Rouvy subscription darkness
I regret that I ever signed up for Rouvy. The darkest patterns I have seen on any software that I thought I could trust.
I tried Rouvy out for a few months, but although I liked the idea of the app, it didn’t fit the way I was exercising / riding.
However, that wasn’t the problem. It’s their subscription and cancellation process that is the worst I have experienced in years.
Subscribing was challenging, and a confusing process from what I recall many months ago.
Rouvy’s cancellation process is very dark. I thought I had cancelled a few months ago, but recently saw a charge on my card. I logged in again and found that I had missed a hidden additional step buried in the page. I can see online that I’m not the only one.
Then, it got worse. So then, being aware that the site follows dark patterns, I carefully ensured that I could press every button to ensure that I could get through to the end of the cancellation process. Each time I tried, there were multiple failure points after the first cancel button, where the website stalled with an oops message. I had to try two different browsers multiple times before I could finally get to the end of the process. It took the better part of an hour.
It was the most frustrating cancellation I have ever experienced, and the darkest pattern I have seen in something that looked reputable.
I wish they would just compete on features rather than treat us like idiots and steal our money with dishonesty. But I guess it worked. They got money monthly payments from me. They stole my money for months and all of their policies blame it on me being stupid because I couldn’t cancel properly. I was stupid for ever signing up in the first place.
My wife said I should just email them, but this already took so much time and based on their patterns, I have no expectation that they would really change their process. So I thought I’d just post.