“Who knew that not protecting your purchase would be so costly?” was all John’s e-mail to our tipline said. Attached was this screen capture. When putting an item costing $22.99 in his virtual cart, the site presented him with two protection plan options: two years for $6.29, or no plan for $4.99. Wait, what? [More]
web design
If CenturyLink Had Competent Web Developers, They Could Have My Money
By 6.18.12
Daniel has had it with his ISP, CenturyLink. If you don’t live in their service area, you may still recognize the company’s name, since they were a contender for Worst Company in America 2012, knocked out in the first round. But not going all the way in the tournament doesn’t mean that CenturyLink/Qwest customers are all satisfied. Daniel, for one, couldn’t pay his bill online because the company’s website wouldn’t work. Isn’t everyone trying to push customers toward online bill pay, not away from it? [More]
RyanAir Hides Travel Insurance Opt-Out Under "Country Of Residence" Drop-Down
By 9.17.10
“Dark patterns” are when web designers exploit common browsing behaviors and use them to trick people into do something that’s to their disadvantage. One of these, the “anti-scan trick question,” is used by RyanAir to get people to sign up for travel insurance. Counterintuitively, to opt out you have to scroll through a “please select country of residence” drop-down menu. Sneaky. [More]
