Most online travel platform users face price manipulation, other dark patterns: Study

Consumers frequently reported changes in airfares and hotel room tariffs over barely a few minutes while searching for flights or hotels. It was almost as if the fares and tariffs were changing based on the number of searches or the eagerness to book, the respondents claimed

Most users of online travel platforms have experienced price manipulation and false urgency – dark patterns or tactics to mislead customers and prevent them from making the right choices, according to a survey.

Three out of four users of online travel platforms face fare surges very frequently, according to a LocalCircles survey. The survey received over 33,000 responses from consumers across 323 districts in the country, of which 47 percent of the respondents were from Tier 1 cities, 33 percent from Tier 2 cities and 20 percent from Tier 3 and 4 cities and rural districts.

Consumers frequently reported changes in airfares and hotel room tariffs over barely a few minutes while searching for flights or hotels. It was almost as if the fares and tariffs were changing based on the number of searches or the eagerness to book, the respondents claimed.

Also read: MC Exclusive | Government body pulls up Amazon India for ‘dark’ practices forcing consumers to sign up for Prime membership

Users also faced a false sense of urgency – where they were misled into making an immediate purchase, with 74 percent of those surveyed indicating that this dark pattern was prevalent on travel platforms.

Hidden charges

Two-thirds of the consumers frequently experienced hidden charges at the payment stage. Whether it was travel or hotel reservations, the consumers were suddenly confronted with charges and options that were not displayed upfront, substantially adding to the final cost of the booking.

India has banned the use of dark patterns, intended to deceive or manipulate customers’ choices, on e-commerce platforms. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) issued final guidelines earlier this month following the notification of the Department of Consumer Affairs in September when the draft guidelines for the prevention and regulation of dark patterns were released for public consultation.

The CCPA recently sent notices to retail giant Amazon over the alleged use of dark patterns on its website to trick customers into purchasing an Amazon Prime membership, Moneycontrol reported on December 14. One notice sent in the last week of November was based on complaints received by the consumer protection body against Amazon’s Prime subscription model.

The government has identified 13 types of dark patterns. Among them are false urgency, basket sneaking (inclusion of products, services, or payments to charity/donation at the time of checkout), confirm shaming (creating a sense of fear, shame, ridicule or guilt to nudge the user to act in a certain way), forced action (requiring the user to buy additional goods or services to buy what they originally intended), subscription trap, interface interference, bait and switch (advertising a particular outcome based on a user’s action but deceptively serving an alternative outcome), drip pricing (when elements of prices are not revealed upfront or are revealed surreptitiously), disguised advertisements, and nagging.

The latest list also identified trick questions, SaaS (software as a service) billing and rogue malware as dark patterns.