[HN Gopher] Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to si...
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers
for Prime
Author : Improvement
Score : 258 points
Date : 2025-09-25 15:35 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ftc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ftc.gov)
| iancmceachern wrote:
| They should do legalshield next
| Our_Benefactors wrote:
| I've never heard of legalshield. What's their deal?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| You have to email them to cancel
| jkestner wrote:
| There was a FTC rule about to go into effect that would
| require it be as easy to cancel as it is to subscribe to a
| service. A court struck it down on procedural grounds.
| https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/click-to-cancel-rule-
| ha...
| jq-r wrote:
| Adobe. The only "free trial" subscription I actually had to pay
| to cancel. Despicable company.
| Aloisius wrote:
| The FTC sued Adobe last year for subscription dark patterns.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-
| proceedings/2...
| Larrikin wrote:
| Is this one of those situations where we sign up and get a bit of
| money from the company, or will we have already been contacted?
| citizenpaul wrote:
| My guess is 95%+ of the restitution will be in the form of a
| free year of Amazon prime. I'm pretty cynical though.
| delecti wrote:
| It explicitly says "refunds" in TFA.
|
| > Amazon will be required to pay a $1 billion civil penalty,
| provide $1.5 billion in refunds back to consumers [...]
| Brybry wrote:
| Amazon will pay $1 billion to the government as a penalty and
| set aside $1.5 billion for consumers. The settlement terms have
| most of the details. [0]
|
| Amazon will do an automatic payout to some people for up to
| $51. No need to claim anything for that. I'm guessing they'll
| mail checks or prepaid debit cards or something.
|
| Then Amazon will make a website, within 30 days, and post it on
| their site (and I'm sure news media will also post it) that
| will be for manual claims. These claims are also for up to $51
| and people will have 180 days to manually claim.
|
| After that, if there's still money, then Amazon will repeatedly
| do more $51 automatic payments to more people until they're out
| of money (basically more lax automatic qualification of Prime
| members from June 23, 2019 to June 23, 2025).
|
| Basically ~30 million people get up to $51.
|
| [0] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Amazon-ROSCA-
| Or...
| paxys wrote:
| This wasn't a class action lawsuit, so the process will be a
| bit more strict. But yes, ultimately there is a pool of money
| set aside for payments and everyone will get a tiny bit ($51).
| Spivak wrote:
| The actual win isn't the fine, it's
|
| > and cease unlawful enrollment and cancellation practices for
| Prime.
|
| which thank god, Amazon deserves to be in the hall of fame for
| their multiple beg screens.
| StillBored wrote:
| Which because they have gotten away with it for so long,
| everyone else has been copying (or well I guess this has been
| going on for decades in various forms) them.
|
| Ex, netflix, which has decided to pop up a 'we noticed there
| are people who don't live with you using your account, click
| here to pay us another $9/month' every time it starts on my TV,
| presumably because my underage child, who legally lives with
| me, uses it on her phone when she is away at school for 5
| months a year.
|
| And then when someone clicked the default pay us button, I was
| unable to figure out how to remove the charge without actually
| calling and telling them I was canceling after 20+ years. (the
| whole extra member thing wasn't showing up in the web ui, no
| idea why, maybe its because of the TV clicking process).
| majormajor wrote:
| Huh, I was wondering why cancelling after a free trial recently
| was easier than the last time I cancelled a few years ago.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| It is two screens, three clicks - not hard at all.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/mm/pipeline/cancellation
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddxPcnMG0fE
| cchance wrote:
| I'm honestly confused, cancelling prime doesn't seem hard
| lol, its the typical "are you sure" shit every site has
| cratermoon wrote:
| > its the typical "are you sure" shit every site has
|
| Saying "everyone does it" doesn't make it legal or right.
| Going after Amazon and winning a ruling against is a good
| first step in eliminating these exploitive practices
| everywhere.
| oompydoompy74 wrote:
| That's double the amount of screens and triple the amount of
| clicks it should take.
|
| I subscribe to as many things as I can through Apple because
| I can instantly unsubscribe without companies wasting my
| time.
| rubiquity wrote:
| It should be one click.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| It's one click buy and three click "unbuy". Strange that
| the latter hasn't yet been patented - perhaps the click
| count isn't done yet.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Some more discussion earlier:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45365712
| bobbyprograms wrote:
| Huh I forgot to cancel and called and they refunded me lol.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Cool...another "Historic" fine that represents a tiny percent of
| a companies quarterly profits.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices_
|
| I'm still confused by this part.
|
| I didn't use Prime for a long time. I remember lots of buttons
| inviting me to sign up, just like YouTube asks me weekly if I
| want to subscribe to premium.
|
| But I don't remember anything seemingly deceptive, and none of
| the news articles seem to actually provide any details. So what
| precisely was deceptive?
|
| And even the cancellation part, it's just two confirmation
| screens. It doesn't seem bad. It honestly seems about the same as
| any other website subscription I've ever had. You click to
| cancel, say yes I really don't want the benefits (this is the
| only extra step), and then click to confirm the cancellation.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| I canceled Prime about 18 months ago, and now every single time
| I go to check out on Amazon, before the checkout page there's a
| splash screen a the gigantic, bright blue CHECK OUT WITH PRIME
| button, and then under that, in 8pt font with grey-on-white
| text, a "No thanks, continue without Prime" link. The lack of
| any subtlety would be hilarious if it wasn't so irritating.
| Throw the book at them.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Ah thanks, I did some digging and found some screenshots from
| 2017 and 2022 respectively:
|
| https://i.insider.com/6226b418990863001998d7a9?width=1200&fo.
