zlacker

If you drop Prime and then go to order something on Amazon, more often than not, you'll be offered to have a "1 week trial" of Prime for $1.99. Sign up, get your delivery faster, and set a reminder to cancel it immediately or at least after your order ships.

If you spend enough, you'll sometimes be offered a full full month of Prime for free. Same thing, once your first order ships, cancel.

I did this all 2023. I had Prime for nearly every single shipment over the year, and it looks like I spent a whopping $14 total for all of it.

>>MrFoof+(OP)
Conveniently, the membership renewal reminder checkbox in the settings is unchecked - aka, you don't get a reminder before the trial automatically renews to a paid one.

>>chii+I5
They're in a dark patterns class of their own

>>Rankin+S8
The Prime unsubscribe flow is a master class of darkness.

Try it. It takes several clicks, multiple word-heavy pages, hard choices, flat-out lies, and in the end maybe you just accepted to be reminded 60 seconds before the renewal date.

>>lakpan+4a
Weird. When I went to cancel earlier this year not only was it much simpler than I expected, but I was given the choice of pro rata refund or let it keep going till the expiration date.

Thank you, California!

>>throwu+7e
Maybe my comment is out of date, but the patterns around Prime caused the FTC to sue Amazon just last summer:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-uses-six-dark-pattern-...

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/amazon-rosca-pu...

>>MrFoof+(OP)
Yep, IIRC we got 3 months of free prime in 2023. And maybe paid the $1.99 a couple of times. I think what they notice is that you'll order more stuff if you've got Prime and so once in a while they'll offer you a free week or month ( or a $1.99 week). If that's what their algorithm is doing then you should not order anything (or order a lot less) when you don't have Prime and only order from them after you've been offered it for free in order to train their algorithm.

>>MrFoof+(OP)
Yes, this is how I have been living for the last few months and have seen and used both offers when I can't move to another retailer.

>>MrFoof+(OP)
Everything ships fast enough even without prime. Sometimes i get stuff on walmart which also ships free over a certain amount.

>>lakpan+1f
Your comment is not out of date, the screenshots in the article are how it still looks, but it really is not hard to cancel. It is on the less "dark pattern" side of subscription sites. For example, the NY Times is worse at whole other level - can't unsubscribe online without either calling, or chatting with a rep.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/13sedmx/...

https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/10j2lkv/new_...

>>Rankin+S8
The class clowns of dark patterns.

I share my brothers prime, so I havent personally had it since this incident:

Prime I cancelled prime before it was to renew. When it renewed - they charged me the $99 and I had just paid my rent and in that window didnt have the $99 in the account when the prime renewed (that I had previously canceled)

I was hit with a $25 overdraft fee when prime hit.

I called them, complained, got a refund for my prime account, and I charged them the $25 overdraft fee - AND I added that I wanted a $25 inconvenience fee for having to deal with all this - and they paid it

So I got the embarrassment of an over draft, but I got it refunded and I was able to get them to pay an inconvenience fee.

>>lakpan+1f
I think your comment is still up to date- I cancelled a month ago and it was just as slimy as usual

>>Rankin+S8
I like to think I'm not one to be easily tricked by dark patterns, but last year Amazon somehow bamboozled me into buying a monthly subscription for a pot of hair product. When the next month's item was delivered and I saw the charge on my card, I was so infuriated that I impulsively disputed it. Months later, Amazon sent me a rude email asking for their money, but I eventually won the dispute. It feels kind of good knowing that I'm one pot of hair wax up on Jeff Bezos. (I did offer to send it back.)