Udemy to pay $4M to settle a case alleging it advertised fake discounts
twitter.com
twitter.com
However I've noticed that ever since I started tracking their prices prior to October last year they've never not been on sale. I'm fairly certain this is in breach of the UK "Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008" and the rules surrounding:
"The law, as contained in the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, simply says that if a product is on sale or special offer, the retailer must show the original price and it must have been selling at that price for 'a meaningful period of time'."[0]
and:
"Simply offering a product for sale at a stated price is not necessarily enough to use it as a point of comparison. The ASA has upheld complaints about marketers who have claimed to have offered products for sale but were unable to demonstrate that anyone purchased them at that price.
In 2013 the ASA upheld a complaint about a promotion that offered a new toothbrush worth £169.99 in exchange for a customer’s old one. The advertiser stated that this price claim was based on the RRP. However the product was sold at only one retailer, and their price data showed that the brush had only been sold at the RRP of £169.99 for 12 weeks, and that in the other 32 weeks it had been sold for £84.99 or less. This demonstrated that the product was not generally sold at its RRP price and the ASA therefore concluded the claim "worth £169.99" was misleading (Colgate-Palmolive (UK) Ltd, 30 October 2013)."[1]
[0]: https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/what-are-my-r...
[1]: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/recommended-retail-pric...
If I need/want something and there happens to be an offer somewhere, that is just a bonus. It may also alter where I buy it from (or exactly which it if there are similar products available for the same need). At the point where I'm parting with money what they think the item is worth means nothing to me and I won't be swayed by it – what matters is if the current price is good enough compared to how I value the item/service.
Never let yourself think you will miss out be not getting a sale item now – it or something else will be at that price again in future. Closing down sales, especially online, are almost always something that sets my scammy sense a-tingling for various reasons.
Always assume a special offer is not so special unless you have researched the market. If you don't have time to look into the details then it isn't that good an offer, and they are trying to rush you so you don't notice until you've paid.
I may occasionally miss out on a genuinely good offer this way, perhaps on something I'll develop a true need for soon, but I'm sure this is incredibly rare.
tl;dr: sales and marketing teams are, overall, lying scammy reprobates and should be treated with extreme suspicion unless you have unequivocal evidence that they are one of the very few “good ones”.
My parents were avid readers of "Which" magazine who's raison d'être was to educate and inform their readers in the UK about consumer protection issues and how to spot when something smells a bit off. This rubbed off on me in my teens.
This is why provided Secretlabs as a likely example of a continued breach of our own laws regarding "sale" prices.
edit Updating to be more technically correct:
> https://twitter.com/RobertFreundLaw/status/16517606508579020...
Basically, a retailer must prove they've actually sold a product at it's base price to a substantial amount of customers, to prove that the reduced/sale price is actually a sale price and not its base price. This prevents customers from believing they're getting a better deal than they are.
> The FTC rule says a former price needs to be “the actual, bona fide price at which the article was offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time.
Go to website > see 80% off > sign in to buy > no longer 80% off
That's a bait and switch, also illegal. This lawsuit however was for fake reference pricing. Clearly a scam and there's a good reason it's banned in much of the developed world, just like false advertising.
is not the same as
> offered
I asked them about this on Twitter but got no reply. I went back to the Udemy site and struggled to find a contact form or similar.
Shady. Very shady.
I frequent Slickdeals.net as well, and have seen similar complaints about other e-comm sites. Shockingly, Amazon has been mentioned.
But when you logged in, it was very obvious that it was $200?
Its annoying, and dark, but its not so much a bait an switch. They are probably offering that $20 price to new users, so if you signed up for the first time it would stay at $20 as you logged into a new account. They just don't make it very clear. I never found it misleading because I never believed the prices until I logged in.
Does it mean anyone can jump in and demand a slice of the pie? What's more important, how will it impact the future? Will Udemy have to stop the fake sales to avoid future lawsuits? $4m seems small considering their revenue.
(Not a lawyer etc) As long as someone purchased a course at the discount price during the period specified (and meets the other criteria), yes - they qualify to get a portion of the $4M.
> how will it impact the future? Will Udemy have to stop the fake sales to avoid future lawsuits? $4m seems small considering their revenue.
The amount is likely based to some degree on the revenue generated by this tactic, so it should in a sense “undo” however they’ve profited from this tactic. If it’s more profitable to keep doing it, I expect there will be another suit similar to this one, and “they were fined and kept doing it” will be a potent argument for massively increasing the amount of the fine as a punitive measure.
This never stops the rest of the corporate world from knowingly and flagrantly breaking the law to make money. Thanks, regulatory capture.
Another anecdote is one time I added a class with a 90% discount to my cart before logging in. Once I logged in the discount disappeared.
I stopped using them after their extreme DRM made it literally impossible for me to load videos. I received a refund for most of my courses but still had to do a chargeback for one.
Note: screenshots on a computer work fine, which is hilarious because if I were to imagine someone stealing content en-masse, I'd assume they would prefer a computer.
I know that instructors can opt in/out to this feature, but I think it's bogus that it exists at all and I don't fault instructors from having it enabled.
These helped me directly in my career, general curiosity, and launching a business.
Boy am I glad that "dark pattern" worked on me.
Fwiw -- there is some good content on Udemy, at least relevant to my interests. All depends on the creator. But the reference prices and constant 'sales' were a shady tactic.
It's a sleazy practice and it irks me that some people just shrug about it.