| ..
|
| https://i.insider.com/6226b454dcce010019a7243a?width=1200&fo.
| ..
|
| The "no thanks" on the second one does seem particularly
| egregious. I'm curious if there's a screenshot of the current
| one you describe.
| cratermoon wrote:
| The "I do not want fast, free shipping" in the first
| screenshot is insulting. The worst kind of dark pattern
| guilting.
| trenchpilgrim wrote:
| Mine also uses wording that strongly implies I'll be paying
| as much as $7 for shipping without Prime, on an order with
| free shipping.
| andy99 wrote:
| It's pretty heavily dark patterned for me. When you go checkout
| there is a big prime banner inviting you to click now that
| looks the the default "next screen" button, and smaller fainter
| text below saying "continue without enjoying prime benefits".
|
| Something similar happens again with the shipping. I only ever
| buy enough to get free shipping, but it never defaults to that,
| it tries to trick you by defaulting to paid, and then when you
| scroll to change your shipping to free, it again makes "join
| prime" the most default looking option to pick.
|
| I'm pretty sure in the past there was an extra nag somewhere
| but the above is my most recent experience. Maybe legal but
| certainly feels like you're dealing with a scammer.
| koolba wrote:
| With prime they also default you to slower shipping options
| some of the time. I haven't quite figured out what or why yet
| though. It might be related to ordering multiple items in
| tandem.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I've been given the option to delay shipping (and be given
| a digital credit) or choose a certain day to have multiple
| orders come in the same box. I don't think that was ever
| the default option though.
| dade_ wrote:
| And, as noted in the article, it still wrongfully states
| decline Prime and pay for shipping despite shipping already
| being free if you are willing to wait for delayed shipping.
|
| Since I cancelled Prime, I have saved a fortune in addition
| to my $100. Not just on Amazon, but period. Super convenient
| and fast resulted in me buying more, now I am just buying
| much less stuff, make fewer orders less often. even waiting
| to go to a store I figure out a way to solve a problem
| without buying anything, and sometimes to need goes away.
|
| I guess I have Trump to thank for it, never would have
| cancelled Prime if it wasn't for the US boycott.
| andy99 wrote:
| I cancelled prime because like all "prepaid" things, it's
| basically a scam or they wouldn't offer it.
|
| When I used to have it, half of the items were "not
| eligible for prime" and many more were "add-on items" where
| you had to spend $25 or whatever before you could ship them
| free (in which case you don't need prime anyway). It was
| basically worthless.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| This is the resolution of a years-old FTC case against Amazon,
| which included an internal program called "Project Iliad" to
| lower cancellation rates by increasing the number of steps
| involved, among other things. The cancellation process has
| changed between the initial filing and now.
| tomComb wrote:
| But it was never as bad as for most telecoms.
| pixl97 wrote:
| There is a reason telecom donates a lot to congress.
| Aurornis wrote:
| It was nowhere near as bad as the giant gym chains or any
| other number of businesses.
|
| I can think of a lot of membership and subscription
| services that have been far harder to cancel that I wish
| the FTC would do something about. A few extra clicks to
| cancel Prime is nothing in comparison to the gauntlet
| required to cancel some gym memberships. I remember a story
| where someone forgot to cancel their gym membership before
| moving across the country but the gym's policy required
| that you cancel in-person at the gym. They had to pay the
| monthly fee until their next trip back home, then lose an
| hour traveling to the gym to fill out the cancellation
| paperwork.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| They did that. The FTC had a simple click-to-cancel rule
| that was supposed to start enforcement this year. It was
| struck down on procedural grounds during appeal in July.
| Retric wrote:
| Scale is important here. Small harm across tens of
| millions of people adds up.
| ratelimitsteve wrote:
| you'd think they'd have better opsec then to let the
| nefarious purpose of the project be openly referenced by the
| title.
| arcastroe wrote:
| I don't know anything about the Iliad. I asked generative
| AI how the name fit in, or why it was appropriate for the
| project. Adding the response below, in case it helps
| others.
|
| -----
|
| The name "Project Iliad" is almost certainly a reference to
| Homer's Iliad, the ancient Greek epic poem about the Trojan
| War.
|
| The connection works as a kind of corporate in-joke or
| metaphor:
|
| The Iliad is long, complex, and arduous -- much like the
| cancellation process Amazon designed. By naming the project
| after an epic full of prolonged struggle, the team was
| signaling (perhaps ironically) that customers would have to
| endure an "epic battle" just to cancel.
|
| Conflict and attrition are central to the Iliad's story.
| The war drags on, wearing down opponents. In Amazon's
| context, Project Iliad's design was to wear down users'
| will to cancel through friction.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why would you put any validity to that response what so
| ever?
| beezle wrote:
| Wait.. you mean "Today, the Trump-Vance FTC..." is an
| exaggeration? Personally I never knew that we were supposed
| to prefix administration names infront of agencies but guess
| I'm a dope.
| NBJack wrote:
| This is a quick visual walk thru of the pattern before they
| fixed it:
|
| https://youtube.com/shorts/FYnr1llUVG0?si=xzMV-Q7NHdtfoKSs
| macNchz wrote:
| This is even a somewhat less aggressive flow than it used to
| be, I think. I dug up this screenshot of a part of the
| cancellation process as it existed when I went through it in
| 2018 or 2019, which confused me at the time:
| https://i0.wp.com/ebookfriendly.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/...
