Amazon Prime Member Fee? Charged £48...

Former_MSE_Andrea

[title=http://images2.moneysavingexpert.com/images/dp/wtd_underline.gif] What's it about?
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If you've spotted a £47.97 charge on your bank statement or credit card bill with the words "Prime Member Fee" next to it and don't know where it's from, then it's likely you've inadvertently signed up for online retailer Amazon's One Month free trial of Amazon Prime.

Check back to see if you bought something from Amazon in the months prior to the charge. If at the time you ticked to get "free" delivery then by doing so you were taking up the free trial. If you're unsure check your past emails, you should have received reminder emails letting you know the trial was ending and how to cancel if you wished.


[title=http://images2.moneysavingexpert.com/images/dp/wtd_underline.gif] Why have I been charged for a trial?
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Once the month's up the annual fee is £47.98 so that sum will have been taken from your account. To ensure you don't pay a penny you need to cancel the service.


[title=http://images2.moneysavingexpert.com/images/dp/wtd_underline.gif] But isn't it too late to cancel?
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Provided you or any registered guests on the membership haven't made any eligible purchases then you can cancel at any time once the trial's finished and the full amount will be refunded.

To cancel, the quickest and easiest way is to go to the "Prime Settings" section of your Amazon account page and click the "Cancel membership" button. If you'd prefer to speak to someone in person to do it you can call Amazon's freephone customer service number on 0800 496 1081.

The refund should be in your account within two days.

If you're still within the trial period and want to cancel just click the "do not upgrade" button in your account's Prime Settings.


[title=http://images2.moneysavingexpert.com/images/dp/wtd_underline.gif] What exactly is Amazon Prime?
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Amazon Prime is a membership programme that gives you (and your family) unlimited one-day delivery for purchases that are eligible and express delivery every day except Sundays for an annual membership fee of £47.97.

Yet for many it's not worthwhile. Since you get free super saver delivery when you spend over £5 on Amazon anyway you'd need to buy an awful lot of sub-£5 DVDs or books one at a time to make the £48 annual cost worthwhile.

Read more about using the free trial to your advantage in the Amazon Prime Loophole forum note.


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[thanks]Thanks to MoneySaver joanne35 for starting this discussion!
This post has been inserted to give a detailed guide
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joanne35_2

hi i didnt know where to post this so thought this was as good a place as any!
i ordered a book from amazon months ago and thought nothing of it, well until i noticed 49 quid missing from my bank account a "prime member fee" that i apparently signed up to when i got the book delivered i am flamin raging i live on a minimum wage and was managing to scrape through the past couple of months i have 3 kids under 6 and am struggling for xmas and stuff as it is and since they took out this money i have 6 pound left in my account until next thurs when some money will go in!

has anyone else had any experience of this?

i have written of an email to them asking for my money back asap as i feel i was duped into this i received no correspondence from them to say they would be taking this money i feel they have been very under hand about it.

apparently if you havent used the service you are entitled to your money back so i havent so heres hoping !!

any advice would be grately appreciated.

joanne

deanos

Looks like you joined Amazon Prime Trial , after 30 days they charge £49 if you dont cancel.

Its not easy to sign up to it accidently you must have ticked a box somewhere , why not just ring them up rather than email they should sort you out quicker

edinburgh_lesley

Hi there,
The very same happened to me.
I was recredited the full amount as I hadnt ordered anything (therefore not using the service, as indicated in the help pages on amazon),
Goodluck .
lesley x

joanne35_2

thanks for replying i rang them and the money went into my account today!!

will have to be more careful in future lol

Takoda

Maybe you should thank Amazon joanne35 for sorting it out so promptly. There's a separate bit in the vent section for good service.

Amazon didn't actually do anything wrong. You signed up for a service and then either forgot to cancel/didn't read all the terms and therefore missed the fact that you needed to cancel it.

Not having a go at you BTW. I like Amazon and order a lot of stuff from them. I reckon it is a good service.

jimmy610

I agree that the service Amazon usually provides is pretty good. However....

I also got duped into taking out this so called Prime Member Fee. Now OK perhaps Amazon have not broken the letter of the law but surely they have broken the spirit of the law here.

I'm usually pretty savvy when it comes to buying stuff off t'internet and usually watch out for all these boxes to tick / not tick etc. I can honestly not recall seeing or knowingly signing up for this service so in my view it is a bit underhand of them.

The killer for me is that the first i see it is there is an entry on my bank statement for "Prime Member Fee ....£49". I hadn't a clue what it was. Despite phoning my bank they were unable to identify who the source company were - (in this case Amazon). The only way i found it was to google it and then i found these entries on this web page. Why can't they be up front and open about the transaction source?

I have since phoned Amazon and they have said they will cancel and refund.

My message to Amazon - concentrate on providing good quality goods and services to customers and forget about trying gimmicks such as Prime Member status to bolster revenues - otherwise you might find you don't have any customers!!

As for thanking Amazon - give me a break (re Takoda's slightly patronising note) - they should be thankful that i might even consider using them in future after this episode

deanos

As soon as you take the trial you can go into your account and select that it dosent renew once it ends, people forget so its not Amazons fault

custardy

for me its a fairly transparent service
especially as they dont make you jump through hoops to cancel/prevent renewal
they may have killed this service somewhat by dropping the supersaver limit to £5

deanos

Yeah, i still have Prime as i ve shared it with 4 of my friends , so £10 for a years worth of next day delivery including saturday is worth it.

custardy

plenty must have been making use of the prime offer as amazon SD packets have definatly gotten busy since it came in