It’s clearly a dark pattern thought up by shitbags because users are more likely to create an account after they’ve typed something out vs. leaving when they find out an account is required to participate.
Even the shitbags over at Mozilla are doing it.
TransUnion asks for your credit card info as part of the “identity verification process” and then charges you $25 for the credit report “subscription” that at no point can you opt out of.
You have to call and talk to a human to get it refunded. During the call they will have “technical problems” and drop the line.
I hate TransUnion.
I find myself wondering if you can stop payment on your credit card? You’ve attempted to work with the company, so I assume that meets the cc provider requirement of attempting to resolve. Not sure, but worth a shot
Yes, you can. It’s called a chargeback. Companies hate it, because it’s a refund plus a fee/fine they have to pay for being awful. You just call your credit card company and ask them to initiate a chargeback. They’ll ask some questions about if/how you attempted to go through the right channels, how much time you allowed them, etc.
I knew there was a mechanism but not the name for it! Thank you!
Charge backs aren’t just granted arbitrarily though. I spent almost $1k on getting my wheels refurbished. When I got them back, they had done more damage rather than repair them, and now the wheels cause major vibration.
Visa denied the charge back because a “service was provided.” Despite the owner telling me on a recorded call that he’d never refund me or make it right, and sending over forty pictures of before and after. I’m out the money and Visa couldn’t care less.
Yeah, they are not wrong, as crappy as that is. I hope you looked at small claims court though.
There’s an even worse variant of that.
- Install an app.
- Start it up.
- It asks you some relevant questions to customize the experience to your needs.
- You answer them, and that takes a while.
- It asks you for your card.
- ???
- Profit
At least that’s how the app devs imagine how that’s going to go. IRL though, you just kill the app immediately, leave a bad review about dark patterns, and delete the whole scamware from your phone. If the devs are feeling extra greedy, they’ll also ask for you to rate the app long before you’ve even had an opportunity to do anything with it.
There’s an app that I find useful. Many many years ago (on Android 2.3 or maybe Android 4?) I got a lifetime license for it.
Then a few years ago they updated the app and introduced a subscription. I don’t care, because the features that I use are still accessible in the grandfathered lifetime license. BUT after every update without a subscription you now need to complete the whole “let’s personalize this app for you” thing. Afterwards it just dumps you onto a screen to select the subscription you want to pay for. You need to dismiss that screen in order to use the free features OR login and restore your old license to unlock most of the features.
They intentionally put a white X to dismiss that screen in the top left, but also put a very bright image there directly under it, so that it’s barely recognizable.
Oof… that’s just diabolical. If I say that I hate that, it’s still going to feel like an understatement.
Unfortunately, many people are naive and susceptible to the sunk-cost fallacy; that’s what they are banking on. They know a good portion will just kill the app but the few that bite will be milked for all they are worth.
You’re assuming you need to hit submit before they get that form information.
They’re collecting everything you type, the second you type it. Creating an account is just extra
pretty easy to not use such a service.