|
| I had an annual subscription, and the options on that page
| made it seem like if I were to cancel that I'd actually lose
| access _immediately_ , forfeiting the remaining value I'd
| already paid for. That wasn't in fact the case, but clearly
| it was designed to guide you into using the "Remind Me"
| button instead, which I imagine is a very leaky bucket--
| surely many people who fully intended to cancel would wind up
| missing the notification three days before renewal and get
| billed for another year.
|
| Additionally, the text of the buttons and lack of explanation
| of what's going to happen gives that screen some finality: if
| I click "End my Benefits" does that mean they end immediately
| with no recourse? The next page actually showed that you
| could end and get a refund, or end at the end of the already-
| paid period, but it was obviously designed to make you
| uncertain.
|
| Source of screenshot: https://ebookfriendly.com/how-
| successfully-cancel-amazon-pri...
|
| It seems like they've been adjusting some of the language on
| the screens in the years since, but still in super confusing
| ways: https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonprime/comments/wdy84t/ca
| ncell...
| prasadjoglekar wrote:
| You should read the original complaint. It alleged that Amazon
| made is really easy to inadvertently sign up for Prime, but
| much more difficult to cancel. See the PDF below and the
| screenshots that has.
|
| Upon filing of the complaint, Amazon removed these dark
| workflows quickly.
|
| https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/FTC-Amazon-c...
| BeetleB wrote:
| For ending membership, start on page 44:
|
| > Clicking the link did not end Prime membership. Instead, it
| took the consumer to another page with a heading that read:
| "End Your Amazon Prime Membership." The page contained a
| button labelled "End Your Prime Membership." Pressing the
| button did not end Prime Membership.
|
| ...
|
| > Once consumers reached the Iliad Flow, they had to proceed
| through its entirety--spanning three pages, each of which
| presented consumers several options, beyond the Prime Central
| page--to cancel Prime.
|
| ...
|
| > Also, on page one of the Iliad Flow, Amazon presented
| consumers with three buttons at the bottom. "Remind Me
| Later," the button on the left, sent the consumer a reminder
| three days before their Prime membership renews ... "Keep My
| Benefits," on the right, also took the consumer out of the
| Iliad Flow without cancelling Prime. Finally, "Continue to
| Cancel," in the middle, also did not cancel Prime but instead
| proceeded to the second page of the Iliad Flow.
|
| > Finally, at the bottom of Iliad Flow page two, Amazon
| presented consumers with buttons offering the same three
| options as the first page: "Remind Me Later," "Continue to
| Cancel," and "Keep My Membership" (labelled "Keep My
| Benefits" on the first page). See Attachment Q, at 4. Once
| again, consumers could not cancel their Prime subscription on
| the second page of the Iliad Flow. Choosing either "Remind Me
| Later" or "Keep My Membership" took the consumer out of the
| Iliad Flow without cancelling. Consumers had to click
| "Continue to Cancel" to access the third page of the Iliad
| Flow.
|
| ...
|
| > Therefore, to complete the Iliad Flow and cancel a Prime
| membership, the consumer needed to click a minimum of six
| times from Amazon.com: Prime Central -> "Manage Membership"
| -> "End Membership" -> "Continue to Cancel" -> "Continue to
| Cancel" -> "End Now."
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| You know what was the best part?
|
| > "Remind Me Later," the button on the left, sent the
| consumer a reminder three days before their Prime
| membership renews
|
| This feature _didn 't work_. They just helpfully never
| reminded you you were about to get billed. I doubt that was
| accidental. I tested this several times.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Nope. I got bit by "unexpected" Prime annual renewal
| charges multiple times. They were certainly authorized,
| but I think there should be some consumer protection that
| any renewal period longer than say 3 months should have
| mandatory renewal warnings with enough reasonable time
| for cancellation.
| SaberTail wrote:
| California requires a warning a month in advance for
| anything a year or longer. Pointing out this law has
| gotten me a few refunds from services that failed to
| comply and renewed my subscription without telling me.
|
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayTex
| t.x....
| mindslight wrote:
| I'm a stickler for reading details, and they _still_ got me
| once by making the 'sign up to pay for prime' "offer"
| looking/reading very similar to the 'free trial' offer. The
| customer service chat straightforwardly canceled it and
| refunded the fraudulent charge, but the way all of their
| dialogs are set up and stylized its obvious they're trying to
| induce mistaken (ie fraudulent) transactions.
| GoatInGrey wrote:
| It's when the button that signs you up for Prime is the blue
| button marked "Continue" or something similarly vague, on top
| of defaulting your shipping options to the paid, expedited
| ones, and changing the card you are using if there are multiple
| and one benefits Amazon more than the other (i.e. Amazon Store
| Card, the non-Amex option), where it gets cumulatively
| ridiculous.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > And even the cancellation part, it's just two confirmation
| screens.
|
| Call me a fool, but I fell for this and paid them for several
| months.
|
| First, I don't think it was just two screens (the article
| mentions 3).
|
| Second, unless you read _really carefully_ , they made it
| appear that you had indeed unsubscribed, when you hadn't. I
| think the messaging was something along the lines of "OK, you
| have access to it until the end of the month". I was a monthly
| subscriber, so I took it to mean it would stop at the end of
| that month. But what they were really saying was something
| along the lines of "... and maybe you can think about it some
| more to see if it's worth it for you, and if you still want to
| cancel, click here". Only it wasn't as obvious as how I wrote
| it.
|
| > It honestly seems about the same as any other website
| subscription I've ever had.
|
| Not for me. For all the subscriptions I've canceled, Amazon
| Prime was the only one I fell for and ended up paying
| continually. Yes, other sites may have multiple steps, but the
| verbiage was always much clearer that you still hadn't
| unsubscribed.
