Amazon prime BEWARE!

meer53

Azari wrote: »

Which you would think might alert them to the fact that they should make themselves clearer.

No matter how many times the usual suspects here say it's perfectly clear, the continuing stream of people here who have misunderstood shows that as a matter of actual fact it isn't.

So, why don't Amazon do something to save themselves this bother?

Because they hope people will just continue for a year when they realise they have been charged unexpectedly.

It's a rather shoddy way to behave - especially from Amazon who get so much right and are, in most cases, a beacon of good customer service.

Why is it a shoddy way to behave ? Prime offers a service for an annual fee which for some of their customers can save them lots of money in delivery charges.

If you choose this service, it's up to you to make sure you know what you're signing for and to cancel if you don't want to pay it.

Azari

meer53 wrote: »

Why is it a shoddy way to behave?

Any company that gets a continual stream of people who misunderstand any piece of promotion or advertising they are using and does nothing about it is behaving at best amateurishly and at worst (where there they are clearly making some gain at the expense of those who misunderstand), shoddily.

Amazon are perfectly capable of making the nature of the free trial perfectly clear and yet they persistently choose not to and thus open themselves to the charge of shoddy behaviour.

shaun_from_Africa

Any company that gets a continual stream of people who misunderstand any piece of promotion or advertising they are using and does nothing about it is behaving at best amateurishly and at worst

What about the continual stream of people who don't misunderstand how Amazon Prime works and who read up on what they are agreeing to before they actually agree to it?

aldredd

Azari wrote: »

Any company that gets a continual stream of people who misunderstand any piece of promotion or advertising they are using and does nothing about it is behaving at best amateurishly and at worst (where there they are clearly making some gain at the expense of those who misunderstand), shoddily.

Amazon are perfectly capable of making the nature of the free trial perfectly clear and yet they persistently choose not to and thus open themselves to the charge of shoddy behaviour.

Agree - they obviously feel that the occasional person complaining for a refund is outweighed by those who do not notice / bother complaining.

GlynD

I signed up for the free trial and then forgot about the auto-renewal. As soon as I pointed it out to them they acknowledged I hadn't used the service and refunded me. No problem.

Azari

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

What about the continual stream of people who don't misunderstand how Amazon Prime works and who read up on what they are agreeing to before they actually agree to it?

That's completely facetious.

You could apply the same daft logic to any, eg, safety features of legislation: "What about all the people who don't crash when driving drunk"?

But, to answer your question: what about them? They are not going to be harmed by Amazon making their terms clear at the point you click the button rather than deliberately hiding them behind another link that they know full well not everyone will click.

Pollycat

My views on people who phsically sign up to free trials, forget to cancel and then scream they've been conned, scammed, ripped-off etc have been well documented on the other Amazon Prime threads.

However, these comments ring warning bells:

MiniEllis wrote: »

the lady on the phone said it was because i purchased at christmas and it automatically added it on?!?

jackieb wrote: »

I use Amazon a lot. At Christmas I bought a Kindle Fire and because of this I got a free month's trial for Amazon Prime. I definitely didn't click or sign for it though - it came up automatically. I've ordered several things since then and it's been sent through Prime. It ran out earlier this week and no longer comes up when I go onto Amazon.

If Amazon are signing people up for a free trial that will end up being charged for without asking (and maybe even without telling) customers, then that is (imho) very naughty indeed.

railbuff

simple thing for Amazon to do is to have the list of postage options as they already have and under then a box with the Prime option with an explaination simple as "*** free trail of Amazon Prime after the free trial if not cancelled you will be auto billed at *** per ***"

basill

When I had my free trial I'm sure I was notified that I could prevent auto renewal by ticking a box on the "my account" pages.

I did this and had no problems with unwanted payments.

B

Pollycat

railbuff wrote: »

simple thing for Amazon to do is to have the list of postage options as they already have and under then a box with the Prime option with an explaination simple as "*** free trail of Amazon Prime after the free trial if not cancelled you will be auto billed at *** per ***"

But some people will still not bother to read any explanation and then they'll come on here and insist they have been conned, scammed, ripped-off etc.

I personally think it's pretty clear about opting in for the Prime service, although I have read Azari's views on other threads so maybe Amazon could (and maybe should) make it clearer.

Azari suggested this wording on another thread:

Welcome to the Amazon free trial. You do not have to pay anything for a month but if you do not cancel by the end of the trial a payment of £48 will be taken from your card on the <date>.

Please tick the checkbox below to indicate that you have read and understood this message.

But I'd lay odds that there will still be those people who are so anxious to spend their money that they will fall foul of any warning however clear because they simply don't bother to read anything in front of them.