Any time, and especially during a pandemic lockdown, lots of parents are attracted to the idea of educational software for their kids, maybe especially if it’s entertaining. Take that energy they put into games and use it to get them learning! Win win!
Some teachers like the idea, too. Libraries. Schools.
A company called ABCmouse offers just such software. The home page has a cartoon teacher gesturing to a diverse group of children happily reading, doing geometry and color puzzles, building with blocks, etc., in a Montessori-style classroom. “Reading. Math. Science. Art & Colors” says a banner. Ooh, and it says you can
“Try it FREE for 30 days!”
Underneath,
“Then just $12.99/mo. until canceled.”
Then it says,
“Click Here to Learn More”
– though if you do, you won’t learn more about the offer. You’ll get several minutes of promo about an “award-winning early learning academy for kids ages 2 through 8” …“over ten thousand activities”… “you see learning – your child sees fun!”… “your child will never run out of things to do”… “fill in your info and let your adventure begin.” Plus, no ads.
This Gyosai print “depicts money-bearing mice being welcomed into the house of Daikoku, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune.”
What happens if you “let your adventure begin” and then you wish to end your adventure? Maybe your kids don’t like it. Maybe it doesn’t let you log on and you can’t get customer support to respond. Maybe you think it’s too game-y and not educational enough. Maybe it bugs you AND YOUR KID that when your kid “earns a ticket” and goes to spend it in the “store” it turns out there’s a “boys’ store” and a separate “girls’ store.” (No leggings for you, sonny!) Maybe you feel that the music video about the letter B is appallingly sexist.
Whatever, you can stop paying for it any time.
Yet no. People were finding that cancellation was impossible. If they signed up for, say, a 6-month membership, it was renewed whether they agreed or no. When people noticed that they kept being charged, they might try to cancel – ha! Same with the 12-month membership, or the “Free 30-day trial” membership. It was easy to sign up and very very very hard to stop.
People called to cancel, or emailed to cancel – NOPE, you have to do it online. Online, they went through a “lengthy and confusing process” to cancel – yet the charges kept coming. So we’re talking a few soreheads too careless to jump through the required hoops? Actually, we’re talking HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of soreheads, who did jump through the hoops, and still didn’t get their memberships canceled.
FTC building in Washington, D.C.
It was so bad that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s Bureau of Consumer Protection got involved. They filed an Order for Permanent Injunction and Monetary Judgment. That meant payments totaling nearly $10 million to 206,814 people. That was in September 2020.
The FTC’s Andrew Smith said, “ABCmouse didn’t clearly tell parents that their subscriptions would renew automatically, and then the company made it very difficult for them to cancel.” ABCmouse “failed to provide consumers with a simple way to stop the automatic renewals, despite promising ‘Easy Cancellation’ at the time of enrollment. … consumers who tried to cancel by calling or emailing ABCmouse or submitting a customer support form were instead required to negotiate a lengthy and confusing process that often prevented many consumers from being able to complete their cancellations.
“In some cases, even consumers who completed the full cancellation process later discovered recurring charges for services they thought they had cancelled… between 2015 and 2018, hundreds of thousands of consumers who visited the ABCmouse cancellation path nevertheless remained subscribed.”
FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra issued a statement saying this was “disappointing” and went on to speak of deceptive “dark patterns” and “dirty dealing” and finally said “roach motel.” As in the Black Flag insecticidal product that promises “Roaches check in… but they don’t check out.” We think the FTC is not likening consumers to roaches, but rather is likening misleading corporate policies to toxic trickery.
No phone, no pool, no pets. Also? Ain’t got no cigarettes.
So the FTC collected the big settlement from ABCmouse and sent refunds to all the cheated customers it identified.
Surely ABCmouse was apologetic? Surely they abased themselves? Ehhh, not so much. According to The Markup, a newsroom which reports on Big Tech, the company Age of Learning, which owns ABCmouse (also ReadingIQ and Adventure Academy), emailed, “The facts do not support the FTC’s broad claims, and the vast majority of ABCmouse customers are highly satisfied with their memberships. While we cannot comment on litigation, we want every family to have a great experience with ABCmouse and regret any confusion that any subscriber may have had.”
