HOODWINKED IN APP-VERSE

Online markets are teeming with dark patterns and manipulative designs on apps meant to deceive and make people buy things they never intended to. People using apps to get groceries, book flight tickets or call cabs need to be cautious

- Prathik Desai

Chandra Ramanujan’s father is a man in his late 60s. One day in December last year, Ramanujan’s father wanted to get his hair cut. He reached for his phone, logged into home services app Urban Company, and saw a haircut would cost him ₹449 excluding taxes. Without thinking much, he placed a request. And minutes later, he realised he had been charged ₹752. Confused, he checked the app again only to discover that not only will he get his hair cut, but he is also now the owner of a six-month subscription to UC Plus, Urban Company’s premium offering, a service Ramanujan’s father had no intention of buying.

“This is basket sneaking and is illegal,” an outraged Chandra Ramanujan, a product designer by profession, wrote on X, after getting to know how his father had been hoodwinked by what he called ‘one of the worst dark patterns’ he had ever seen. Urban Company’s director of design Amit Jaglan wrote back to Ramanujan on the same X thread acknowledging the issue and said the company would resolve the problem within a week.

Sanskriti Dalmia, 22, was working as a content writer in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. In February this year, she found a job that allowed her to work from home. She was packing up her things and wanted to end her Wi-Fi subscription. She thought she could just end the subscription on the Airtel app.

“The app does not have an option to close the subscription. I got in touch with customer care over the phone and email, but nothing helped,” she says. She visited one of the stores of the telecom major. “At the store, the customer care representative said: ‘You will get a call to try to convince you to keep it [the subscription]. You tell them you do not want to. Then, after seven days, someone will come and pick up the modem'.” 

Airtel refused to comment on the matter. 

That Sneaky Add-On