Dark patterns examples: eight tricks and the cases that named them

A dark pattern is a design choice that steers you into something you didn’t mean to do. A button that joins you to a subscription. A timer that resets. A box ticked before you got there. Here are eight dark patterns examples, and for each one a case where a regulator named it, dated it and put a number on it.

I picked the eight that a small online business can slip into without anyone deciding to. A plugin default or a copied checkout template is enough. The cases come from the FTC in the US, the CMA in the UK and the ACM in the Netherlands, and every one links to the authority’s own page.

What a dark pattern is

The name comes from designers. No law uses it. The FTC’s staff report of September 2022, Bringing Dark Patterns to Light, examined how dark patterns can obscure, subvert, or impair consumer choice and decision-making. It grouped them into four kinds: designs that mislead, designs that make cancelling hard, designs that bury terms and fees, and designs that steer people into giving up data.

Regulators apply the rules they already have, on misleading and aggressive practices, to the way a screen is built. What follows is how that has gone, one pattern at a time. The first four are about the price. The second four are about the subscription.

Four dark patterns examples around the price

1. Fake countdown

A timer says the offer ends in 09:59. Reload the page and it says 09:59 again.

In the UK, Emma Sleep admitted to the CMA that it had used misleading countdown timers and false high-demand messages on its website, and a High Court order of 22 May 2026 confirmed the CMA’s position. The company gave undertakings to the court to stop.

In the Netherlands, the ACM fined Epic Games €562,500 on 14 May 2024 because the Fortnite Item Shop showed countdown timers on items that were still available after the timer reached zero. A second €562,500 fine covered “Get it now” style appeals aimed at children.

2. Drip pricing

The first price leaves out a charge everyone has to pay, and the charge appears a step or two later.

On 15 April 2026 the CMA ordered the AA and BSM driving schools to pay a £4.2 million penalty and refund more than 80,000 learners. A mandatory £3 booking fee appeared only at checkout, after people had picked their lessons and entered their details. The refunds came to more than £760,000.

I’ve written a whole post on this one, with the UK and US rules and a five-minute check: drip pricing, and how to show your full price.

3. Pre-ticked boxes

An extra is already selected when the customer arrives. Insurance, a recycling service, a membership. They have to notice it to remove it.

On 18 June 2026 the CMA fined Marks Electrical £720,000 for pre-selecting paid add-ons on large appliances, old-appliance removal and packaging recycling, between April and November 2025. Nearly 40,000 customers were affected and around £600,000 is going back to them, about £15 each. The company admitted it and settled early for a 40% reduction.

The CMA’s Emma Cochrane: The law is absolutely clear that automatically opting customers into extra charges is never ok.

4. Hidden costs

A fee that is never shown in the total, or is shown somewhere the customer isn’t looking.

On 2 July 2026 the FTC announced that the travel app Hopper would pay $35 million for refunds. The FTC alleged that a “Tip” fee and a VIP Support fee were pre-selected and sat on a screen users reached only by scrolling down, while the total on the booking screen left them out. Hopper’s marketing said “no hidden fees”. The complaint quotes a Hopper employee: To me, the problem here is that we’re tricking users.

Hidden costs and drip pricing are cousins. The US rules on them are in junk fees: what the FTC and the states have done.

Four more around the subscription

5. Confirmshaming

The decline option is worded to make you feel foolish for declining. “No thanks, I like paying full price.”

The named case is Amazon Prime. On 25 September 2025 the FTC announced a $2.5 billion settlement: a $1 billion civil penalty and $1.5 billion in refunds to about 35 million people. The FTC had alleged that Amazon enrolled people in Prime without their consent and made cancelling hard. The order requires a clear, prominent button to decline Prime, and the FTC’s own example of what has to go is a button that says “No, I don’t want Free Shipping”.

The FTC’s chairman, Andrew Ferguson, said Amazon used sophisticated subscription traps designed to manipulate consumers into enrolling in Prime. An internal Amazon document quoted in the release called subscription driving “a bit of a shady world”.

6. Roach motel

Easy to check in, hard to check out. Signing up takes one tap. Cancelling takes a phone call during office hours.

