Speaking of Facebash... er Facebook

[Xairbusdriver]

Do you know what Dark Patterns means? The term was coined a few years ago by Harry Brignull. It is designing the user interface that tricks you into doing something you may actually want to, but it benefits the business. He also calls this design a "Roach Hotel"; something very easy to get into but very hard to get out, without help.

Here's a brief YouTube vid that demonstrates the concept and how to avoid getting into that 'hotel'!

[jcarter]

That is a super explanation, thank you!

Ive never considered using a VPN, is it advisable?

Had this happen with the old yearbook classmates site and had to finally get thru by phone.
They were bought by another company and charged people for things we did not order.
They went under eventually, but I got my $ back thru PayPal.

And another way I got caught many years ago, was with Haband dot com, ordering some fleece shirts. I moused over some advertisement on the bottom side of the page, or it could have been a 'free shipping option'. And found on my credit card bill a charge for them for $10 which was totally separate from the actual order, called a something 'club'. I Googled it, and found it was happening to many people.  I finally got a phone number for them and demanded an explanation. They refunded my $10 immediately. I found the parent company who owned Haband and managed to get a phone # for them and told them the story and gave them the links to this scam.

[jchuzi]

I had an interesting issue with my local newspaper, Kingston Daily Freeman. They started to limit the number of articles that you could read per month and wanted a monthly subscription fee. That was not a problem; I do that with the NY Times. Unfortunately, even after signing up and having the fee automatically charged to a credit card, I was unable to get those articles. Tech Support was no help, and they didn't call me back when I asked for their IT department. It was impossible to change my method of payment via my account, not to mention that it was not possible to opt out.

Ultimately, after consulting with the bank that issued the credit card, I cancelled the card and got a new number. Now, I no longer pay for the service that I could not get in the first place.

[jcarter]

I had to do this also, credit card cancelled ours and sent new ones asap.
For a different reason however, our post office is so shorthanded that many of us are missing important mail.
I never got the first new cards, and had to do it all over again. Months gone by, none of that mail ever showed up, friends having the same problem.