- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.zip
- news@lemmy.world
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Literally can’t stay ahead of it.
My kid re-activated prime on me a long time ago, before I had even started thinking about parental controls, by selecting a movie on the Kindle Fire playing with the remote.
Thought I’d learned my lesson, but no. Couple years later he reactivated Audible by asking Alexa to read him a story. He was probably like 4 or 5 by then. Not only reactivated Audible, but wasted a credit on The Three Little Pigs
I’m so confused how these devices ended up subscribing you to these services without further validation.
I use mainly Google products and I don’t think I can even subscribe to audible if I tried, by voice alone.
Were these Amazon devices or something? I’m really confused.
Yes, Kindle Fire TV and Ecobee thermostat (with Alexa).
And for the record, I hate Alexa, or at least the version in my thermostat. Alexa makes Google nests look like a Nobel laureate.
These were also reactivations, so they already had all our account info, and entirely inside Amazons walled garden.
The three little pigs lol, that part had me dying
On the other hand, I didn’t sign up for Prime but have had it for 2 months now. Have yet to be charged and I can’t access the page to cancel it.
I’ll say this: Grabbed a free month of Prime through Google Play. Went to cancel it before it charged me again and I had so much trouble figuring out how I decided that I couldn’t be the only one and ended up Googling it.
You couldn’t quit in the Google Play Store. It wasn’t even listed.
It wasn’t any form of subscription or listed as a membership on Amazon.
You couldn’t end it by following QR codes or links supplied to you on Amazon itself.
It wasn’t in your Amazon profile or Google profile.
The ONLY WAY to cancel it was by scanning the QR code, following the link, clicking on a “Contact Support” button, clicking on another button under “Help Topics” that said, “How to end your Prime Membership”, and finally you were taken to a page where you could actually end it. Obfuscated like a motherfucker.
But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.My mom recently asked me to cancel her prime reading or whatever for her and it was infuriating. I was in the app and clicked cancel and it went to a browser where I had to click to cancel and that just opened the app where I had to click the same link that opened the browser that opened the app that opened the browser. I was getting fucking pissed when it suddenly finally opened the link in the browser so I could cancel. I’m 99% sure they actually have it coded to open in the browser after 10 tries or something to make it difficult but can’t run afoul of legislation since you can technically do it if you are tenacious enough.
Companies that rely a lot on their phone apps, but exclude the “cancel/remove account” feature in the app are the worst. This should be illegal or regulated.
That’s fucked. I believe subscriptions are so be as easy to cancel as they are to sign up.
You know what’s been a great experience? Trying to quit Apple+. Took seconds to set up an account on my TV and weeks to cancel. Filled a complaint with my state AG.
Cancel the card if you can
I disputed the charge every month for about three months. Turns out you need an apple device to reset your apple password or wait weeks for an arbitrary email to verify your account. I don’t own a single apple device, but my LG TV had Apple+.
You can borrow my iPhone for it. I don’t use it.
How the fuck can they require you to have an apple device to reset the password?!?
Apple loves to do that kind of shit.
For instance, you can’t factory reset an iPhone without connecting it to either an OSX computer, or a PC running their special program. Don’t ask me what’s wrong with just holding down power and volume up, or whatever. Like every other phone on Earth can do.
My favorite is when they send a 2fa prompt to your phone when you’re trying to use find my iPhone
Actually find my is specifically excluded from the 2fa requirement. There may be a prompt but you can proceed to the find my iPhone screen without the code.
Do you? I don’t own any apple device but I was able to reset the password on my very old account to use apple tv+ on my LG TV
Yarp. My tv reset and I couldn’t remember the password then they required I reset my password on an Apple device.
They claimed that the FTC never alerted them to any wrongdoing before filing the lawsuit, so how could they have known they were violating the law?
“The police never informed me I was doing anything illegal before arresting me, so how could I possibly have known?”
Ignorance of the law isn’t a defense against breaking it in any other sector…
It can be. There’s a saying that intent is 9/10 of the law.
But, they definitely intended to fuck people over, so that’s a moot point.
I think the saying is that possession is 9/10 of the law.
But I agree. Of course they intended to fuck people over. That’s their job, pretty much.
No, it’s intent.
I did check myself before I posted that. In fact, if you type “intent is 9/10 of the law” into DDG, the entire first page of results gives you “possession is 9/10 of the law” instead.
But to be fair, I did see two examples of the intent version after scrolling through the first few pages.
I’m sure their legions of lawyers never warned them it might be illegal
I’m sure they did, but they felt that this was more profitable, even if they got caught.
Ethical behavior is a thing for SO many reasons. One of them is it tends to keep you on the right side of the law.
That’s literally the basis of qualified immunity. If law enforcement gets a pass explicitly due to ignorance of the law, why wouldn’t their financiers? Further, if the punishment for the crime is a fine, then the law can only ever meaningfully punish the poor. The concept of law is working exactly as intended in this country.
Note how they literally have a special exception
That’s not what qualified immunity means.
Qualified immunity protects the police (or other state actors) from civil suits arising from their conduct while lawfully performing their duties. It does not shield them from criminal prosecution.
The civil suits that only have standing when there is criminal conduct already involved? You don’t get one without the other. The only practical difference to a member of the public is the legal standard needed to prove guilt. Seeing as the criminal justice deck is already stacked in the favor of protecting their own enforcer, the difference is moot. It remains one of the only legally viable defenses where ignorance of the law is an acceptable excuse.
mayshouldLmao no they won’t
Oh dear, had to pay a million dollar fine… What’s this, a million dollar bonus? How did that happen?
How about the whole “sure you already paid for a year of Prime Video, but now you need to pay us again or we’re going to ruin the thing you already paid for” situation?
