Subscription Sales Scrutiny

Following the news that US Federal regulators have sued Amazon, alleging that people have been "tricked" into buying hard-to-cancel Prime memberships, we take a closer look at 'inertia selling'. 

What Happened With Amazon Prime Subscriptions? 

Back at the end of June, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it was taking action against Amazon.com Inc, for “enrolling consumers in Amazon Prime without consent and sabotaging their attempts to cancel”. The FTC, which alleged that Amazon had been involved in this kind of inertia selling for years, went so far to say in its complaint that Amazon had been using “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs” which it describes as “dark patterns,” designed to “trick consumers into enrolling in automatically renewing Prime subscriptions.”