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Internal Documents Show Amazon Has For Years Knowingly Tricked People Into Signing Up for Prime Subscriptions (businessinsider.com) 67

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Amazon has worried for years that it tricks customers into signing up for Prime subscriptions. A previously undisclosed inquiry from the Federal Trade Commission has put more pressure on the company to fix it. Business Insider: Internal documents obtained by Insider show the company has been concerned since at least 2017 that user interface designs on Amazon.com have led customers to feel manipulated into signing up for Prime. These design decisions, commonly known as "dark patterns," push customers into acting unintentionally often through misleading imagery or intentionally vague offers. For example, a single click on the "Get FREE Two-Day Delivery with Prime" tab at check out -- with no additional confirmation step -- gets shoppers automatically enrolled into a 30-day free trial of Amazon's Prime program, which later converts to a paid membership unless the user cancels it. For cancellations, users have to jump through a number of pages to end the subscription. Amazon was aware of these complaints for years but did not take serious action, according to these previously unreported internal documents and six current and former employees who spoke to Insider. In several cases, fixes for these issues were proposed and considered, but resulted in lower subscription growth when tested, and were shelved by executives, the documents show.
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Internal Documents Show Amazon Has For Years Knowingly Tricked People Into Signing Up for Prime Subscriptions More

Internal Documents Show Amazon Has For Years Knowingly Tricked People Into Signing Up for Prime Subscriptions

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  • will be peanuts compared to the revenue they've gained through using these practices. It makes business sense to do it.
    • oddly, I signed up for prime for a while when I got their partner visa card. Then they canceled the visa partnership, so I cancelled prime. I don't remember jumping through hoops and now I just account share with other family for prime.

      • Basically, it works like any other trial to subscription service. The goal is people forget to cancel the subscription. Not really news.

        • Ah, but the story here is not about forgetting to cancel a subscription, but in having people being subscribed without even knowing that they're subscribed! Ie, how can I know to cancel my Amazon subscription when I'm not even an Amazon member - wait, why is Amazon showing up on my credit card statement???

          • I think that is called slamming

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rhipf ( 525263 )

            If, in this day and age, you don't know that a XX free days to a subscription service is going to roll over to a paid subscription after those XX days you really shouldn't be on the Internet. Sure you may forget to cancel the free subscription but that isn't quit the same as not knowing that it would roll over to a subscription.

            • I agree. However my mother will not get off the internet no matter how much I beg. And she's been slammed into "free" Prime service at least twice. These online services to not market only to the highly internet savvy people, they market to everyone. They say "buy your stuff online, it's easy!" but they never say "be careful if you are over 70 and get your grandkids to help you because we will try to cheat you!"

              The FTC here found that these were deceptive practices, that these practices were not done me

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quall ( 1441799 )

      Yeah. And the fact that people are choosing to keep the membership afterwards...

      I for one love the service that Amazon as provides. They're at the top for a reason.

      • SOME people continue one, but MOST who accidentally subscribed do not want to remain in Prime or have a monthly charge when they're not buying anything else from Amazon. Do not encourage this deceitful practice by Amazon merely because it increases the number of Amazon Cult members.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by quall ( 1441799 )

          Implying that people are cult members for liking Amazon's out-matched service is cute. What retailer offers a better service? Even small shops that have premium prices on the same products have a hard time competing with Amazon's service. You'd think that higher prices would attribute to a better customer experience. Why exactly would you refer to Amazon's customers as cult members?

          Or is there some secret society that I am unaware of???

          I like how you throw out made-up information, like saying that "MOST" pe

    • This is why I always say that fines should be on top of the automatic forfeiture of any ill gotten gains. If they made $1m on tricking people into Prime subs, and the fine is $100K, then the total fine is $1.1m.

      I also say fines should be proportional to gross revenue for the company so it's both fair and impactful. Start handing out fines that are say 10% of GR, and I don't care if it's Apple circa 2020s or Apple circa 1970s, it's going to hurt and definitely get the attention of upper management, the bean

      • This is why I always say that fines should be on top of the automatic forfeiture of any ill gotten gains. If they made $1m on tricking people into Prime subs, and the fine is $100K, then the total fine is $1.1m.

        That sounds all fine and good, except...it doesn't really sounds like any tricking going on here.

        This sounds pretty much like any other deal out there with a "free" trial period, that as other say...rolls over to a paid account if you don't cancel.

        All of these sites that do this, have some small t

    • Thus, make the fine bigger.

      I did fine my mom signed up to Amazone Prime a few times, which she had not realized or understood. These were often caught in time because the sign ups happened the only time of year that quite a lot of people use Amazon - for Christmas gifts. So check the computer when we show up for Christmas visit, see that she's mysteriously just started another one month Prime trial, and cancel it.

      I even found myself one click away from signing up for Prime once, on the final review of the

  • Other things in the news today
    Water is wet
    Fire is hot
    Microsoft is evil
    Bears shit in the woods.

