Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Shopping: Trapping You in a Club You Didn't Know You Joined (bloomberg.com)
Just a word of caution: the next time you spot a great deal on a shopping portal, you will want to carefully look for all the radio buttons, and tick boxes -- and perhaps also skim through the ToS -- before placing the order. Bloomberg has an in-depth piece on the ordeal of a customer who purchased a lingerie item from an e-commerce website called Adore Me. Little did the customer know that the $19.95 she was spending to purchase a piece of cloth would end up costing her -- partly because of her own ignorance -- more than $300. Adore Me, you see, maintains a subscription model in which it charges users a fee of around $40 a month, even if they don't purchase anything. It might surprise many, but Adore Me isn't the only shopping portal or service that runs this sort of tactic. "It's the new thing," says Francisca Allen, the deputy district attorney of California's Santa Clara County. "There's thousands and thousands of companies that do this." What's more, these companies have made it frustratingly difficult to cancel these subscriptions -- it often requires you to sit through a one-hour call to the customer representative and listening to a bunch of funky songs that you suddenly don't adore as much. Bloomberg reports:Hundreds of customer complaints against Adore Me and other subscription e-commerce businesses are stacking up at the Federal Trade Commission, according to records obtained by Bloomberg. They follow a pattern: Shoppers believe they've been tricked into signing up for recurring credit card charges, often for a relatively small amount that can be easily overlooked in a monthly bill. Then companies make it an exasperating hassle to quit and get a refund.
Dealdash dot com... charges you $0.60 per automatic bid even if you don't win the auction. The TV ads are highly deceiving. They even have an elaborate troll system to make their reviews look good. Hellcatx... they are running a massive TV ad campaign for a car giveaway that supposedly helps charity. The prises are probably worth 1/100th of the income, and no mention of how much actually goes to charity.
...telling us that it's "your own fault for not reading the smallprint", even though
1) Capitalism is philosophically based upon perfectly informed rational consumers, which these guys aren't, by definition;
2) It's made deliberately hard, but not impossible, to cancel, by the company purely being a bunch of shitlords without necessarily technically breaking any law (not everything can be reduced to clear rules);
3) Society gains no benefit from protecting a ridiculous contract, so it would be irrational to do so.
He has been sent by God to make America great again.
Isn't it a variation of the Columbia House type of shyst?
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Cue republican fucktards that will call for government action to protect business practices over the people's rights.
Every one of the fucks in congress are bought and paid for by a corporation.
How about we outlaw anyone that wants to be elected from running for office? we do a national lottery and your service in congress is at gunpoint.
Adore Me Prime
Many countries have consumer protection laws that basically prevent this kind of shenanigans. Or at least make it legally non-binding.
It is shit like this that makes me glad I use disposable credit card numbers for every single online purchase. In 15 years, I've never had a case of fraud or any other problem. But they have saved my butt a bunch of times. My bank emails me for every rejected authorization so I've seen every time some lowlife 'merchant' tried to charge me without my consent. Most recently Angie's List was trying nearly every day for about two months to "renew" a subscription.
If you have a Bank of America or Citibank credit card account then you already have access to disposable numbers. There are other smaller banks (especially outside of the US) who support disposable numbers too.
(PT Barnum) "Wow. Never thought the family business would still be thriving well today."
(CEO of Murphy's Law and and Practice) "No shit, Sherlock."
(Sherlock) "Oh piss off, Murphy. Even Watson wouldn't fall for this."
(Watson) "Hey guys, check this out! I just bought 10 CD's for a penny!
I totally agree. An open and free market needs laws that protect people from surprising contract details and asymetric practises about closing and canceling a contract.
If you need only a mouse click to make a subscription it should take you no more than one to cancel it again.
The moment you see the charge hit your bill you contact your credit card company and have them do a chargeback. Tell them you've been trying to cancel with this company who refuses to honor your request and these are fraudulent charges.
The credit card company will remove the charge from your bill then attempt to collect from the other company.
Rinse and repeat each month.
http://www.geeksonfinance.com/...
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I'm pretty sure if it's not clearly stated in many places and if it doesn't have a clear and easy way to unsubscribe, that such a thing would be illegal, right? I mean, come on, it's common sense at this point, right... ... Guys? Please... Tell me this sort of tactic is illegal... God damn it.
This shit has been going on for several years. In 2001 I used to work as a CSR rep and we did the same thing with jewelry. The first one was free (S&H only of 10 or 15$) and then the next ones were sent out monthly and billed @ 49.95 + S&H. Most of the time 3-6 items @50$ each would ship out before the client would even notice anything. Then again, some of them probably thought we messed up and were sending them free stuff. Then once they realized they were being billed for all that crap, they had the responsibility of paying for the shipping to send it all back. Between the time it took for the item to be returned to us and the time we took to process the return, it would usually be at least two months before the client ever saw a refund.
