Dark patterns self-audit

1. What we checked

On 6 November 2026 we read finding a trek, its page, signing in, checkout and payment, the ticket, cancelling, credit and refunds, your profile, and every notice and email we send a traveller, against all thirteen patterns the guidelines describe: false urgency, basket sneaking, confirm shaming, forced action, subscription traps, interface interference, bait and switch, drip pricing, disguised advertisements, nagging, trick questions, SaaS billing and rogue malware.

2. What we found

Eight things to change, and about twenty sentences on the site, the ticket and our terms that had stopped being true. Among them:

• a trek you can only ask the organizer about, which still said “sold out” and “taxes included” as if it were sold here;
• a closing time that could be moved later after its countdown had been shown;
• being taken to your profile after booking, because you had left out an optional address;
• a cancel screen that did not name the money-back charge, and did not show the credit that comes back beside your money;
• refund rows that said “under 24 hours” when they ran by the day, and two rows that both claimed the same day.

One more was not a dark pattern but mattered more: when we suspended an organizer for safety, a departure leaving later that same day was treated as already gone, and its travellers were not called off as we promise. Every one was changed by 7 November 2026.

Our earlier audits, in September and October 2026, found five things and nine, among them a cancel screen that chose credit for you and a payment step that booked what the request named rather than what was paid for. Each was changed by 2 October 2026.

3. What we hold ourselves to

• Every number you see is real. Seats left, seats being booked and the time left to book come from live bookings, with any seats an organizer tells us they sold themselves. We never show “filling fast”, a count of people viewing, or a timer that is not a real deadline.
• A price we show on a trek booked here is a price you can book at, and checkout adds nothing to it. On a trek marked Enquiry the price is the organizer’s own, and you agree it with them.
• No box starts ticked, and nothing goes into a booking you did not choose.
• Where a choice has your money in it — credit or a refund — both options carry the same weight, and nothing is chosen for you. When we ask you to choose because a departure was called off or a payment could not be used, and you do not, you are refunded.
• Anything we send that is not about a booking, a refund or your money can be turned off, on your profile.
• What a trek page says about the trek is its organizer’s own statement. The guidelines bind organizers too, as sellers.

4. The next audit

Before 6 November 2027. This page will say what it found.

5. Tell us

If something on TrexHive looks like it is pushing you into a choice, write to support@trexhive.in. Complaints go to Harshal Madgulkar, our grievance officer, who answers within 30 days.

Certified on 7 November 2026 for TrexHive Technologies LLP, which trades as TrexHive. LLPIN ADD-8323, registered with limited liability.