| unquietwiki wrote:
| The proposed remedy seems fine. What stuck out to me is the
| "Trump-Vance" attribution: I haven't seen something like that
| since the election.
| cchance wrote:
| Anything that happens during this presidency (even if started
| under biden) gets a trump by-line...
| pahkah wrote:
| And as you're implying, this action began under the "Biden-
| Harris FTC": https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-
| releases/2023/06/...
| dylan604 wrote:
| My immediate reaction to the title was "Bezos must not have
| written a large enough check to the library fund" or
| whatever else the orange man wants funded. yeah yeah, Bezos
| isn't in charge blah blah. Someone from the smile logo
| didn't write a check.
| djeastm wrote:
| You might want to clarify that the document you're linking
| to does NOT have the words "Biden-Harris FTC" in it, but
| simply that the action was taken by that Administration's
| FTC. In fact, the article doesn't mention Biden or Harris
| in any capacity.
|
| The salient point is that "Trump-Vance" is being stamped on
| everything in an effort to build the Admin's brand.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Didn't you know that this administration is all about feeding
| lies?
| thevillagechief wrote:
| Yeah, these things are silly and I don't even know the audience
| for them. I remember seeing a lot of local infrastructure
| projects around with the attribution "President Biden BBB
| Infrastructure Bill." Does anyone really care? Politics have
| become really stupid.
|
| Edit: A search reveals that this was apparently controversial
| at the time: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/21/biden-
| infrastructur.... The shamelessness of "Trump-Vance" here
| funny.
| throwmeaway222 wrote:
| I would have assumed their downfall would have been "free 2 day
| shipping" since it takes about 4 days for me to get anything from
| them.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| They have an answer for that:
|
| "Shipping is 2 day." That doesn't mean it will be shipped as to
| arrive within two days from ordering, but when we ship it
| (which may be that day, or may be three days later) you'll get
| it within 2 days...
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| The two days before you received the package was two days.
| QED.
| JCM9 wrote:
| Generally a fan of Prime. I'll admit the shipping is pretty
| addictive. The rest of Prime is pretty meh. It's a good deal on
| shipping and then a bunch of second-rate other stuff tacked on.
|
| On both .com and AWS, Amazon is reaching a stage of maturity
| where they're running out of new customers. While still a fan of
| both, they're both getting annoying as innovation slows and they
| get more annoying with a focus on doing things to make your use
| "sticky" vs making you trip over yourself to buy something
| because it's great.
|
| Amazon is full of counterfeit or low quality junk that one needs
| to navigate. AWS is muddling things with far too many random
| services thrown at the wall vs just being really good at a few
| core things. In today competitive environment account teams can't
| really explain why we should use AWS apart from "we're AWS" which
| is again an answer from a company aging into more stagnating
| maturity.
|
| The fine, while more than a rounding error, is still small.
| However it will hopefully help cut down on some of Amazon's more
| annoying behaviors.
| toast0 wrote:
| > It's a good deal on shipping and then a bunch of second-rate
| other stuff tacked on.
|
| It is and it isn't. The cost of shipping is built into the
| price of most of the items. You get a good deal if you buy
| things where pricing is more or less fixed, or if you buy
| things one at a time, but if you purchase several items at the
| same time, you can often save money if you purchase from a
| vendor that has better unit prices and charges shipping, or
| offers free shipping with a minimum order.
|
| I see this all the time with my hobby purchases. Amazon has
| everything (mostly), but it's more cost efficient to put
| together orders of multiple parts at other vendors. Sometimes
| just one part at another vendor works too, if it fits in an
| flat envelope and they charge appropriately for envelope
| shipping.
| phil21 wrote:
| It's exceedingly rare for a vendor to be cheaper on shipping
| (and in total) than Amazon is for me. Especially if you
| consider shipping speed and return hassle/expense.
|
| Really depends on what you buy, but about half the time I buy
| from a vendor direct I end up regretting it if I'm in a hurry
| or not 100% certain of the product before ordering.
| toast0 wrote:
| Here's an example from my recent life:
|
| Buying a 6-pack of pinballs. Amazon is $17, shipping
| included with prime [1], Marco is $10 + $13 shipping [2].
| Amazon wins, but if you also need some 555 bulbs, Amazon is
| $5 for ten [3], and Marco is $2.25, shipping stays at $13.
|
| One pack of pinballs and one pack of bulbs is $22 or
| $25.25, but one pack of pinballs and three packs of bulbs
| is $32 at amazon vs $30 at Marco.
|
| Time to arrive varies, but Amazon is quoting me a week for
| the pinballs at the moment, and Marco got me my last order
| in a week. Also, I have no doubts about Marco's supply
| chain.
|
| I see similar things when ordering parts for my midlife
| crisis car. There's a couple things where it is better to
| get parts on Amazon, but most things it makes more sense to
| go to a niche specific site or a car parts vendor.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Ball-Baron-Polaris-Non-Magnetic-
| Pinba... [2] https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-
| parts/PB116-6 [3] https://www.amazon.com/CEC-Industries-
| Bulbs-W2-1x9-5d-T-3-25... [4]
| https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/165-5002-00
| gdulli wrote:
| > I'll admit the shipping is pretty addictive. The rest of
| Prime is pretty meh. It's a good deal on shipping
|
| It's not a good deal on shipping because shipping can be had
| for free without Prime for $25 or $35 orders. It's a paid
| course where they train you to be an impulse buy addict.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I kept Prime when they rolled the video streaming service into
| it. I had already been toying with the idea of canceling to
| break the addictive habit of using their fast shipping. Now
| that they've gone ads inserted into nearly everything including
| "included with prime" content, I'm just over it. Laziness and
| knowing my annual renewal is months away still keep me from
| experiencing the cancel hell that is in my future
| mindslight wrote:
| It's really not a cancel hell like say Comcraps or a gym
| membership. It's several pages of trickily-worded and
| misleadingly-styled buttons meant to make you mess up and not
| click the ones you need to click. From a real computer (ie no
| "mobile" myopia) you'll be done with it in under 5 minutes. I
| think you could even do it right now and still keep your
| benefits until your actual expiration, but I'm not exactly
| sure as I only ever do 1 month free trials or $2 "1 week"
| trials if I need something quick in the middle of a project.