If all of the above sounds bad, consider that the products we sold were shit. We sold stuff which wasn't based on a subscription model, i.e.: electronics. We would refurbish returned stuff whenever we could and the work quality was less than perfect. I've had many calls from clients who bought a supposed brand new camera with previous customer's roll of film still in it, with photos already taken. Or someone buying a CD player with CDs still in the loader.
As much as I hated the work, it was my first job in the area and gave me 2.5yrs of Customer service experience I desperately needed so I could seek better jobs.
About those funky songs, I have only this to say.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
One call to the credit card company and all will be fixed.
I think most people will be pleased to find how easy it is to get their credit card company to reject all new charges from a online vendor plus credit you back for whatever was taken.
Plus, when Mastercard or Visa see a lot of problems with a vendor, MC and Visa will cut them off. Or make it more expensive/difficult for the bad company to operate.
I'm reminded of the recent story about Comcast. In California at least there are efforts to make this type of nonsense illegal.
This buy wants to fight it at the designer level, but seems to be a dead end. As no one is listening http://darkpatterns.org/
Silence is a state of mime.
Its funny (see disturbing) how companies can hit individuals with tens of thousands of dollars in liability for "stealing" a few songs/movies worth a total of a few hundred dollars at most but yet its perfectly alright when companies steal millions from thousands of consumers by making it difficult to terminate "services" that the consumer either no longer wants or never knew they signed up for. I think its about time the legal paying field was leveled, if they want the ability to keep hitting people with such massive fines to "discourage others" they should expect their "mistakes" to cost them 80 times or more than the value of what they took to "discourage" them from similar behavior.
The easiest way to reverse it is to call your credit card company and dispute the charges.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Sounds like Amazon Prime.
Take a look at the Adore Me site. It advertises "advantages of membership" right on the first page, making the subscription model as obvious as Columbia House.
Not long ago only porn sites used this scheme. Now it is legitimate business.
Cheating, fraud and manipulations are today's innovations.
Cue Clarke's _Imperial Earth_
But a true "free market" has no governmentally-inforced laws. The only laws allowed are those that arise as a manifestation of the way the market itself works, like buyer / seller reputations, etc.
I reported bogus magazine subscription to my credit union (Stanford) so they canceled my credit card without telling me. So then I'm finding many bills I want to pay are not being paid.
Don't bother trying to cancel your subscrition. Call your credit card holder and declare your card lost/stolen. They will block any futur transaction on it. Then they will issue you a new one with a new number. This is automated in most cases. This is also why you should never use debit cards outside your bank. Because the debit card replacement might not stop automated payments from leaving your bank account.
Devil's advocate: The end user is the one ultimately responsible for an agreement between two parties.
An EULA is a contract, as well as signing up for a subscription. This is first year law school here. No court would ever step into this mess, because both parties _agreed_, and the proof of this is that goods and currency was exchanged.
tl;dr: Don't ask the government to allow you to break a contract you made with your own free will.
" What's more, these companies have made it frustratingly difficult to cancel these subscriptions -- it often requires you to sit through a one-hour call to the customer representative and listening to a bunch of funky songs that you suddenly don't adore as much."
I killed my AT&T DSL account about a month ago (piss on 2Gb/s service for $50/mo) I tried to cancel on their web site but was told there that I had to call them voice to do so. When I called voice, I got "all representatives are busy, but your call is important to us and the expected wait time is 1 min" 15 min later I hung up my limited min cell phone after much bad muzak and endless repeated announcements telling me to go online to conduct my business! I had My wife call on her unlimited min cell phone, she got the same expected wait 1 min wait BS and go online BS (you can't cancel online.) After an hour they finally answered and started the pitch to keep your service. I had never heard my wife use such colorful language as she used to tell the what they could do with their DSL. I couldn't have done better myself.
Is it still "free will" if one is forced into a contract under duress, such as the threat of jail if you do not agree to the terms? Jail may not be applicable in this case, but it is applicable in cases around necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and utilities.
Then there is also no government-enforced contracts either, which makes this problem go away as well. Of course, other issues arise as a result of that..
Unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts are all things companies are not allowed to do. They can be charged for doing this and should be.
There is a major bank in the US that has a shopper's safe card number system. Unfortunately, SD will sensor my adding the bank's name. I use the system religiously. When you pay for anything using this system, a company cannot charge you over the amount you stipulate on the initial charge. You won't have to look to long to find which bank this is.
About five years ago I made a purchase and ticked off "free" magazine subscription (1 year). and selected two (four selections available from a wide choce.) Well over a year later I noticed card charges with only a .com name, which I mistaken belived that my spouse had made during her travels. Turned out that they used the credit card info and a hidden negative option to charge for the subscriptions after a year. Fortunately the website allowed cancelation, but with quite confusing language as to weather I was continuing or canceling. I picked my best guess and got the cancelation. There were no phone or e-mail contacts available on the site.
