FlyUs Dark Patterns

November 23, 2022 — Jason

Out of all the things most people don't need, weird and shitty companies are needed the least. And you know what really pisses me off about them? The fact that they're in love with deliberately misleading UI patterns—these grimy peddlers brought from the searchy depths by Google's humanity-devoid decision making process.

I had the 'pleasure' of encountering some dark patterns when buying a ticket a few days ago with some weird company recommended through Google Flights called FlyUs, surprise surprise.

There were a couple of other options:

  • Crystal Travel (is it because their server infra is so fragile?)
  • Trip(off a cliff).com
  • OneTravel
  • FlightHub
  • JustFly

    • --> use your imagination and imagine their ugly-ass logo here

These few were in similar company as in: the other companies listed sounded like business buzzwords read off a GPT-3 example prompt.

The Dark Patterns in Question

The first annoyance began at the outset. This entire shitty website seemed to be designed to extract as much money from the consumer as possible.

"OH AUTHOR!" you proclaim, "That's the nature of business you moron! You rube! Don't you understand Capitalism and by extension freedom! Don't you Milton Friedman?! Don't you and capitalism and its incredible utility and and and—" OK, damn bro, you got me. Even the most obviously exploitative firm can't be this scummy though can they? Let's count how many 'insurance/support/safety' packages they offer:

  1. ChoOse YoUR LeVeL oF SuPPorT! They claim.
    • "Enhance your level of customer service to suit your needs! Don't let the stress of traveling take the fun out of your trip. Fly with enhanced piece of mind and upgrade your service level."
    • The most 'basic' option $0.00* (<- with a fucking asterisk even for that!? That costs are per passenger, of course it is) tells you that the Flyus (btw the capitalisation is inconsistent even in their shit website) is $75.00 fee for schedule change handling...and and additional $50.00 fee for changing or cancelling your flight. So there's a fee to handle your flight cancellation or changing fee? A fee for a fee. Fee-ception.
    • The *premium* option for $29.95 ooh lala. Reduced flyus fees for change and cancellation $25.00, ok, so you pay $30 bucks but at least there's no schedule change handl— "Reduced flyus fees for schedule change handling $25.00" BAM right in your face, you thought you could get away with not paying the venerable schedule change handling fee?
      • So not only is this written in a different order but the wording states that there is a reduced fee of $25...reduced from the initial fee of $75 for the schedule change handling + changing cancelling flight, or has it now been reduced to $25 in total? I have a sneaking suspicion that it's probably not the latter.
    • The *ULTRA* fee option for $49.99 WOW! I wonder what it could be: waive all fees, free cancellation within 24 hours of booking (NOT 24 hours before your flight...) dedicated customer service, jump ahead of the phone queue. What a steal.

  2. Ok onto the gold badged Best Purchase Guarantee box. Only $9.99 (cue extremely small font: per passenger.)!!! Now what could this possibly be: "provides extended cancellation benefits. Book now, cancel your flight for any reason within 24 hours !" Then what in the flying fuck is the Ultra for?
    • What if you order both, does the CEO of this definitely-not-fake-and-weird company drop a glitter bomb on your front porch?

  3. And that's all he wrot—JUST KIDDING! Next is the *~Flexible Booking~*™ $60.94 per passenger option, or "No thanks, I will take the risk", typical scummy anti-consumer response but oooook.  
    "Rebook for Free! Avoid all Airline and Flyus rebooking fees and penalties with our flexible booking feature. Need to change your dates? No problem, we will rebook your ticket at no additional cost (minus fare difference, if any)"
    • ??? The flight cost like $300 something odd dollars, what the hell is this cost?

  4. Refundable Booking. ANOTHER booking fee monstrosity.
    "Upgrade your booking and receive a 100% refund if you cannot attend and can evidence one of the many reasons in our Terms and Conditions, which you accept when you select a Refundable Booking"
    "View complete terms and conditions and evidence"
    • Ok so this is the real™ refundable booking fee. The list of refundable reasons: positive PCR Test, Private Vehicle Failure, Illness, Public Transport Failure, etc. And how much is this optional free? $40.63 per passenger :) hehe another fee after you've chosen your three other optional fees that you thought covered refunding your booking hehe.
    • Oh yea guess what too: "Service cost is not included in refund". What's the service cost? Who knows.
    • And what the hell is refundable dot me? Sketchy ass site.
  • So that's four packages. Later on after putting your info in it harasses you again—if I remember—to get one of the optional fee packages,  does anyone expect anything different at this point?
Refundable dot Moi?

For interest I checked what happens if you do a quick domain enumeration w/ amass and the like on refundable.me, I wanted to check if it shared any dns info with this FlyCrap site, or maybe all the scam-sites are in a citizen's united centipede.

Only a few things came of interest: gfny.refundable.me among some random info on Azurewebsites and Cloudflare and Amazon ASN blocks they seem to be on. That gfny seems to redirect to some typeform site for what I believe is some bike racing thing in Costa Rica. Also I checked flyus.com, there's an ASN in use for one of their things called Choopa(?), never heard of it.

This sounds like the start of some sort of investigation but it isn't, just wanted to check some stuff out.

The Dark Pattern Strikes Back

On top of the pile of optional 'packages' there was a fun surprise at the end of the purchasing process. Before continuing after purchasing to the summary, the site stops you dead in your tracks and throws up a modal with no exit button practically begging for a review with what I think was TrustedPilot(?).

Take a wild guess what happens if you put one-star? A unskippable list of things they grill you on to figure out why you hated being shamed into buying $100+ of 'packages'. Remember: no exit button to get to your summary.

While I was hiding elements to see how to get past the spam modal the exit button suddenly appeared, maybe I took too long to do what they wanted? Or maybe I willed it into existence hmm.

Companies Suck

That's really all I needed to say about this, I couldn't believe how shitty the whole experience was. As everyone not sucking the teet of capitalism knows companies are getting more brazen with being exploitative. Plus, fuck Google for even having these companies in their roster of places to buy tickets. Most companies are run by sociopaths if it wasn't obvious, when do we get a better future without every company ripping everyone off? Hopefully soon.

 

I've reported the site to Dark Patterns Tipline. Anyone else finding dark patterns DO YOUR PART.

Tags: travel, darkpatterns, ui