|
| (This is not to say that they totally don't deserve fines for
| violating users' trust with user-adversarial design in the
| first place, just to point out that these dark patterns are
| mostly mitigable annoyances that they make up for on volume)
| whatamidoingyo wrote:
| A few years ago, I got a new phone and a new number. I eventually
| went to Amazon, entered password, and then was prompted for the
| OTP, which was sent to my previous number (which I no longer had
| access to). I kept trying things until I was completely locked
| out of the account. I emailed them, no help. So, while being
| locked out of my account, I couldn't cancel my subscription to
| Kindle (lost all of the books, too). I just kept getting charged
| month after month (of which I'd just forget about it after
| getting angry for a minute).
|
| I'd hope that they fixed this. If an account is locked, it seems
| like it would be common sense to place a hold on any
| subscriptions associated with it.
| packetlost wrote:
| lol you think they're going to actively put any effort towards
| something that isn't legally required and _loses_ them money?
| Nah, there 's no way they're going to implement that. I hope
| you issued chargebacks on your card for those charges.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| Did the situation get resolved or are you still being charged?
| I need a resolution here STAT!
|
| In my personal experience, Amazon has an acceptable customer
| support when compared to Google, but nobody with that type of
| scale can even touch Apple's support experience.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| You get what you pay for? The "Apple Tax" provides support.
| gretch wrote:
| > I'd hope that they fixed this. If an account is locked, it
| seems like it would be common sense to place a hold on any
| subscriptions associated with it.
|
| The problem with this is you can deny someone's service very
| easily just by knowing publicly associated data (e.g. email
| address) and intentionally getting the password wrong a few
| times.
|
| > So, while being locked out of my account, I couldn't cancel
| my subscription to Kindle (lost all of the books, too). I just
| kept getting charged month after month (of which I'd just
| forget about it after getting angry for a minute).
|
| Most places have some law where you must be able to cancel by
| calling or some other path. But as a last line stop gap, you
| can contact your credit card company and deny the charges based
| on the inability to cancel.
|
| In fact, this is one of the explicit value propositions of an
| intermediary payment company.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I had a similar experience with Google. Got locked out of gmail
| and Youtube premium kept billing. Couldn't log in to cancel,
| couldn't even find a phone number to call to cancel, there's no
| gmail customer support whatsoever. Youtube premium apparently
| has some customer support but you have to be logged in to use
| it. Ended up having to cancel my credit card.
| jkestner wrote:
| Amazon is bad, but as others note, it's insultingly transparent
| more than anything. But the worst in my recent history is
| Duolingo. Constant pestering to upgrade your subscription, fine,
| but once you do, it frequently "forgets" the subscription
| (through the App Store) and goes back to nagging you, only fixed
| by digging a few screens into the profile and tapping "restore
| purchases". Bigger issue when your family is using it and doesn't
| understand you're already subscribed. Paid for two family
| subscriptions this way.
| robotnikman wrote:
| It keeps nagging me to upgrade to the family plan or plus or
| whatever. And if I ignore it enough it enrolls me in a free
| trial of the family plan without me even asking every once it a
| while. The amount of up-selling they try to push on you now is
| so annoying.
|
| If anyone has any recommended alternatives where I can learn
| Japanese I'm interested. Despite all the crap Duolingo has, it
| has been very convenient when it comes to spending 30 minutes
| at the end of the day doing some Japanese lessons.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| > It keeps nagging me to upgrade to the family plan or plus
| or whatever. And if I ignore it enough it enrolls me in a
| free trial of the family plan without me even asking every
| once it a while. The amount of up-selling they try to push on
| you now is so annoying.
|
| Is this through their own storefront, or through a mobile
| storefront (Apple/Google)? While it's bad either way, Apple
| and Google specific styling around their subscription
| confirmation prompts, so I hope they haven't circumvented
| those somehow.
| robotnikman wrote:
| It seems to be through their own storefront in the app.
| Thankfully it doesn't automatically subscribe you at the
| end of the free trial.
| al_borland wrote:
| I cancelled Prime last year after getting fed up with Amazon in
| several ways. Bringing ads to Prime Video was the straw that
| broke the camel's back.
|
| I do still end up ordering from time to time, and the checkout
| process for non-Prime members is horrific. Multiple Prime sign-up
| offers that I always need to carefully read so I don't click the
| wrong thing, illogical default shipping options, with more tricks
| to try and get the user to sign up for Prime while choosing
| shipping, after having already declined multiple times.
|
| I don't know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up for
| Prime after such a user-hostile experience full of dark patterns.
|
| I graphed out my orders since the start of my Amazon account.
| There was a steady uptrend over 20 years, with yearly growth
| since 2018. All of that ended 2023. My orders fell off a cliff,
| dropping by 60% in 2024. The treatment of non-Prime customers
| isn't winning me back, it's pushing me further away. I think my
| goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from Amazon. It's
| been such a bad experience. Apparently their goal of being the
| world's most customer-centric company only applies to Prime
| users.
