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Tactics like countdown timers and messages showing items fast running out stock when buying things online are being labelled as insidious by Consumer.
It wants such practices banned, saying their use is completely unregulated in New Zealand.
The strategies are known as “dark patterns” and include the likes of hidden fees and making subscriptions hard to cancel.
Consumer surveyed some 1500 New Zealanders and found about a quarter had kept online subscriptions longer than they wanted, while 40 percent said they ran into problems cancelling something because of dark patterns.
“They’re just things that have crept into the online sphere and sort of taken over, they’re kind of ubiquitous now,” Consumer senior investigative journalist Chris Schulz said.
He told Nine to Noon everyday purchases were riddled with dark patterns so people were manipulated and manoeuvred into doing things they might not want to.
Consumer first started looking into the tactics in April and conducted sit-down interviews with some people after its survey.
“And we just sat there and watched them and talked with them as they did it,” Schulz told Nine to Noon.
“So that was booking accommodation through Booking.com, buying concert tickets through Ticketmaster, cancelling a HelloFresh meal delivery subscription and then purchasing flights through Jetstar,” he said.
“And these four seemingly typical things that we all do every day, they’re riddled with dark patterns now.”
Schulz said Booking.com had “scarcity queues” he said, showing messages like “only one left”.
He said Ticketmaster added hidden fees and had countdown timers that pushed people to make quick purchases.
Consumer said Ticketmaster added hidden fees and had countdown timers that pushed people to make quick purchases.
Photo: Alberto Pezzali / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP
HelloFresh, he said, had a four- to five-step cancellation process, while Jetstar flights had pre-selected options or pushes toward other options.
“People don’t like them… only 6 percent of respondents came back and said that dark patterns are helpful in any way, so people overwhelmingly don’t like them,” Schulz said.
On Nine to Noon he detailed one case study of an Auckland woman buying concert tickets.
“It was her first concert experience since Covid, she was really looking forward to seeing Pink,” he said.
“So she jumped online, got on the pre-sale and she thought these tickets were going to be $200 each, and by the time she got to the checkout she was ending up paying twice that – they were going to be $400, so for two tickets for her it was $800.
“And she told us that she felt pressured because of the countdown time – she did not want to miss out on these tickets,” Schulz said.
He said the woman said the purchase was “a sad story” and it ended up ruining her experience.
With HelloFresh, Schulz said a lot of people recognised they were about to “endure something pretty traumatic” when it came to cancelling.
“There are multiple persuasive techniques they use to try to get you to stay on – whether that is pausing your delivery service, from offering you points or discounts for your friends, like it is just page after page and it takes so much time and you need to have energy to do this because it is so time consuming.
“And because we do not have any kind of restriction or legislation banning these practices, they have just been allowed to spread.”
HelloFresh, Consumer said, had a four- to five-step cancellation process.
Photo: RNZ / Dan Satherley
Online tactics not regulated
Schulz said there was little data on how much dark patterns were costing people.
“You can use a website from overseas and a consumer here in New Zealand will have a completely different experience as someone where there are rules and regulations in force, in Europe perhaps, where things are a little more stringent and they are sort of leading the way on this,” he said.
Schulz said Consumer was calling for the same in New Zealand, and that Australia was looking to ban a lot of the practices.
“So we could ban unfair trade, these could fall under unfair trading practices, the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs could ban them.”
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