In November 2025, the Indian government published a list of 26 companies it called exemplary for conducting voluntary internal self-audits to check their platforms for dark patterns, the deceptive design tricks that manipulate users into doing things they did not intend to do.
MakeMyTrip was on that list. The company's declaration to regulators stated that it was at the forefront of implementing the consumer protection guidelines and that it works continuously to guard against any inadvertent dark pattern.
One month later, in December 2025, a former MakeMyTrip software engineer posted in an online forum. According to the Morpheus Research short-seller report published on March 30, 2026, the post read: "Many projects here are designed to extract as much value from customers as possible. The company still survives mainly due to its first-mover advantage; otherwise, it would have struggled significantly long ago. In the codebase, you will find dark patterns, similar to what has been exposed in companies like Zepto. MMT has not been caught yet."
The same post contained a specific admission. When another user in the forum mentioned the dark patterns that sell trip insurance on MakeMyTrip, the former engineer confirmed: "I coded some of those dark patterns that sell you insurance."
The company that told regulators its platform was clean. The engineer who coded what he called dark patterns. These two statements sit in direct contradiction, and the Morpheus Research report places both of them side by side.
What Are Dark Patterns and Why Does India Care
The Central Consumer Protection Authority of India defines dark patterns as any platform practice or deceptive design meant to mislead or trick users into doing something they originally did not intend to do. In November 2023, the Indian government issued formal guidelines prohibiting 13 specific types of dark patterns. In June 2025, it issued a further advisory instructing all online service providers to conduct mandatory self-audits within three months.
The guidelines were a direct response to a growing body of consumer complaints about practices that have become standard on many Indian digital platforms, including hidden fees that only appear at checkout, fake urgency prompts, pre-ticked add-on boxes, and insurance products described as mandatory when they are legally optional.
MakeMyTrip declared itself compliant. Its former engineer said otherwise.
The Insurance Dark Pattern - How It Works
Morpheus Research documents the specific insurance dark pattern in detail, drawing on social media posts, former employee admissions, and its own booking tests.
The practice works as follows. A customer books a flight on MakeMyTrip. After completing the booking and paying, MakeMyTrip sends a WhatsApp message to the customer stating that trip insurance is mandatory. The message is designed to look like an official travel requirement. Multiple Reddit users have posted screenshots of these messages, with one calling it a scam by MakeMyTrip. Another user posted their own screenshot showing the mandatory claim and described being tricked into purchasing insurance they did not need or want.
The insurance is not mandatory. It has never been mandatory. Indian aviation regulations do not require trip insurance for domestic or international flights. MakeMyTrip's own terms and conditions do not make it mandatory. The word mandatory in the WhatsApp message is, according to Morpheus Research's reading of the evidence, a deliberate misrepresentation designed to induce a purchase.
A former software engineer at MakeMyTrip confirmed this in the online forum post cited by Morpheus. The dark patterns in the codebase that sell insurance are not accidental design decisions or inadvertent consumer harms of the kind the company told regulators it was guarding against. They were coded deliberately by engineers working on projects designed to extract as much value from customers as possible.
The Cab Booking Dark Pattern
Morpheus Research documents a second dark pattern involving car bookings that operates on similar principles. MakeMyTrip sends messages to customers claiming it has already booked a cab for them upon landing at an airport. The customers never requested a cab. They never booked a cab. The message is designed to trick travellers into believing a booking exists that they then need to confirm or manage, directing them toward MakeMyTrip's preferred car booking partners.
A LinkedIn user highlighted by Morpheus specifically named MakeMyTrip as a leader in innovating new dark patterns, with the airport cab message as the primary example. The post showed a screenshot of MakeMyTrip claiming to have pre-booked airport transport for a traveller who had made no such request.
The Drip Pricing Practice
The third dark pattern Morpheus documents in detail is drip pricing, the practice of showing a low headline price that increases by the time the customer reaches the payment page. Morpheus Research investigators tested this themselves, attempting to book a flight from New York to New Delhi on MakeMyTrip. The initial price shown was $2,205. By the final checkout page, the price had become $2,232. The increase was a convenience fee of $27.23, equivalent to approximately Rs 2,500, which was not visible at any point in the booking process until the payment screen.
The Indian government's dark pattern guidelines specifically identify drip pricing as a prohibited practice. The convenience fee that appears only at checkout is the textbook definition of the practice the guidelines were designed to prevent.
By contrast, Booking.com displays a no hidden fees message throughout its booking process, stating that the price visible at every step is the price the customer will pay.
The 3X Refund Scam
The fourth dark pattern Morpheus identifies is the Alternate Trip guarantee sold through MakeMyTrip's train booking platform RedBus. The product is marketed as providing a 3X Refund if a train ticket waitlist is not confirmed. The marketing materials make the 3X figure prominent and the terms and conditions that render it nearly worthless are buried in fine print not visible on the purchase page.
What MakeMyTrip does not prominently disclose is that Indian Railways already provides a full refund on unconfirmed waitlisted tickets as a standard policy at no extra cost. The 3X Refund add-on is therefore selling customers something they already receive for free, with an additional travel voucher component that carries a maximum value of Rs 6,000, cannot be used on all routes, expires within seven days, and is void if even a single ticket in a group booking is confirmed regardless of how many remain unconfirmed.
A former lead engineer at MakeMyTrip confirmed to Morpheus Research that the Alternate Trip product is a dark pattern, stating: "You promise 3X refund but it is not exactly the money that you're getting in hand."
Social media is saturated with complaints. Users across Reddit, Quora, X, and TripAdvisor have called the product a scam, an absolute sham, and worthless, with multiple users documenting that the voucher simply does not work for actual bookings despite the 3X Refund promise in the marketing materials.
The Study That Caught MakeMyTrip After Its Own Clean Declaration
In November 2025, the same month MakeMyTrip declared itself dark-pattern-free to the government, an independent study examined the platforms of all 26 companies that had submitted clean declarations. The study found that many of them, including MakeMyTrip, were still using dark patterns despite their declarations.
The government called these 26 companies exemplary. The independent study found dark patterns still operating on MakeMyTrip's platform. A former engineer confirmed he had coded them. And the company's own TrustPilot profile, which aggregates 1,816 customer reviews averaging 1.2 stars, features an AI summary that highlights considerable problems with refunds including long delays and the outright denial of refunds.
The gap between what MakeMyTrip tells regulators and what its former engineers, independent researchers, and customers document is the central allegation of Part 5 of Morpheus Research's report. The company said it was clean. The engineer said he coded the patterns. The customers said they were charged for mandatory insurance that was never mandatory.
One of these versions is accurate.
All allegations in this article are sourced from the Morpheus Research short-seller report on MakeMyTrip published March 30, 2026. Morpheus Research holds a short position in MakeMyTrip shares and profits if the stock price declines. MakeMyTrip has not responded to the report at time of publication. Business Upturn has not independently verified the allegations. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.