    • Water is wet but I still see signs warning people that water is wet and to be careful when walking on wet floor.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Water is wet but I still see signs warning people that water is wet and to be careful when walking on wet floor.

        I'll do you one better. I see signs at our work cafe warning that peanut butter, peanut sauce, and peanut butter cookies contain peanuts. I'll be more scared if those signs ever go away, because of what that might mean. :-)

        The problem is not that it's hard to cancel Prime. The problem is that you have to cancel within 3 days of conversion from a free trial, or else they won't refund the purchase price. So if it takes you until the next credit card bill to notice that you've been charged $139 for a year,

    • Jim: Question, what kind of bear is best?
      Dwight: That's a ridiculous question.
      Jim: False. Black bear.
      Dwight: That's debatable. There are basically two schools of thought.
      Jim: Fact. Bears eat beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

      • BAST EVAR!

        My keychain has a little metal plaque on it that reads: "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica."

        I don't know if I like that little moment better, or the one where Jim was faxing Dwight with his own letterhead "from the future."

  • "Amazon has worried for years that it tricks customers into signing up for Prime subscriptions" Um... bad summary?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      Nope. That's what Amazon says.

      Of course, they're lying out of their ass, but it is what they say they were worried about.

    • Indeed. If it was worried it would have done something about it.

      It's hardly newsworthy to find out they knew about the problem either, given how many complaints it must generate. I got caught once, my wife did this Christmas, my dad's been got about 3 times (although internet shopping is pushing his computer skills, so that's less surprising) - and you complain but obviously the answer is you can unsubscribe anytime, it's a free trial - no harm done - but they must know exactly how many people complain and

  • In several cases, fixes for these issues were proposed and considered, but resulted in lower subscription growth when tested, and were shelved by executives

    So what they are saying is their immoral actions worked, so they didn't stop.

  • I liked the deal that Amazon offered with Prime and even more when they added Amazon Prime Video.
    When I couldn't walk outside or go to the stores, Amazon delivered the stuffs that we needed. Even bought dog food through Amazon.
    It's great for sick, recuperating people, pandemic-ed people!
    It worth to me even though I have recuperated fully and can drive, walk, shop. I don't use it as much and have learned the ins-and-outs of their shipping program to get time-insensitive shipping with added digital credi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jmccue ( 834797 )

      I was tricked when Prime came out, I bought something and it told me I am a prime member. I then went in and said "leave prime" in settings, but it ignored me.

      I had to spend days calling them to get off of it and get a refund, that left a bad taste in my mouth where I never use amazon now.

      But people I know using prime now, they like it a lot. I have tried to let that experience go, but still cannot.

    • Imagine a new, Crapazon You find out one day that you're paying $20 a month to Crapazon even though all you did was buy one product and decided it was crap. What the hell, you think. Now you gotta go and cancel those charges with your credit card company. Pain in the ass. You might think "Capazon shouldn't behave that way, what an awful company." And then your grandmother calls and say "why is Crapazon charging me money, you understand computers, tell me what to do!"

      But it would by hypocritical then

      • Lots of luck trying to idiot proof the world. Remember when people were flying to other countries to be first in line for the Covid shot. Now they run and hide.

        I live in a rural area, if my local Walmart does not have it I have to make a fifty mile drive to try and find a store with what I need. And no, I do not want to search fifty different web sites trying to find the best price online. Amazon has what I want.

        Plus I am disabled and read a lot. Kindle Unlimited keeps me occupied for pennies a day, OK

        • That's good. I have no issue with Amazon service for people in situations like yours. But I see able bodied people in their 20s, in a large metropolitan area, having toilet paper delivered by gig-workers. It can be great for the elderly, despite them being the prime victim of being tricked into signing up for Prime.

          There's also the Walmart model - lower prices until the competition goes out of business in town, then raise prices. Amazon could do the same thing once its competition is gone.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      Whether you like it or not, they shouldn't be tricking people into signing up for a recurring payment. If it's really as good as you say, people will want to sign up. The fact that testing changes resulted in lower revenue shows that people don't actually want to sign up for Prime but are being misled.

  • Think it was a slow-appearing button that appeared just as I was miscliccking some space on an Amazon page after ordering something.

    Didn't cost me anything except the potential for a month's trial of Prime in future.

    • It's scummy amateurish Web 0.1 behavior you wouldn't expect from a billion-dollar company.

      • It's scummy amateurish Web 0.1 behavior you would DEFINITELY expect from a billion-dollar company.

    • Whenever I buy anything from Amazon, I remove the credit card for their site as soon as a charge is made. If I sign up for a free month of Prime Video, I immedately unsubscribe so that it expires as the end of the month. I do no trust those bozos (or Bezos). And yes, I do get the panicked warning emails "you have no card on file, oh no, what will you do, please enter a new card immediately or you won't be able to buy our crap with a single button push!"