TERRIBLE statement. Not an actual apology. It uses the classic dodge, beloved of corporations and politicians, of saying they REGRET the bad thing, but taking zero responsibility for it. They blame those ‘confused’ families for thinking there was a problem. Problems. Hundreds of thousands of problems. You’d think a company that teaches children how to use language would be able to transact business with clarity – unless… is it possible?… they don’t mind making more money by cheating people. It’s a side hustle! (And why can’t they comment on litigation? Litigation that has been concluded?)
We said it before, and we’ll surely need to say it again: regret is not apology. Anyone can regret a sad or bad thing – those who caused it, those who experienced it, those who witnessed it, those who are only reading about it now. It’s a shame that happened! How regrettable! Those poor people!
For example, Sumac regrets that people were cheated and frustrated and given the run-around, some of them for years, while Age of Learning and ABCmouse enjoyed the use of their money – but I am not responsible and THEY ARE. They should be saying more than “regret.”
Doug Dohring.
SorryWatch, finding the integrity of ABCmouse doubtful, started to worry about data the company is amassing on families who use its products. Poking around, we learned that ABCmouse belongs to Age of Learning, which is run by big-wheel Scientologists Laurie and Doug Dohring. That didn’t reassure us. We don’t know enough about how Scientology retains its members to say whether there’s any similarity.
Also, poking around, we learned that there are STILL people getting billed after trying to get away. Pissed Consumer‘s graphs indicate that the top two complaint issues are activation/cancellation and payments and charges.
Sounds like it’s time to get the FTC back on the case.
When the FTC’s away, the mice will play
Back in 1973, Temple University got caught in a “negative option” student health insurance scam. Turned out that some University people made an illegal sweetheart deal with Zurich-American group. The Pennsylvania Insurance Department put a stop to it.
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“Temple uses ‘Negative Option'” by Terry Taylor [Philadelphia Inquirer, 16 September 1973, page 3-C]:
Temple University students won’t have to join a book or a record club to get a taste of what a “negative option” gimmick is.
Under “negative option” a person is given so much time to return a product or he automatically becomes obligated to pay for it.
At Temple this year, this option would apply to student insurance coverage. Students are already receiving forms in the mail about the policy offered by the Zurich- American insurance group. If a student does not return the form to the university by Sept. 30, indicating that he does not want the policy, he automatically becomes the owner of the $30 plan.
“The only reason we’re doing this is to get some sort of compliance from the students and better participation in the program. Before, nil they did was look at the form and throw it out,” explained l’niversity Insurance Manager George A. Reese.
In the past, according to Reese, the university received only about 1,200 replies from an anticipated 10,000 student insurance participants.
Although he claims the university doesn’t make a cent from premiums on the student insurance plan, Reese claimed the “automatic owner” move was initiated because “past performance was so poor insurance companies weren’t willing to come in here to • offer student insurance rates.”
Temple Student Senate Chairman Scott Becker said he was “outraged by the university’s move to recruit more insurance participants, and said the Senate would take legal action to rescind the university’s move, if it had to.
Becker said he would also take issue with the university’s plan to restrict a student from registering for the spring semester if the $30 insurance bill is not paid.
“I know I don’t need their insurance policy. A lot of my mail gets mixed up because I have my own apartment and house. And I don’t want them to tell me around registration time that I can’t register because I don’t pay for my Insurance policy,” Becker said.
Reese, on the other hand, said he “didn’t see what was so hard about checking a box and mailing the form back.”
Furthermore, he claimed, a student is prevented from registering anytime a bill is unpaid.
Reese added that the insurance will be negotiable for some students depending on how good their excuse is, “but they’ll have to do some explaining to get off the hook.”
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That sounds very… educational. Though not in a good way.