|
| I hope this judgement will get them to change their ways, but I'm
| assuming they will do as little as possible to comply, and still
| pushing Prime hard.
| udkl wrote:
| For good or for bad, I've switched to Walmart for many of my
| orders as well as home delivery of groceries now and then and
| they have been decent. It's good to have competitors who are
| catching up.
| inetknght wrote:
| Do frozen foods get delivered still frozen?
|
| I live 15 minutes away from the nearest wal-mart and
| frozens/refrigerables are my biggest concern.
| udkl wrote:
| they don't do anything special for frozen items .... it's
| just as if you get it in bags from the store. .... add in
| additional time for neighborhood deliveries if any .....
| usually they arrive semi-frozen .... you can track the
| delivery driver from the store (where they hopefully keep
| it in a cold room) to your home... for me it takes them
| from 20 mins to 1 hour for delivery ...
| jjani wrote:
| How is this a concern? Does Amazon not sell frozen food (no
| fresh food from Amazon around here)? Otherwise why would
| Walmart be unable to
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Walmart doesn't include ice like Amazon does, but for me
| it doesn't make a difference unless the delivery driver
| is goofing off
| 5555624 wrote:
| It's not any different than going to Walmart yourself and
| getting groceries -- they just put them in plastic grocery
| bags. I've never had a problem with anything refrigerated
| or frozen. (Well, I've never ordered ice cream.)
|
| The key is to be home when they deliver it; so, you can put
| those things away immediately. They offer two-hour delivery
| windows and usually deliver within the window. In my
| experience -- I'm disabled and use them for groceries
| almost weekly -- about 5% fall just outside the delivery
| window. (Usually 10-20 minutes late.)
| bbarnett wrote:
| I feel someone will soon start a website "melted-
| icecream.com", where someone tracks orders all over the
| country, from major online suppliers, and graphs how warm
| the ice cream is.
|
| Would be interesting.
|
| Once melted, ice-cream is never ice cream again.
| bombcar wrote:
| Walmart + Target + Home Depot cover much of what I would have
| used Amazon for, and all offer free shipping in some way
| without joining any club.
|
| Walmart pickup is great.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Home Depot reuses SKUs for different products. When they
| fulfill an order from a local store it's a gamble if you're
| going to get the item you wanted. You also can't exchange
| those orders online and are forced to go to the same store
| it came from.
| everdrive wrote:
| Best feature for home depot (and lowes) is that you can
| always constrain your query to the store. And when you do
| this, each product's page will show the the aisle and row
| the item is located at. (yes, I know the smartphone app
| will help you here but 100% of smart phone apps are bad,
| as are those who recommend them) Just spend a few minutes
| writing down your items & aisles and go visit the store.
| Trust me, it's better. The convenience of delivery just
| is not worth the stupid roulette that online retail has
| become.
| brewtide wrote:
| I do this every trip. I take screenshots of the page per
| item (usually only a handful) once I get to the parking
| lot.
|
| Then, I optimize my trip around the store to never double
| back.
|
| It's worth it.
| bombcar wrote:
| Prime ain't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd day
| delivery, by a real shipping company, and good movies added,
| etc.
|
| Now it's as slow as "free" delivery, by a random contractor who
| does God knows what to the package, and prices aren't even
| better than Walmart or Target on many things.
|
| The "avoid subscribing to prime" shuffle you have to do to even
| order _anything_ anymore drives me away too, I only use Amazon
| if it 's more than 5% cheaper.
| al_borland wrote:
| I really have to wonder if non-Prime and Prime deliveries go
| through the same shipping pipeline to simplify the process.
|
| When I order without Prime, it seems my order just sits for a
| few days, then it hits my credit card and I get it 2 days
| later. Almost like giving everyone free 2 day shipping
| wouldn't cost them anything at this point, so they just
| artificially delay normal users to make the service worse.
|
| Occasionally the order will trigger right away and I've
| gotten non-Prime stuff in 1 day with free super saver
| shipping.
| arcbyte wrote:
| > it seems my order just sits for a few days, then it hits
| my credit card and I get it 2 days later
|
| I have Prime and this is the majority of my orders. Lately
| I have been seeing a lot of free overnight deliveries tho,
| so maybe something is brewing.
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect they're doing some "intelligent batching" of some
| sort to save costs on shipping SOMEWHERE. But it's all
| inscrutable to me.
|
| I do miss the "$5 digital credit for forgoing prime
| shipping" I used to abuse.
| sershe wrote:
| A much simple explanation is that each order is assigned a
| priority f(elapsed time, is prime) prime orders starting
| much higher so the processing of your order gets delayed
| behind all the incoming prime orders until its priority
| catches up due to longer elapsed time
| bombcar wrote:
| They obviously have some metric that if you buy
| something, you're likely to buy something again within
| two days so by holding the first shipment until you do
| the second purchase, they combine shipping and save
| costs.
| al_borland wrote:
| When ordering without Prime it says you have 24 hour (I
| think) to add other items without incurring additional
| shipping charges. I don't remember Prime doing this, and
| there is little benefit to the customer to care, because
| it's all "free" anyway.
|
| I ordered something on Sunday, I had until Monday to add
| additional items. I was charged on Wednesday evening, it
| shipped Thursday (today), and should show up tomorrow.
|
| I can buy the priority method. Sit it on until a lull in
| demand, or 3-4 days pass, whichever comes first. That's
| how it feels.
