation form.
|
| Plenty of room for dark patterns.
| valenterry wrote:
| I don't think lawmakers are that dumb. They will have used
| words like "easy" in the law. If it's taken to a court,
| then the judge might very well deem the technical solution
| to not be easy if he is convinced that it was intentionally
| or even accidentally made much harder than necessary. And
| that could get expensive.
| shoo wrote:
| i can imagine intentionally useless UI for this. require the
| account number to be entered in a particularly stupid format.
| 12345 -> one TWO 3 four FIVE. add heavy input validation.
| make the validation give no hint about what is wrong with the
| input. defer validation as late as possible in the process
| "processing cancellation request --- something went wrong, we
| could not match the entered account, name, blood type against
| our records. please try again". route all requests for
| cancellation to a particular backend server bathed in cosmic
| rays.
|
| hopefully there is a regulator to monitor and enforce the new
| legislation, and it will be treated as an adversarial
| iterative game, where v2 of the legislation will eliminate
| some of the more malicious interpretations of how to comply
| germanier wrote:
| FWIW laws like that are not enforced in Germany by public
| regulators but by competitors and associations sending out
| endless of the infamous costly cease-and-desist letters
| ("Abmahnung"). So just one competitor (or business/consumer
| association) with enough will and money to fight that
| question through courts will be enough to settle such
| questions. Happens all the time with consumer protection
| laws. There is a large industry of lawyers for both sides.
|
| Your online shop says it offers "insured shipping"? Cease-
| and-desist letter in your mailbox next day. You don't give
| a price per unit (kg, l, etc.)? Cease-and desist. Send the
| required information on the mandatory 14 day return period
| in the email body instead of a PDF attachment? Cease-and-
| desist. Don't comply to just one of the other ever changing
| consumer protections laws? Cease-and-desist.
| voakbasda wrote:
| This is all great, but I do not see any incentive for companies
| to roll out a broader solution. They will simply enable a
| workaround for their German customers and continue to abuse the
| rest of the world.
| shoo wrote:
| it's a step in the right direction.
|
| unlike some problems[+], this one doesn't immediately seem
| like a problem that requires widespread international
| cooperation. if country X cannot be bothered to regulate
| against companies using dark patterns for cancelling
| subscriptions, then the citizens in country X suffer the
| negative consequences. there's a local and short-term
| incentive for country X to fix the problem for the benefit of
| its current citizens.
|
| maybe it breaks down if the state in country X makes policy
| decisions for the benefit of special interest groups (e.g.
| those enjoying the riches plundered by companies with hard-
| to-unsubscribe services) and is unwilling to regulate for the
| benefit of its citizens
|
| [+] such as global warming
| germanier wrote:
| > Unique identification of the user
|
| "The account logged in right now"
|
| > Unique identification of the contract
|
| "The only contract I have with you"
|
| > The desired end date of the contract
|
| "Next possible date"
|
| Note that specifications like that already have to be accepted
| when canceling via email or letter since forever. Requiring
| anything substantially harder than that won't qualify. In
| particular, customers can't be required to go through a maze to
| hunt for some arcane contract number that is not typically used
| in communication with them.
| Osiris wrote:
| And this is why regulating companies is hard. It's difficult to
| word things in a way that's generic enough to cover many
| businesses while at the same time not leaving big loopholes.
| amyjess wrote:
| See, I'd approach it a different way. Don't even give them
| the option of building their own UI.
|
| Require all companies who provide any kind of subscription
| service to implement specific API hooks that interact with a
| government portal. Specify the API endpoints, their expected
| payloads, and the resultant behaviors in excruciating detail
| (use formal methods if needed) and require that they send the
| API tokens to a specific secure endpoint controlled by the
| government.
|
| And the standard way of cancelling your service will be to
| log into the government portal, browse the list of
| subscription services you're subscribed to until you find
| what you're looking to cancel, click the checkbox next to it,
| and click 'Unsubscribe'. And the government portal will send
| an authenticated request to the company's legally-mandated
| cancel API and the cancel request, by law, must immediately
| result in automated total purging of the user's account with
| the company within 10 seconds of receiving the request.
| cthalupa wrote:
| A lot of people would not be particularly thrilled with the
| idea of the government having record and access to all of
| their online subscriptions.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| They just need to mandate that every company the provides a
| subscription, also provides a secure API for cancelling
| subscriptions.
|
| I want a god damn subscription manager app with centralized
| payment processing and toggle subscription switches.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Apple pretty much has the solution you describe for IAP
| subscribtions and has a pseudo governmental role within in
| its ecosystem.