In September 2025 the FTC announced that Chegg would pay $7.5 million to settle allegations that it gave subscribers no simple way to cancel auto-renewing plans. The FTC said that since October 2020 nearly 200,000 people were charged after asking to cancel. The proposed order requires a cancellation path as simple as the sign-up.

Amazon’s cancel flow was the other half of its case. The FTC’s 2023 announcement put it in one line: The primary purpose of its Prime cancellation process was not to enable subscribers to cancel, but to stop them.

7. Forced continuity

A free trial turns into a paid plan without a clear moment of agreement, or the charge lands before the trial is over.

On 21 April 2025 the FTC sued Uber over Uber One. It alleges that some customers were charged before their free trial ended, despite a promise they could cancel at no cost during it, and that cancelling could take up to 23 screens and 32 actions. These are allegations. The case is in court and nothing has been decided.

Ferguson’s line on it: Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel.

8. Trick questions

A question or a button laid out so that the obvious tap does the opposite of what the person meant.

The FTC’s case against Epic Games is the clearest example. On 19 December 2022 Epic agreed to pay $245 million in refunds over what the FTC called a “counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration” in Fortnite. A single press could trigger a purchase: while waking the game from sleep, during a loading screen, or while previewing an item. The order bars Epic from using dark patterns to charge people and from charging without affirmative consent.

A trick question doesn’t need a game controller. “Untick this box if you don’t want to not receive emails” is the same thing in a form.

Who is responsible for stopping dark patterns

Consumer regulators, one country at a time, using rules that predate the phrase.

• In the US, the FTC acts under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which covers unfair or deceptive practices, and under the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act for subscriptions. Amazon, Chegg, Uber, Hopper and Epic are all Section 5 cases.
• In the UK, the CMA has been able to fine directly since 6 April 2025. The AA and Marks Electrical penalties above were made under those powers. Emma Sleep went the older way, through the court.
• In the EU, each country’s authority applies the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. The ACM’s Epic decision is one; Italy’s AGCM and Poland’s UOKiK have made others on timers, and they’re in the EU-12 Handbook article.

In seven of the eight lead cases the company settled or admitted. In three of them, Amazon, Hopper and Epic, the regulator pointed to the company’s own staff or records raising the problem before anyone outside did.

Check your own checkout from your phone

Nothing to install. Use a phone, because that’s where most of your customers are.

1. Open your pricing or product page and note the first price you see. Walk to the payment step, choosing the cheapest option each time. If the total grew, find out what grew it.
2. Look at every box on the checkout. Anything ticked before you touched it is a pre-ticked box. Untick it in the settings, not just for this order.
3. Find any timer or “only 3 left” message. Reload the page. Open it in a private window. If it resets or never changes, it’s a fake countdown.
4. Read every button that declines something. “No thanks” is fine. Anything longer than that is probably talking to the customer’s conscience.
5. Start a free trial as a customer, if you offer one. Write down when the first charge lands and whether a date and a price were on screen when you agreed.
6. Cancel. Count the taps. Compare it with how many taps joining took.
7. Scroll the final screen all the way down. Anything below the fold that costs money should be above it, in the total.

Peeky reads the public pages of your site. For timers, counters and prices that grow during checkout, the checks are EU-12, UK-14 and US-08 in the Handbook.

Questions people ask

What is meant by dark pattern?

A design choice that steers people into something they didn't mean to do: a purchase, a subscription, a tick in a box. The FTC's 2022 staff report looked at how such designs obscure, subvert, or impair consumer choice and decision-making. Regulators also call them deceptive design or manipulative design.

What is the dark pattern of confirmshaming?

A decline option written to make you feel bad for declining. The FTC's 2025 settlement with Amazon gives the example: the company can no longer have a button that says, 'No, I don't want Free Shipping'. The plain version is 'No thanks'.

What is a roach motel dark pattern?

Easy to get in, hard to get out. The FTC's 2025 case against Chegg alleged that subscribers had no simple way to cancel and that nearly 200,000 people were charged after asking to. Chegg agreed to pay $7.5 million for refunds.

Who is responsible for stopping dark patterns?

Consumer regulators, country by country. In the US it's the FTC under Section 5 of the FTC Act; in the UK the CMA, which since April 2025 can fine directly; in the EU national authorities such as the Dutch ACM, which fined Epic Games in 2024. The rest is up to the people who build the page.