MSE News: Been charged for unwanted Amazon Prime? Here's how to cancel

zagfles

Sterlingtimes wrote: »

Engineering degree, business degree and law degree. My profession is drafting and negotiating conditions of contract. And I inadvertently managed to order Amazon Prime (much to my shame). I have sympathy for all of those who have made the error. Amazon was very quick to put things right.

I suspect that the confusion is between ordering "free delivery" and "free super-saver delivery".

Tut tut, I think you ought to hand back your degrees immediately, you clearly aren't intelligent enough to have them. Never mind those university professors who marked your work, the regulars on the PVW board are far better judges of intelligence and competance. And as for your job - you really ought to resign.

Though I do find it odd that Amazon is so quick to refund when it's clearly and obviously all the consumer's fault. It must just be because they are very nice people.

mikedej

Thanks for the info re Amazon Prime. I successfully cancelled my unwanted membership and got a full refund.

[Deleted User]

Amazon and I got into a bit of argy bargy and in spite of the chairman posting his email addy promising a reply to anyone with a problem.., amazon steadfastly refused to even admit there was a problem with their systems.., my details had been released due to a pish attack in spite of me being fairly IT Lit.., never clicking on anything in emails unless I know exactly what it is and that it comes from a legit source (i.e. I asked for a link etc). This is rare anyway.

I have read the stuff about Amazon Prime being much more expensive here than in other countries. So when it was due for renewal I cancelled it.., fairly easy to find out how. Don't even need to look on here.., google is your friend.

And the added bonus is I'm spending less money. With Prime, it kind of sucks you in. I had Xmas and a son's birthday just after. And I hadn't really stopped spending.

My bank balance is up, so thank you Amazon for messing up and being unreasonable about telling me how/why. I'm glad it happened now.

SallyAnne

Heckie wrote: »

I cancelled my Prime last week, by going into my Amazon account, select 'Your Prime Membership' and clicking 'End Membership'. I got a £46.12 refund…

So it would appear that you CAN simply just cancel it.

I can understand people being misled as I too was. However I followed the forum advice, followed all instructions and received a refund of £79 even after the supposed trial period and I hadn't used any of the offers as a Prime member.

nooshin123

I tried to end my membership, but it does not let me .it says that the membership ends in sep 15. what can I do please?

wealdroam

nooshin123 wrote: »

I tried to end my membership, but it does not let me .it says that the membership ends in sep 15. what can I do please?

Have you read the article linked from the original post?

Here's the link again:

Been charged for unwanted Amazon Prime? Here's how to cancel

In there you will find instructions on exactly how to overcome your problem.
If it still doesn't work, then click on one of the contact Amazon links in that article.

NorthernGordon

I signed up for a trial in May 2014. I totally forgot about it and have bought a few CDs since then here and there (what I use Amazon for). I have been charged £79 two days ago and it says it ends in May this year. Why am I being charged now? I did not ask for a paid membership and I was tricked into this. I suffer from bi-polar disorder so can't always read small print etc correctly. I had 100 pounds in my bank, I now have 21 and will have to borrow money to eat this week and put money on my gas card. And if anyone starts ranting at me saying I'm a dole scrounger or whatever, I will seek legal action as guess what? Some of us who don't work are genuinely ill.

NorthernGordon

Also, if you put "but you're on the internet and you have a computer" blah blah blah. Well guess what? I got a laptop from a kind friend for Christmas one year so I could get online and my internet and a few CDs a year are my only real luxuries. A lot of hateful people on this site who think they can talk down to others.

custardy

NorthernGordon wrote: »

I signed up for a trial in May 2014. I totally forgot about it and have bought a few CDs since then here and there (what I use Amazon for). I have been charged £79 two days ago and it says it ends in May this year. Why am I being charged now? I did not ask for a paid membership and I was tricked into this. I suffer from bi-polar disorder so can't always read small print etc correctly. I had 100 pounds in my bank, I now have 21 and will have to borrow money to eat this week and put money on my gas card. And if anyone starts ranting at me saying I'm a dole scrounger or whatever, I will seek legal action as guess what? Some of us who don't work are genuinely ill.

Legal action? Given you have Amazon prime,may I suggest

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ladies-Cotton-Embroidered-Luxury-Handkerchiefs/dp/B004QOHG6C

How do you plan to fund this legal action?

If you cant read small print then how can any company be responsible?

ASOM_2

To all you people saying its always the consumer's fault, how about this story:

I was charged for it (never signed up) and they took the £79 BEFORE any "trial" or other period had begun. I contacted them and complained, of course, and they admitted the mistake and agreed to send me a refund. Couple of weeks later, no refund. Contact Amazon, they say insist it was processed. I tell them I have definitely not had it.

So, they then send me a "refund reference number" which according to them, all banks everywhere know and use. My bank (Halifax) confirms no refund has ever been received and says this reference code is meaningless and they've never seen or used such a thing.

Back to Amazon. No, they insist this code is completely legitimate, essentially saying either I or the bank are mad, lying or stupid, but eventually after my insistence that my bank was a "normal" legitimate high street bank (bear in mind this conversation is happening with someone in a foreign call centre who might imagine some other scenario) and that if they say they don't/can't use the code, they can't use the code, and I still want me £79 back. So, they tell me that as long as I can get them a letter from the bank on headed paper confirming this, they will issue "another" (not that there was a first one) refund. So...back to the bank. The bank states that they aren't able to write such letters...

So, many many more hours (literally) on the phone going back and forth between Amazon (having to repeat the entire story from scratch over and over again) and my bank's equally incompetent debit card reclaims department, only to end up in a deadlock where Amazon won't budge unless they have confirmation from the bank, and the bank won't help me and give me any confirmation even though I have been through my accounts with staff in the branch and confirmed that there was no refund on the date Amazon claims it was made (or any other time).

So that's me, not only having had £79 essentially stolen from my account, at random, by Amazon, and having probably wasted about another £20 on phone calls to them not to mention hours of my time, but I don't EVEN have a year's worth of Prime to show for it as, their incompetence didn't quite manage to stretch to not being able to cancel my subscription, which is the only thing they did manage to do!

It's tempting to blame my bank here, and they certainly deserve some pretty significant criticism for not having really bothered to help out one of their customers AT ALL, but to me that's a somewhat separate issue and certainly doesn't let Amazon off the hook - they were the originators of the problem and it was their responsibility from the outset to sort it out.

Anyway, rant over, just wanted to prove it isn't always through stupidity or incompetence on the user's part. Although I have found some of the stories by journalists "shocked" to find out that £79 has been disappearing from their accounts ever year for several years - wish I earned enough to not have to pay close enough attention to my bank statements to be able to lose £79 a year and not even notice it!