Dark-pattern self-audit

Elevox AI Services Private Limited has audited this website against the thirteen specified dark patterns listed in Annexure 1 of the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023, issued by the Central Consumer Protection Authority.

We declare that this website does not employ any of the thirteen specified dark patterns. The findings for each one — including those that do not apply to a business of this kind — are set out below.

This audit was carried out on 26 August 2026 and covers every page of this site, the enrolment flow and the payment flow. It is repeated whenever the enrolment or payment experience changes.

False urgency Not used

Stating or implying that something is scarce or time-limited when it is not, to rush a decision.

Seat counts on this site are read from the database at the moment the page is built, and they are the real numbers.

Two deliberate choices go further than accuracy. No seat count is shown until a session is genuinely filling — "20 of 20 seats left" on a session nobody has booked is a countdown dressed up as information, so we say nothing and show the early-bird price instead. The count appears once a cohort is at least half sold, which is the point it starts describing a room that is filling rather than an empty one. A date that is full, or whose last seat is in someone's checkout, is always said plainly whatever the count. And seats held by people currently in the payment window are disclosed, not hidden: you will see "12 seats left (2 in checkout)" rather than a quietly smaller number, because a held seat may well be released again in half an hour and you are entitled to know that is what you are looking at.

There is no countdown timer anywhere on this site, and no "N people are viewing this" counter.

Basket sneaking Not used

Adding items, charges, donations or services to the total without the buyer choosing them.

Checkout buys exactly one thing: one seat, on one date, for one named programme. There is no basket, no add-on, no insurance, no donation and no default extra of any kind. The screen immediately before payment lists what you are buying, the date, the venue and the amount.

Confirm shaming Not used

Using guilt, shame or ridicule to push someone into a choice — usually in the wording of the decline option.

Where this site asks you to choose, both options are stated plainly and neither is framed as a mistake. The cookie choice offers Decline and Accept at the same size, the same weight and the same prominence, each one click. Declining is not called "No thanks, I don't want to learn" or anything of that kind.

Forced action Not used

Requiring a purchase, a sign-up, or the sharing of information in order to do something unrelated.

You can read every page on this site — programmes, syllabus, prices, dates, policies — without an account and without an email address.

One thing does have to be dismissed, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise: the cookie choice is a dialog that asks for an answer before you carry on browsing. It is one click either way, Decline is exactly as easy as Accept, and it appears once. We think an insistent ask beats a banner that lingers and loads a tracker while you ignore it — but it is a required action, and this row would be dishonest if it claimed nothing on the site had one.

The policy pages are exempt. This page, and terms, refunds, privacy, cookies and shipping, never show that dialog. You must be able to read the refund policy before you decide to pay, and making that conditional on answering a question about an advertising pixel would be the exact pattern this row is about.

Two other things are genuinely required, and only where they are the point: a WhatsApp number, because that is how we send your seat confirmation and it has to be a number that works; and payment, because a seat is a paid thing. Neither unlocks anything unrelated.

Subscription trap Not applicable

Making a subscription easy to start and hard to stop, or auto-renewing without clear consent.

Nothing on this site is a subscription. Every purchase is a single payment for a single session, there is no auto-renewal, no stored mandate and no recurring charge. There is nothing to cancel because nothing continues.

Interface interference Not used

Designing the interface to obscure important information or to steer a choice — hidden options, misleading visuals, buried settings.

The seat progress bar fills to exactly the proportion sold. It previously had a minimum visible width so that a single sale still showed something, which meant one seat out of a hundred painted the same picture as six — a true number rendered as a false image. That minimum was removed: a bar that is almost invisible because almost nothing has sold is the bar telling the truth.

No checkbox on this site is pre-ticked, including the ones we would rather you ticked. Cancellation terms sit on the payment screen itself, not behind a link you are unlikely to open.

Bait and switch Not used

Advertising one outcome and delivering a different one.

The price shown on a programme card is the price charged at checkout, including when a particular date is priced differently from the programme's usual rate — every surface reads the same figure from the same place. What is advertised is a three-hour in-person session at a stated address, on a stated date, and that is what is sold.

Drip pricing Not used

Revealing parts of the price late, so the amount rises as the buyer moves through checkout.

The advertised price is the total. There is no convenience fee, no booking fee, no platform fee and no payment-method surcharge. The company is not GST-registered, so no tax is added at checkout either. The amount on the payment screen is the amount on the card statement.

Disguised advertisement Not applicable

Presenting an advertisement as editorial content, user reviews or organic recommendation.

This site carries no third-party advertising and no sponsored placements. Everything on it is our own material, published as our own.

Where we quote an outside statistic, the publisher and the year are printed next to it so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Nagging Not used

Repeated interruptions — pop-ups, prompts and requests — that persist after being declined.

There is no newsletter pop-up, no exit-intent overlay and no notification request. The cookie choice is asked once: decline it and it is not asked again, on any page, on any later visit.

Trick question Not used

Wording a question or option confusingly — double negatives, mismatched labels — so people choose against their intent.

Every consent on this site is a plain positive statement that means what it says when ticked: "I've read and accept the terms and the cancellation & refund policy", and "I'm 18 or older". No double negatives, no opt-out phrased as an opt-in.

SaaS billing Not applicable

Extracting recurring payments from a business user through hidden or automatic billing.

We do not sell software and we bill nothing on a recurring basis. Where an employer books several seats, that is a single invoice for a stated number of seats, agreed in advance.

Rogue malware Not applicable

Software that misrepresents itself, or an ad-serving service that damages or misleads.

This site distributes no software and serves no third-party advertising. Payments are handled by Razorpay on their own hosted checkout; card details are never entered on, or seen by, this site.

We disclose seats held in checkout. When someone is part-way through paying, that seat is unavailable to you — but it is not sold, and it may come back. Most sites either count it as sold or ignore it. We show it as its own number, because both of the simpler answers tell you something that is not quite true.

We say nothing rather than say something technically true. A session that nobody has booked shows no seat count at all. The number would be accurate and the impression it creates would not be, and we would rather lose the nudge than trade on it.

If any part of this site pressured, confused or misled you, we want to know — that is a defect, and specific examples are far more useful to us than general ones.

Write to Navin G., Grievance Officer, at grievance@elevox.ai, or message +91 87676 12720 on WhatsApp. We acknowledge every complaint within 48 hours and aim to resolve it within one month.

You may also complain directly to the Central Consumer Protection Authority through the National Consumer Helpline (1915) or at consumerhelpline.gov.in. Nothing on this page limits your rights under the Consumer Protection Act 2019.