  • In light of this:
    "Amazon was aware of these complaints for years but did not take serious action"

    I have a hard time believing either of these:

    "Amazon has worried for years that it tricks customers"

    "the company has been concerned since at least 2017 that user interface designs on Amazon.com have led customers to feel manipulated"

    You are neither "worried" nor "concerned", when you know about it and do nothing serious in nearly 5 years.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      We're arguing over misleading wording that anthropomorphizes what is essentially a legal fiction. What's going on is that *individuals who work for Amazon* are troubled by the ethics of certain company practices.

  • I've been dodging prime subscriptions for years. If you are only using prime for the shipping, you should quit. You are not getting your 'money's worth'. I did and it's quite liberating, I spend less overall. Another trick you can do is if you do need something quick for free, you can always sign up for prime and than cancel it which I usually do during the holidays. But it's not trivial to cancel the service, they make you jump through quite a few hoops.

    If you actually add up all the money that you spend

    • Right. You save money too by realizing "do I really want to spend an extra shipping charge, just for a single toothbrush, which gets shipped to me in three packages, and deal with all the bulk waste that generates, or should I walk down the street and get some fresh air and buy the toothbrush at a store?" Or you could realize "maybe I don't need this overnight if I plan ahead and order before it's an emergency, maybe I should get buy that Valentine's day gift 3 weeks in advance?"

      • and deal with all the bulk waste that generates

        Amazon prime waste packaging is the best thing since junk mail! I can order a few things I need and heat my home at the same time.

  • ... towards its customers. Based upon news reporting, this is not a surprise to me.
  • I tried to cancel my Prime membership. Amazon did not reply.
  • I got sick of constantly trying to dodge the prime signup. Then they started adding P&P to every item to push you to it too so I just stopped shopping there, If a site has to use tricks to sign you up then it probably isn't good, It's been over a year with no orders for me.

  • I buy through Amazon and handful of times a year and I'm not a Prime member. Yes it's obvious they want me to be, but I've never accidentally signed up. I have intentionally taken a bunch of 30 day free trials, and never had any trouble canceling them -- you can even cancel them right after you sign up and still enjoy the rest of your trial period. Never been charged.

    If people want to blindly click things without reading them, somehow believe that all the notices of having become a Prime member aren't going

    • Very well put. In the example they provided, the customer gets free shipping with 1 free month. Obviously this is the 'free lunch' that one should beware of the cost of . . . when you successfully don't pay for shipping, reading the invoice might be a good idea. Also, I've gotten nailed with "channel" freebies in cable, amazon and dish before - it's like the gym membership that you don't cancel.

      Most of that stuff you can watch the first show or something without commitment or with ads online -- going
    • If amazon were clear in their verbiage next to their buttons, then I would agree with you.

      Here is my experience: I bought enough to qualify for free shipping. I get ready to checkout and the first shipping option button reads:

      "X Yes, I want free shipping!"

      Followed by other express, pay-for options.
      So I click it. Next message says "Congratulations! You are now enrolled in a free 1 Month trial of Amazon Prime". Hmmm, nowhere in that shipping option was amazon prime mentioned. I looked around t

  • I feel like an awful lot of people here are just jumping on the bandwagon of "Woo! Another way we can punish Amazon!"

    As much as I have dislike for their company for many reasons, this doesn't seem like a really worthy pursuit, trying to punish them for not making it clear enough that clicking to start using Prime when you don't have a Prime membership will, in fact, start a free trial of one?

    That's a disturbing precedent to set, if we're going to start fining people for the subjective idea that their web si

  • Amazon products arent better, cheaper, nor do they have additional guarantees. You push a button, you have your product- its that simple. For anyone who simply wants convenience without understanding the price tag, the result is catching people who are lazy. These are the same people who get mad when they lose their money gambling because of the blinking lights.

  • Amazon Prime "free" subscriptions are offered to you with the usual disclaimers, in writing, that they will convert to paid subscriptions unless you bother to say something about it.

    Amazon offers reasonably clean and simple ways to cancel your subscription online, so much unlike other phone, internet, and ISP services I've had the displeasure to have used. I nearly had to sue godaddy to release my domain name. I had to cancel a credit card to stop Comcast from billing me for the service I had discontinued.

    I

  • What's all this whining? Sure they bug you to sign up, I even tried the free trial twice! It was simple to avoid being charged, at least for me. I don't use Amazon much anymore since the prices are now the same as everywhere else even with free shipping. What has bugged me since day one is their 'marketplace' crap - it is what slowly pushed me to other retailers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by radaos ( 540979 )
      It's not about 'bugging', The information is right there in the summary. It's about deceiving users so they are unknowingly signed up to a subscription service they did not want.

  • This must be some new meaning of the word “worried” I was previously unaware of.

    (with apologies, as ever, to Douglas Adams for the paraphrase)

  • Story: Amazon Bad. Someone: Amazon the Bezt! Me: I don't care, I don't use amazon.

  • Even the former--much less the current--web page content about the free trial, and about canceling it before 30 days are over, catch only people who are too weak-minded to pay attention to what they are (not) reading.

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