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LinkedIn suffered a class-action lawsuit for their email spam! I didn't know that, good to hear. I left years ago and remember it difficult to leave (lack of cl

by exodust 10y ago

LinkedIn suffered a class-action lawsuit for their email spam! I didn't know that, good to hear. I left years ago and remember it difficult to leave (lack of close account function, and kept receiving emails after unsubscribing). On the LinkedIn issues, this tweet surely is the funniest: https://twitter.com/darylginn/status/590664399041519617 https://twitter.com/darylginn/status/590664399041519617 On dark patterns, or at least it felt dark... I was booking an overnight ferry trip across Bass Strait in Australia. After selecting the fare, entering my details about my car make and model, name and address, cabin choice etc, and about to enter credit card details, the website proclaims "our real-time fare system has adjusted the price" and my fare went up $40 right there and then on the final step of the booking process. Not happy.

hellbanner 10y ago
I wonder if that was because they thought you had a nice car. RyanAir in Europe is notorious for this. Cheap flights but expensive, unadvertised baggage fees.
- exodust 10y ago
  My car is nothing special. They would claim that prices change due to other people booking while you're going through the process, but I don't believe that. I was booking well in advance - more than a month, and I was using the site after midnight. There should be regulation against changing a price that is advertised, at least lock it in for a minimum of 5 or 10 minutes of selecting the fare. Bumping the fare up at the last step only a couple of minutes later is highly suspicious.
oliv__ 10y ago
Hahaha that's sadly hilarious.
CaptSpify 10y ago
I hate this, because it's made me cynical. I don't even try to un-subscribe from emails like this anymore, I just mark them as spam. And that hurts the good companies that do listen and unsubscribe you easily, because now they are being looked at as spammy.
- ams6110 10y ago
  Yep. Anything sent by Constant Contact or MailChimp is auto-junked for me. I never see it.
  - manyxcxi 10y ago
    At least from a MailChimp perspective at least those emails all come with unsubscribe links and such in them and I have found MailChimp to actually honor those. It's the ones that aren't from MailChimp, et al that I think twice before clicking unsubscribe on because it could just be a ruse to prove its a live account.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      That's the problem though: The bad players are hurting the good players. I don't unsubscribe from stuff using mailchimp, because I'm just not going to take the time to learn which systems are legit and will unsubscribe you, and which ones are shady. So in this case, mailchimp is getting marked as spam, even though they are an honest player.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - manyxcxi 10y ago
        That's valid, I'm sure I've done the same more times than I know. My general rule is if it's from a brand or site I know I've interacted with or generally recognize I'll spend two seconds to check the unsub options. If the unsub requires me to log in first, I mark it spam instead. If the link looks fishy and/or I can't readily discern it's of any quality it's spam. If I have no clue why I could've gotten the message it gets flagged for sure. Luckily for me I get very few emails per month that I don't know why I would've gotten them, so it isn't a painful exercise to give them a chance to not get flagged. I use Unroll.me[0] to manage the messages I do want to get, but want to check on my own time and I don't want them sitting in my inbox. I'm sure there are other types of services, but I'm generally happy with what they do. They also can manage a lot of the opt-out features as well, not sure if it 'protects' me any more than doing it myself though. [0] https://unroll.me https://unroll.me
thomasfoster96 10y ago
A similar thing happened to me the other day as well (oddly enough, also in Australia). I was buying a ticket for a football game, but just to make sure there wasn't a better seat I clicked the back button on my browser to go back to looking at seats. Suddenly I saw that the same seat had gone up by 10% in price. Anyway, I pressed the forward button to see if the new price would apply, but it didn't. So I somehow avoided paying an extra 10% because their confirmation page was cached, but not the seat selection page.
- cylinder 10y ago
  Always browse incognito when buying things like this, including flights.
  - chrismcb 10y ago
    Why? What does browsing incognito give you? Surely it doesn't give you cheaper flights. Rates are not raised because you've been browsing them for awhile
    - melvinmt 10y ago
      > Rates are not raised because you've been browsing them for awhile That's exactly what they do. If you're browsing for plane tickets and you're a bit undecisive (like me), don't be surprised if the prices go up by 200% for that specific day you wanted to book. Going incognito and in some cases returning after a hour will bring the prices back down.
      - morgante 10y ago
        This persistent urban legend has been debunked. What's really happening is that prices move around all the time.
        grogenaut 10y ago
        Provide proof or it's just anecdotal. I've done this with 2 browsers looking for a car on the same site and they will have different prices. I generally never log in on chrome anywhere and only use it for twitch so it was a lot cheaper than my firefox that's logged in everywhere. Like $150 on a $300 ticket.

