> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.”
> “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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.