|
| I think the challenge for extending this approach to the
| rest of the economy is that many recurring payments /
| subscriptions involve situations where cancellations are
| naturally complex.
|
| Insurance, premium bank accounts, property taxes, car
| rentals, and school fees all involve recurring payments -
| but are naturally complicated to cancel for fair-ish
| reasons.
| fsh wrote:
| I really wonder which effects this kind of user-hostile behavior
| has on the long term success of a company. This is probably
| impossible to measure since there is no second Amazon to compare
| with. I guess some execs were asked or incentivized to optimize
| one particular metric (number of Prime cancellations), and this
| is exactly what they did.
| [deleted]
| LVDOVICVS wrote:
| I had the same issue with other software that, after making a
| valid attempt to cancel, I ended up shutting off the money from
| the credit card. That worked.
| foolproofplan wrote:
| I asked to cancel my subscription once in a chat and they just
| flat out ignored my request although they said they would. I'm
| sure amazon has all sorts of scummy ways.
| daenz wrote:
| Related, yesterday I tried to cancel my Kindle Unlimited trial. I
| found the page easily enough, but when I clicked cancel, I
| received an "400 Oops!" page. Then attempting to visit the
| original page at all resulted in "400 Oops!" I waited for some
| time to pass and was still unable to cancel. I nearly forgot
| about it, but a few hours later, I tried again and it succeeded.
|
| Now, I know it's slightly paranoid to assume that it wasn't just
| a bug preventing me from canceling, but at the scale Amazon
| operates at, and the SLAs they shoot for, what are the odds that
| it would occur at the moment I try to cancel? To the conspiracy
| theorist side of me, it felt like a dark pattern.
|
| In my mind, the lengths that Amazon would go to to prevent Prime
| cancellations adds more suspicion about my Kindle Unlimited
| cancellation experience.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I recently canceled my Kindle Unlimited subscription as well,
| and experienced no issues other than the "dark patterns"
| already outlined in other posts here.
|
| I know it's a massive coincidence that that happened to you,
| but I really do think it was just a coincidence. If it happened
| too often, people would be screaming about it on social media
| in no time.
| supergeek133 wrote:
| Having a link or ability to cancel online (even with strange
| language or hard to navigate) is still better than cancelling
| your Comcast or newspaper/ESPN subscription.
|
| Sadly.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| Amazon and Dropbox need to be sanctioned for this dark pattern
| shit
| MarkSweep wrote:
| There should be a rule that the percentage of people who
| successfully cancel and the time it takes them to do so has to be
| the same or better than the signup process.
| mdonahoe wrote:
| What's the latest in virtual credit card numbers? I've seen these
| services advertised, but I haven't tried one yet.
|
| I'd love to be able to "cancel" a subscription service by just
| deleting my card and stopping automated payments.
|
| It would be nice if I was then not legally obligated to pay any
| outstanding bills, but I doubt I would win that fight, so I
| question how good these cards are in practice.
|
| Has anyone tried one?
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Privacy.com is fantastic
| nyuszika7h wrote:
| Most services will just give up trying to charge you and cancel
| your subscription after a few failed attempts, but I had a bad
| experience with BritBox a few years ago. I signed up for a
| trial with a Revolut card that barely had any balance and
| forgot to cancel, and then to my surprise when the trial ended
| a "delayed transaction" appeared in Revolut, and they
| overdrafted me. There was absolutely no mention of this when
| signing up for the trial, I only saw a $0 authorization charge.
| giza182 wrote:
| Fnb, a South African bank, has these as part of their offering
| for free. I use them for all new paid services. They're easy to
| create, block and delete and just fantastic for this sort n of
| thing
|
| https://www.fnb.co.za/promotions/PBVirtualCard/index.html
| jerrycruncher wrote:
| I've used Capital One's virtual card service many times to
| close a card associated with a service that would've otherwise
| required me to chat or call someone to cancel. It's worked
| extremely well.
| amelius wrote:
| Isn't it easy to cancel with a normal credit card?
| Shank wrote:
| Privacy works, but you should be aware that without attempting
| to cancel on the service, some providers get really angry. I
| tried and failed to cancel NYT, and they force-posted [0] a
| subscription renewal despite getting declines on the card. In
| other words, it didn't matter that the card was paused or that
| they didn't get authorization, they still tried to post the
| transaction. I don't necessarily expect this from every
| service, but it certainly wasn't as painless as I thought it
| was going to be with a virtual card number.
|
| [0]: https://support.privacy.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360012288214-F...