by exodust 10y ago

hellbanner 10y ago

I wonder if that was because they thought you had a nice car. RyanAir in Europe is notorious for this. Cheap flights but expensive, unadvertised baggage fees.

exodust 10y ago
My car is nothing special. They would claim that prices change due to other people booking while you're going through the process, but I don't believe that. I was booking well in advance - more than a month, and I was using the site after midnight. There should be regulation against changing a price that is advertised, at least lock it in for a minimum of 5 or 10 minutes of selecting the fare. Bumping the fare up at the last step only a couple of minutes later is highly suspicious.

oliv__ 10y ago

Hahaha that's sadly hilarious.

CaptSpify 10y ago

I hate this, because it's made me cynical. I don't even try to un-subscribe from emails like this anymore, I just mark them as spam. And that hurts the good companies that do listen and unsubscribe you easily, because now they are being looked at as spammy.

ams6110 10y ago
Yep. Anything sent by Constant Contact or MailChimp is auto-junked for me. I never see it.
- manyxcxi 10y ago
  At least from a MailChimp perspective at least those emails all come with unsubscribe links and such in them and I have found MailChimp to actually honor those. It's the ones that aren't from MailChimp, et al that I think twice before clicking unsubscribe on because it could just be a ruse to prove its a live account.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    That's the problem though: The bad players are hurting the good players. I don't unsubscribe from stuff using mailchimp, because I'm just not going to take the time to learn which systems are legit and will unsubscribe you, and which ones are shady. So in this case, mailchimp is getting marked as spam, even though they are an honest player.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - manyxcxi 10y ago
      That's valid, I'm sure I've done the same more times than I know. My general rule is if it's from a brand or site I know I've interacted with or generally recognize I'll spend two seconds to check the unsub options. If the unsub requires me to log in first, I mark it spam instead. If the link looks fishy and/or I can't readily discern it's of any quality it's spam. If I have no clue why I could've gotten the message it gets flagged for sure. Luckily for me I get very few emails per month that I don't know why I would've gotten them, so it isn't a painful exercise to give them a chance to not get flagged. I use Unroll.me[0] to manage the messages I do want to get, but want to check on my own time and I don't want them sitting in my inbox. I'm sure there are other types of services, but I'm generally happy with what they do. They also can manage a lot of the opt-out features as well, not sure if it 'protects' me any more than doing it myself though. [0] https://unroll.me https://unroll.me

thomasfoster96 10y ago

A similar thing happened to me the other day as well (oddly enough, also in Australia). I was buying a ticket for a football game, but just to make sure there wasn't a better seat I clicked the back button on my browser to go back to looking at seats. Suddenly I saw that the same seat had gone up by 10% in price. Anyway, I pressed the forward button to see if the new price would apply, but it didn't. So I somehow avoided paying an extra 10% because their confirmation page was cached, but not the seat selection page.

cylinder 10y ago
Always browse incognito when buying things like this, including flights.
- chrismcb 10y ago
  Why? What does browsing incognito give you? Surely it doesn't give you cheaper flights. Rates are not raised because you've been browsing them for awhile
  - melvinmt 10y ago
    > Rates are not raised because you've been browsing them for awhile That's exactly what they do. If you're browsing for plane tickets and you're a bit undecisive (like me), don't be surprised if the prices go up by 200% for that specific day you wanted to book. Going incognito and in some cases returning after a hour will bring the prices back down.
    - morgante 10y ago
      This persistent urban legend has been debunked. What's really happening is that prices move around all the time.
      - grogenaut 10y ago
        Provide proof or it's just anecdotal. I've done this with 2 browsers looking for a car on the same site and they will have different prices. I generally never log in on chrome anywhere and only use it for twitch so it was a lot cheaper than my firefox that's logged in everywhere. Like $150 on a $300 ticket.