Beware!
Good luck cancelling anything with them.
Bank of America offers ShopSafe (perhaps others offer something similar) that allows one to create a virtual CC (with unique number and CSC) associated with your real CC. You can set the dollar and expiration limits on the vCC and only the first vendor that charges to it is allow to make subsequent changes. You can even manually close the card before is expires. When I shop at a new online store, especially for a one-time purchase, I do this. Vendors can't make recurring charges to a closed CC.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Negative option exists in varying degrees of 'scammy'.
When I was a kid, my friends and I would join Columbia House or BMG, get our 12-for-a-penny, buy four more, cancel, rinse, repeat.
We were high-school kids and we knew the 'negative option' part of it was BS. But the 16 for the cost of 4 was a good deal.
It was a good deal for the record company, too. The albums we received were 'special' labeled ones--it was obvious they were not the same as you'd get off the shelves at a record store. Our theory was that BMG or Columbia would just run off ten or twenty thousand more than they expected to sell once the machines were set up. Pure profit for them; probably didn't pay the artists either. No way of knowing if this was true; this was just our guess.
Anyhow, there you have it--it was very clear up front what the deal was, we all agreed to it and we all got what we expected.
This surprise negative option--this is sneaky and deceptive. To me it smells fishy, and I know if it smells fishy, don't eat it.
I bought 'USB3' memory sticks from Amazon because they were a good brand at a good price and they were "USB3" sticks.
Oh, in my hurry I didn't read the review--They're USB2, but they work in USB3 ports. Well, hell, all USB2 works in USB3 ports. Oops.
Well, shit. They got me.
Blaming the victim is self-delusion. "They won't get me because I'm smart. Those people were dumb. Or greedy. Or whatever...."
Awareness means knowing I might not smell the next one; the scammers do this all day every day and they're good at it.
How much time and attention do I need to devote to not getting ripped off? It's fucking exhausting. Sometimes the scammers win. Sometimes they miss.
A number of times, the scammers simply get thrown into a wood chipper feet first.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Really, this gets '5 Insightful'?
Libertarians do support deceptive business practices in that they are opposed to all means possible for impeding them. (And while libertarians [lower case "l"] don't support deceptive business practices, they are incoherent about how they should be stopped.)
Okay, given that you did make a difference between the fundy Libertarians and the more moderate libertarians, of which I'm the latter, I'll give you the small-l answer: You don't get rid of the courts or all the police. You show a court(small claims, most likely) that they deceived you and charged you without authorization, and the court rakes them over the coals.
Done.
libertarians aren't anarchists, though some of the Big-L types seem to be more Anarchists trying to rebrand themselves as something not so objectionable.
I don't read AC A human right
That's just a transfer of costs and regulation.
Your approach, which may or not may not be "libertarian" simply shifts the costs and burden of regulation and enforcement from legislative authority to courts. Deep pockets will simply capture the courts instead of (or in addition to) the legislature.
Your solution ignores the realities of human behavior and the complexities of a modern economy and society.
They got me :(
I'm reminded of the recent story about Comcast. In California at least there are efforts to make this type of nonsense illegal.
This stuff is illegal anywhere in the USA, as a result of rights retained by the people (9th Amendment) and reserved to the people (10th Amendment), which include the right to ethical conduct on the part of a business, the right to not be subject to fraud (including being charged money without receiving value, which includes ANY subscription service a person isn't using), and the right to not have one's time wasted (not much different from kidnapping, really - both steal a portion of one's life, which is finite).
In short, companies that engage in these practices are already breaking the law. As the Bill of Rights is the highest law in the land, recourse to lessor laws is (or should be) unneeded.
The problem with stopping this illegal behavior is that the US legal profession has strong ethical conflicts of interest with respect to recognizing the authority of the 9th and 10th Amendments. This makes it very hard to get many fundamental rights recognized, or get the guilty parties who violate basic rights punished in a cost-effective way.
In short, this sort of illegal conduct by sociopathic business operators is yet another negative consequence of the lawyers being unable to get their ethical act together.
It's really no different than the junk mail problem: everybody with a functioning brain knows that it's wrong to force somebody else to dispose of garbage you send them, without compensation, but the lawyers make it hard for people to actually collect fees for their time and the costs of disposal.
The same kind of thing happens with credit card companies, such as CitiBank, when they make a mistake and fail to detect a fraud happening in a timely manner. One ends up spending huge amounts of time, without compensation, to get them to correct their screw up - another violation of fundamental rights. It's highly unethical, but unfortunately that seems to be the norm.