4 ms·

This happened to me in a different way: I was giving recurring payments to a .org. I kind of knew how much I wanted to give, but instead of a lump sum I figur

by dhimes 8y ago

This happened to me in a different way: I was giving recurring payments to a .org. I kind of knew how much I wanted to give, but instead of a lump sum I figured I would do recurring for a year. It would give them a little more and seemed to make the guy at my door happy. Now with this organization, you can donate via the website but to cancel a recurring donation requires a phone call. I called a couple of times to try to cancel but didn't reach anybody. I admit- I wasn't too concerned (a good organization overall), but I was a little pissed nevertheless. My credit card was skimmed, and I had it cut off. I figured this would solve my problem with the donations as well. Nope. About two years later my wife (who actually handles the bills in the family) asked me if I wanted to continue those payments. I was pretty shocked- and persisted with the phone calls until I reached somebody to cancel. Surprise! I consider the "signing up can be done on the web, but canceling requires a human" to be a dark pattern.

wlesieutre 8y ago
> I consider the "signing up can be done on the web, but canceling requires a human" to be a dark pattern. And illegal in California as of last year. Hopefully them forcing companies to allow online cancellations will mean it's available for the rest of us too. https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cancel-subscriptions-online-california-law-says/ https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cance...
- kevinmchugh 8y ago
  It's been illegal in Illinois for a couple years as well.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  Yes, this is the correct fix (well, not the part where everybody else has to rely on California but the rule that if you can sign up by method X you can cancel that way too) My ex-employer was surprised that when they were obliged by law to stop routing everybody though a retention call center customer satisfaction improved. Too much of their own Kool Aid had been drunk, they'd persuaded themselves that customers wanted to be reminded of the benefits and offered other deals by a human so much that they'd hate even having the option to just press "Cancel" on the web site and leave that way. It's an old Joel Spoelsky lesson, if you make leaving a pleasant experience that customer may come back some day. If not you're never going to see them again.
epistasis 8y ago
Several years ago, that dark pattern caused me to cancel my online NY Times subscription shortly after I started it, because the discovery of that process annoyed me so much.
ryanmarsh 8y ago
WSJ online uses this dark pattern, or did when I cancelled roughly a year ago. I won't ever subscribe again, purely because of this nonsense.
- CasReazxcv 8y ago
  I changed my WSJ billing address to California momentarily to be eligible for online cancellation. Worked like a charm :)
xeeeeeeeeeeenu 8y ago
>I consider the "signing up can be done on the web, but canceling requires a human" to be a dark pattern. The existence of this pattern is the sole reason why I'm using PayPal.
dontbenebby 8y ago
One thing I did to spot these dark patterns is have two credit cards. The first is used for re-occuring bills (Netflix, Phone, internet etc). The second is for everyday spending (Amazon, groceries, sundries etc). The second has an extremely low threshhold for alerts and emails about pretty much every transaction. If something were to set itself to autopay, I'd notice very quickly since card 1 pings me, and card 2 only should have <10 merchants per month for easy auditing. (Paying in cash for entertainment expenses also makes auditing easier. Having every cup of coffee or burrito clogging your statement makes it hard to spot double charges and other small frauds)
Shorn 8y ago
I dislike (dark patterns) and fear (bad implementations) subscriptions so much - I've put off implementing any kind of subscription for a SaaS product I built. I've just decided to let the customer pre-pay for up to the limit I'm willing to guarantee that I'll keep running the service, even at a loss (two years at the moment). I figure if the service isn't worth a user's time to click once to re-subscribe every few years, then I probably shouldn't be taking their money. I admit this might be a bit naive from a business perspective :)

by dhimes 8y ago

wlesieutre 8y ago

> I consider the "signing up can be done on the web, but canceling requires a human" to be a dark pattern. And illegal in California as of last year. Hopefully them forcing companies to allow online cancellations will mean it's available for the rest of us too. https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cancel-subscriptions-online-california-law-says/ https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cance...

kevinmchugh 8y ago
It's been illegal in Illinois for a couple years as well.
tialaramex 8y ago
Yes, this is the correct fix (well, not the part where everybody else has to rely on California but the rule that if you can sign up by method X you can cancel that way too) My ex-employer was surprised that when they were obliged by law to stop routing everybody though a retention call center customer satisfaction improved. Too much of their own Kool Aid had been drunk, they'd persuaded themselves that customers wanted to be reminded of the benefits and offered other deals by a human so much that they'd hate even having the option to just press "Cancel" on the web site and leave that way. It's an old Joel Spoelsky lesson, if you make leaving a pleasant experience that customer may come back some day. If not you're never going to see them again.

epistasis 8y ago

Several years ago, that dark pattern caused me to cancel my online NY Times subscription shortly after I started it, because the discovery of that process annoyed me so much.

ryanmarsh 8y ago

WSJ online uses this dark pattern, or did when I cancelled roughly a year ago. I won't ever subscribe again, purely because of this nonsense.

CasReazxcv 8y ago
I changed my WSJ billing address to California momentarily to be eligible for online cancellation. Worked like a charm :)

xeeeeeeeeeeenu 8y ago

>I consider the "signing up can be done on the web, but canceling requires a human" to be a dark pattern. The existence of this pattern is the sole reason why I'm using PayPal.

dontbenebby 8y ago

One thing I did to spot these dark patterns is have two credit cards. The first is used for re-occuring bills (Netflix, Phone, internet etc). The second is for everyday spending (Amazon, groceries, sundries etc). The second has an extremely low threshhold for alerts and emails about pretty much every transaction. If something were to set itself to autopay, I'd notice very quickly since card 1 pings me, and card 2 only should have <10 merchants per month for easy auditing. (Paying in cash for entertainment expenses also makes auditing easier. Having every cup of coffee or burrito clogging your statement makes it hard to spot double charges and other small frauds)

Shorn 8y ago

I dislike (dark patterns) and fear (bad implementations) subscriptions so much - I've put off implementing any kind of subscription for a SaaS product I built. I've just decided to let the customer pre-pay for up to the limit I'm willing to guarantee that I'll keep running the service, even at a loss (two years at the moment). I figure if the service isn't worth a user's time to click once to re-subscribe every few years, then I probably shouldn't be taking their money. I admit this might be a bit naive from a business perspective :)