| guntars wrote:
| Ah, great to know that the merchants have another tool to
| take whatever money they feel entitled to from my account
| based on nothing more than "but we really really want to!" My
| first introduction to credit cards, when I was a kid, was via
| some.. uh.. shared CC numbers online. I couldn't believe how
| insecure the whole system was. Were people just that naive
| back in the day?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Amazon introduced a dark pattern to try to get you to accept your
| refund in the form of Amazon store credit rather than back to
| your original payment method.
|
| On my iOS device, going to Amazon.com in safari, I initiated the
| return, and then the question of how I want to process the return
| came up, and the top 3 or 4 options all resulted in me not
| getting my money back. The option to refund to original payment
| method was all the way at the bottom (had to scroll), and in a
| different color/formatting such that it took me effort to
| recognize it as an option.
|
| My parents and their ilk would have no chance against this kind
| of nonsense.
| archhn wrote:
| When I canceled, a prompt came up that said something which made
| me feel like I was an idiot for canceling. Something like "Are
| you sure you want to miss out on all the great benefits of
| prime?" [YES/NO].
|
| When I pressed yes, I felt like I had to buy into their premise
| that prime offered me great value...which made me feel like a
| fool.
|
| Honestly, I am more entertained by the psychological manipulation
| of the corporations than anything at this point. Last week I
| bought a water bottle at a chain supermarket with a sticker on it
| that read, "We want to be your friend! Follow us on Facebook." I
| just laughed at the thought that a water bottle is trying to
| befriend me on behalf of a corporation.
|
| "Welcome to Costco, I love you." inbound.
| Julesman wrote:
| This is absolutely generic common practice, to one degree or
| another. Facebook is great at this crap. Clearly this example
| crosses some kind of line to people. But maybe more than anything
| because we got to see how the sausage is made. It's as open a
| secret as the fact that automated call handling is about
| intentional friction to limit needed call staff.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| How was this secret unless your haven't tried to cancel your
| prime membership ? Or was that dark pattern shown to people at
| random?
| giords wrote:
| NordVPN is pretty hard to cancel as well
| acdanger wrote:
| I worked for a big bank building out the software the call center
| agents used to service customers. One of the changes that was
| requested from on high was to make the UI around free shipping
| for replacement bank cards intentionally painful for the agent to
| use. The hope was that the agents wouldn't mention the free
| shipping option or talk the customer out of it since it added
| some annoyances for the agent.
| DarkContinent wrote:
| Is Amazon even the hardest place to cancel your membership?
| Udacity for instance required me to talk to a person to cancel a
| $400/month subscription.
| slg wrote:
| Wierdly the aspect of this story that most annoys me is that they
| named the project Illiad. The Illiad was about the Trojan War.
| The project should have been named Odyssey after Odysseus's long
| and trying journey trying to get home after the war. That is the
| parallel to this project, the story about a seemingly easy goal
| that turns out to be much more diffucult and take longer than
| expected, not the story about the actual war.
| hegelguy wrote:
| Not to mention the Siren songs one endures to reach the
| homeland of Canceled
| salawat wrote:
| I'm so glad there are other people who notice these things like
| I do.
|
| Yet, you also have my condolences. It is not fun...
| gverrilla wrote:
| Adobe is masterful at this. I actually laughed at the dark
| patterns. These people are DISGUSTING... They may see an increase
| in some metrics, but I'm convinced this kind of behavior is
| damaging to the brand: after going through the process with
| Adobe, I made a very big memory note: NEVER BUY NOTHING FROM THIS
| COMPANY.
| limograf wrote:
| Hard same. Adobe cheated me out of around six hundred pounds by
| making it freaking impossible to cancel.
|
| I finally escaped in 2021, after being devoted to Adobe for 16
| years. I will never buy anything from them again. It's over
| now. I do miss Photoshop and After Effects but nothing is worth
| that nightmarish hassle. Da Vinci, Affinity, Fusion, Smoke...
| there are other options.
| oo0shiny wrote:
| Can't recommend https://www.photopea.com/ enough. Free
| Photoshop alternative in the browser. Works for all the small
| edits I tend to do.
| asimpletune wrote:
| This actually just reminded me to cancel. It wasn't _super_
| pleasant, but I was surprised to discover that I got the
| remainder of the year refunded to me without having to ask. So
| dark patterns aside, I thought that was pretty nice.
| asimpletune wrote:
| Follow up email explains why
|
| > Since you have not used your Amazon Prime benefits, we are
| refunding you $129.26 which includes the full membership fee
| and any applicable fees and taxes.