|
| Even though thad had this order for 4 days so far, they
| are effectively giving me 1-2 day shipping once it
| finally ships.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Except they don't combine shipping on separate orders
| afaik
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I've never had Prime. Instant gratification isn't a draw for
| me and I can build up a shopping cart over months between
| orders. Funnily enough, about 75% of my boxes come with Prime
| tape on them. It used to signify expedited handling. Now it's
| just a branding exercise.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I've wanted to quit Prime a bunch of times, but my recent
| experiences in the Bay Area:
|
| * Sometimes I want my order on my Prime day, but they insist
| on delivering it to me 3 hours from when I ordered it.
|
| * When my son got COVID, we ran around town looking for COVID
| tests. Target was out of them entirely. So I ordered them on
| Prime and they showed up later that day. A bunch of them. And
| 3x cheaper than the COVID+FLU tests I found at CVS later that
| day.
|
| * Yeah, ads on Prime suck. But I'm rewatching a 90s show and
| ponied up $3/mo for no ads.
|
| Screw Jeff Bezos, but then again.. I got COVID tests when I
| needed them.
| al_borland wrote:
| > Yeah, ads on Prime suck. But I'm rewatching a 90s show
| and ponied up $3/mo for no ads.
|
| The $3/month for no ads felt like they were nickel-and-
| diming the customers.
|
| I was paying something like $129/year for Prime. The idea
| of paying $3/month on top of the $129/year I was paying for
| Prime felt so petty.
|
| Had they just raised the price of Prime, I probably would
| have shrugged and carried on. But adding a monthly charge
| on top of a yearly charge, nope. I was done.
|
| This of course was on top of allowing the store to be
| flooded with low quality junk being resold from Alibaba,
| counterfeit products all over the place, pushing to send
| shipments in their retail boxes, review gaming, them
| ripping off popular products to sell through their own
| private labels, and other such practices that have eroded
| my view and trust of Amazon over the years.
|
| I ordered some headphones from Amazon a month ago, because
| the company that makes them was sold out in the color I
| wanted. I felt the need to lookup how to tell authentic
| from counterfeit headphones while I was waiting for the
| shipment, so I could validate what I received was real.
| I've received counterfeit goods before from Amazon. I heard
| they keep everything in the same bin, so it's luck of the
| draw when picked (I have no way to validate that). No other
| store makes me worry about things like this, just Amazon.
| If brick-and-mortar stores were like this they'd be out of
| business in a week.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I get it -- I go through the same calculus every year. I
| also have the associated credit card, and.. well.. it all
| ends up paying for itself in the end.
|
| I'll move to a secondary tier Amazon market where boring
| retail isn't quite as compromised as the bay area and the
| equation will probably change for me, but I'm also likely
| to end up in a rural mountain area and it might be a
| lifeline for me.
|
| I haven't had issues with Alibaba stuff, and there have
| been just enough instances where Amazon delivered where
| local or alts couldn't. Like the light bulbs in my
| bathroom.. Ace Hardware doesn't stock my item, I couldn't
| order them elsewhere, but Amazon connected me to a vendor
| who fulfilled in about 2 weeks. And yes, I went without
| light in my bathroom for 2 weeks and was looking the
| whole time.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _Prime ain 't what it used to be. Used to be reliably 2nd
| day delivery_
|
| Amazon delivery in LA is incredibly fast, frequently it says
| "will be delivered by 4am"
|
| I hate Amazon, not encouraging anyone, but LA is a special
| zone.
|
| apart from the free shipping aspect, do they actually delay
| shipping non prime orders if you live in a metro area? The
| whole FedEx business model originally was not "you pay extra
| for overnight" (which you would) but actually "because we
| deliver everything overnight, we don't need warehouses and
| all our rolling stock is empty every day, so it's cheaper for
| us"
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Yep, the shipping is pretty unreliable these days on Amazon.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _I don't know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign
| up_
|
| At least for me, it's easy -- the Prime credit card, which has
| no extra fee beyond Prime itself. I get 5-7% back, instead of
| the 1-2% with my other credit cards. It literally pays for
| itself and more over the course of a year. The faster shipping
| is just a bonus.
|
| And I'm not buying junk I don't need either. It's literally
| just regular toiletries, my normal grocery shopping at Whole
| Foods (also 5% off), and then just replacing all the things in
| my home when they wear out or break -- kitchen things, bedding,
| electronics, and so forth. All things that are usually cheaper
| on Amazon than anywhere else anyways. (I still use Target.com
| for things that are cheaper there.)
| bobro wrote:
| Same here. I was shocked when I first read the offer and am
| still shocked now that I get such a large cash back rate. It
| easily pays for itself.
| udkl wrote:
| Try the PayPal Debit card if you are in the US (and I think
| UK) .... you choose the category each month for a 5%
| cashback.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't think Amazon purchases fall into any of their
| available categories:
|
| https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/rewards/rewards-
| cat...
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| It's usually cheaper if you can source it from the
| manufacturer even paying their shipping rate. In fact the
| pricing structure on amazon often seems to include this
| shipping from manufacturer charge in the total cost just you
| aren't aware of it.
|
| You still get 3% back on that card without prime on amazon
| fwiw.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _It's usually cheaper if you can source it from the
| manufacturer even paying their shipping rate._
|
| This is rarely the case. In fact, it's against Amazon's
| policies for third-party listings.
|
| But I've found that even when that's the case, returns can
| be such a gigantic hassle it's not worth it -- getting an
| RMA, having to pay for return shipping, being forced to use
| an inconvenient shipping service of their choice, things
| like 15% restocking fees...
|
| If you're buying something for the first time and then
| discover it doesn't work the way you expected, it's amazing
| how much easier and cheaper Amazon returns are.