|
| Seems fair to me
| buzzdenver wrote:
| I happened to cancel my Prime earlier this morning. They do make
| you click through a few pages. They validated my decision by
| showing how many free prime orders I had, and it'd come out to a
| wash even if I paid to expedite all of them. Most of the time I
| would be fine waiting a few days. As a bright spot they had the
| option to keep enjoying Prime benefits until my membership
| actually expires. It really pisses me off when companies only
| have the option to "cancel right now" and forego the membership
| that you already paid for.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| Amazon love to talk about being "customer-obsessed", but this
| little slip of the mask is pretty stark evidence of the opposite:
| that they have contempt for their customers and simply see them
| as cash cows to milk.
|
| Maybe most people won't care, but this has put me off subscribing
| to any Amazon service in future.
| pie42000 wrote:
| Uhhh, what part of "customer-obsessed" implies anything
| positive to you? Drug dealers are also "customer-obsessed".
| Notice how Amazon is customer-obsessed and not "obsessed with
| providing a great, ethical, and non-addictive experience for
| our customers". They are upfront that they will do anything and
| everything to acquire more customers and extract as much from
| each customer as possible. This has been clear to anyone for at
| least half of a decade
| floren wrote:
| They're definitely customer-obsessed... have you ever seen the
| movie "Misery"?
| cronix wrote:
| I also love that they now have "subscribe" as the default option
| for purchasing things and you have to manually select "one time"
| to only purchase once.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| This is why I don't want apple to support other payment
| processors on iOS. I signed up on my phone and so cancelling is
| easy. The moment the payments are done by a 3rd party this will
| be difficult again.
| aimor wrote:
| I think what's just as bad is how Amazon tries to trick users
| into signing up for Prime. Multiple dark patterns, it's scummy
| and I'm sick of getting called up by family members to help them
| unsubscribe.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| The other day I tried Prime Music and quickly discovered that
| my Prime subscription means I have to be advertised at every 30
| seconds to upgrade to "unlimited", whatever that means.
|
| I went away back to Spotify, where I pay for a thing and get
| that thing (even if they keep insisting I listen to their
| podcasts too).
| steviedotboston wrote:
| I tried to cancel a month or so ago and couldn't figure it out so
| opened a support chat.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| They auto select "Subscribe & Save", sometimes it feels like a
| pain just to find one time purchase.
|
| I decided to go with it for a shampoo, the delivery is so
| irregular it's not even worth it.
|
| Do you know what it's like not having shampoo because your clown
| ass decided to wait on Bezos?
| pinkhorse wrote:
| Lol Customer Obession
| ineedasername wrote:
| Amazon has a bad history in dealing with ToS for Prime in
| general.
|
| In the beginning Prime was about free 2-day shipping and $3.99
| next-day shipping, and was written into the ToS.
|
| Then one time I wanted to ship something next-day and the charge
| was going to be $8.99. I was curious about when it had changed,
| and what the rules were: but the current ToS didn't specify a
| particular price, and I couldn't find any notification from
| Amazon about the change, so I went digging in Wayback.
|
| To cut things short, at some point Amazon changed the ToS,
| _removing_ the requirement that they notify customers of future
| changes, while the $3.99 price remained the same. Then, at some
| point in the future, Amazon removed the $3.99 guarantee but was
| no longer required to notify customers that they 'd now be paying
| more for that service. Very sneaky.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| I actually just cancelled two days ago and was shocked at how
| painless and easy it was. But now I have my answer why- they got
| caught and the pendulum swung far to the other side.
|
| Presumably. The article doesn't mention anything about Amazon
| changing their policies as a result of being called out. But my
| experience was certainly not what was described in the article-
| basically a single button click.
|
| Big fat edit: OK, I was wrong. This article and the other
| comments here made me go double check and sure enough, the
| cancellation didn't go through. Perhaps I fell prey to a dark
| pattern, but I seem to remember seeing different pages. Maybe an
| A/B test. Either way, good timing on posting this article!
| rapind wrote:
| I literally canceled right now and had to confirm several times
| navigating identical non-cancel buttons, scrolling past several
| promotions that made it look like the process was over (like
| the ads at the end of an article) to find one of the
| confirmations.
|
| I mean it's ok if you read everything expecting it to be a
| horrible process. There's a lot of "if" you cancel instead of
| you "have" cancelled that provide hints you aren't done yet.
|
| Fuck Amazon.
| dorgo wrote:
| I subscribe/unsubscribe every other month. Depends on whether
| there is something interesting on prime or netflix. From time to
| time I get a free month or a week for 1EUR. Just canceled my free
| month. Rule of thumb is to never click the button you would click
| when drunk.
|
| They changed something. I had to allow amazon.dev in ublock
| origin.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| Wow. Who would have thought that a company known for treating
| employees horribly would also treat customers horribly?
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