| Ntrails wrote:
| > I think my goal for 2026 will be not to order anything from
| Amazon
|
| This has been my position for upwards of 5 years. Between the
| quality / UX / social issues - well frankly I'd rather spend
| money elsewhere (although not at all is likely)
| efitz wrote:
| I wonder if there are going to be any consequences for the execs
| who pushed for, or at least green-lit, the decisions to operate
| Prime that way.
|
| Nah, jk. Of course not.
| ebayprime wrote:
| i canceled my amazon and now use ebay for everything.
| breadwinner wrote:
| I would like Amazon to be fined another Billion for not notifying
| customers about the annual renewal. They sneak the charge on to
| your credit card, and you have no easy way to find out what the
| charge is for.
| paulvnickerson wrote:
| Why not make it a trillion!
| sib wrote:
| It's sad to see it come to this.
|
| When I worked there (more than a decade ago) senior leaders and
| old-timers were extremely proud of the fact that they did things
| like sending "your Prime membership will renew in (a month - I
| think) - be sure to cancel if you don't want it to" emails. This
| was quite different from typical subscription services providers
| at the time.
|
| In fact, I had more than one old-timer mention that they would
| ask employment candidates about the Prime pricing and renewal
| strategy and that candidates who said something along the lines
| of "it's best for people to subscribe and then never use it so we
| make margin on the service revenue" (along the lines of gym
| business models) would be rejected.
|
| They really wanted people to want to be Prime members (this was
| even before Bezos' famous "you'd be irresponsible not to be a
| Prime member" comment...)
| rose-knuckle17 wrote:
| Amazon started going downhill when they started losing their
| founding builders and started hiring cisco and other silicon
| valley insiders at executive levels. The Amazon Way is now a
| quaint retrospective, and the quality and attractiveness are
| quickly moving to the lowest common denominator.
| paxys wrote:
| Amazon makes $50B per year from Prime, and there are an estimated
| 240 million subscribers. $10/user is an insanely cheap price for
| user acquisition (basically equivalent to a 1 month free deal),
| and any company will happily take this deal 10 times out of 10.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I don't really understand all the fuss about Amazon Prime.
|
| I found it really easy to cancel. They even refunded me when I
| canceled my subscription after the free trial expired (forgot to
| cancel before that despite being notified).
|
| Clicking passed the "look at what you will lose if you cancel"
| screen is not my idea of "hard".
|
| Yes, they push for subscriptions, usually using promotional
| offers. It is called marketing, and Amazon is relatively mild in
| that regard.
|
| Maybe it could create a precedent and make the majority of
| subscription services pay.
| guywithahat wrote:
| My experience is they're more aggressive about prime ads when
| they think they can get you. So I'd get a bunch of ads and an
| extra screen to join prime student, and the buttons are
| deliberately confusing.
|
| But I agree. It's just an extra button you have to press.
| Annoying, but not the worst thing a company has done to me
| jstummbillig wrote:
| > I don't really understand all the fuss about Amazon Prime.
|
| Oh, the fuss is because Amazon is big. The big players receive
| a lot of scrutiny.
|
| > I found it really easy to cancel.
|
| I find it a lot easier to sign up. I think that's the issue at
| play here.
| niwtsol wrote:
| I moved my prime account to be on a family plan. Their systems
| sent me, IDK, 15 messages telling me my prime benefits were going
| away and to sign up. Either they completely do not cross validate
| that I had moved to another prime subscription, or, based off my
| read of this article, they really just wanted two people in the
| same household paying for prime for no reason.
| sershe wrote:
| For me prime still works fine most of the time. And so much
| random crap is overnight nowadays! Nothing like ordering a vent
| cap, finding it doesn't quite fit due to peculiar siding, and
| immediately returning and overnighting a different one for free.
| I just wish they'd pick up returns if they are rare enough,
| having to make a 10 minute stop to do it myself is completely
| unacceptable ;)
| HardwareLust wrote:
| Oh boy, can't wait to get my $4 off coupon in June of 2030.
| tim333 wrote:
| They got me a little a couple of months ago. I had a free prime
| trial, then clicked cancel which was easy enough but it didn't
| cancel because I didn't notice after cancel there was an 'are you
| sure you really want to cancel' which I missed. Such is the way
| of the game I guess.
| dijit wrote:
| $2.5B.
|
| I genuinely can't fathom these numbers. As in: it could be $25B
| or $250M and it would mean the same to me.
|
| Does this materially impact Amazon?
|
| I'm ( _really_ ) not a fan of Amazon, but to me that's an
| existential amount of money. I don't think I've ever worked
| anywhere where that kind of money wouldn't be a "ok, I guess
| we're closing down, turn off the lights when you leave"
| situation, and I've worked at some large companies.
|
| I'm not usually exposed to financials I guess but my burn rate
| for my last (very small) company was about $4-5M/y roughly. This
| amount of money would keep us all gainfully employed for about
| 500 years.
| kingnothing wrote:
| Amazon's 2024 net income (profit) was $59B on $638B revenue.
|
| The median US household income is $80k and has a savings rate
| (profit) of 3.6%, or $2880.
|
| This $2.5B fine is equivalent to the average US household being
| fined $115 or, basically, a traffic ticket.
| robomc wrote:
| I found out recently that I've been paying for Prime Video since
| 2020. I think I did legitimately sign up for it. That's not my
| complaint.
|
| But it's fairly scummy how it doesn't seem to send you any email,
| the payments have a very vague generic coding like
| "AMZ2318971239", and the actual subscription management is super
| buried. I only noticed it, after years of using Amazon a fair
| bit, when I went deep into my account panes looking for something
| else.
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