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

Pollycat

norfolkdream wrote: »

I have had a payment of Amazon Prime £7.99 come out of my account on 30th March. I have not purchased anything since 5th Jan and that was standard delivery, and my account does not show that I am prime member. There has been nowhere that I have signed up for this at all.
Is there anything I can do?

Contact Amazon?

Honey_Bear

JasonLVC wrote: »

Point being, it did not seem very clear that by clicking on an album I'd automatically join the Unlimited service.

So not blaming Amazon, I obviously clicked something, but I never got an email or confirmation or a "are you sure" prompt, so could be very easy to subscribe to both Prime and Unlimited without knowing about it and clock up 2x £79 (as Prime and Unlimited are priced the same).

I think your point is fair, Jason, but in my case, I am blaming Amazon. The button I clicked simply said, 'Sign up for free delivery for this order.' It was not at all clear that I was signing up for Prime and I'd go so far as to say that the button I clicked was very misleading.

Moreover, as soon as I realised I had, I aborted the order and didn't receive an email telling me I'd placed it, didn't receive an email saying I'd signed up for Amazon Prime and only found out I'd been charged £7.99 when I received my bank statement today.

I've cancelled it now and asked for a refund as I haven't used it in the intervening 13 days, but to those contributors to this thread who appear to think that everyone who inadvertently signs up for it are stupid - we all make mistakes.

The reason I came to this thread to comment was to thank Martin and MSE for the information on how to cancel Prime, and the link on how to contact Amazon to ask for a refund. I don't use Amazon enough to find it easy to navigate around the website.

custardy

Seems some of us must use a different amazon with different 'buttons'.

The-Truth

Honey_Bear wrote: »

The reason I came to this thread to comment was to thank Martin and MSE for the information on how to cancel Prime, and the link on how to contact Amazon to ask for a refund

Which they copy and pasted from the help pages on Amazons website!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202016220

Ade_barrett

I was unknowingly conscripted and only discovered this today when going through my account - there was a link about my Prime Benefits that gave the game away. But have just got myself out without penalty. I clicked "help" and selected "Manage Prime" and saw I was a member since December! I also saw that I was paying monthly. I managed to cancel my membership via the webpage and get refunded on the current month. As I had not used any Prime services, I think I was also able to cancel back to December.... But I wanted to make sure, so I selected options and got to a page to make contact by chat, or Amazon call you, in 5 minutes or now. I selected the latter, clicked the button and I was contacted immediately. I explained what happenned, and he couldn't have helped more ensure I cancelled and that my previous month's subscription was also refunded. I asked how I 'signed up' in the first place and after a hold informed me I'd selected a 1-day delivery option, which I must have done.

As it was, an email came through for my records indicating I had cancelled and that "...you haven't used your Amazon Prime membership since your free trial ended," so I was due the current month's amount. The cancellation and refund confirmation email came through as well, which the call centre operative promised. So it can be done, though you pay for services and months you have used, I suppose that's fair, and I had great customer service into the bargain. But I would prefer Amazon didn't automatically enrol me into Prime in the first place because of an option selection error, that is the issue. Does it say "Prime" against the option? And at the checkout, do you see that you have selected to be a member of Prime? Of course not, you aren't even looking for it.

While happy at being able to get myself out of Prime, the issue is buyer beware of hitting the wrong options. It's unnecessarily aggressive 'marketing' in my view and Amazon must make sure all pages play fair and are consistently clear with options. But they must also recognising that not all shoppers are savvy (or patient) enough to play trying to avoid unnecessary conscription in the first place.

Honey_Bear

I'm with you, Ade B - I had no intention of signing up for it and really wasn't aware that I|'d done so until I saw it on my bank statement. I can imagine there are an awful lot of people who have it who really don't know they've signed up for it, and it looks very much like a deliberate ploy by Amazon to me. It's made me very, very wary of using Amazon at all.

Pollycat

Honey_Bear wrote: »

I'm with you, Ade B - I had no intention of signing up for it and really wasn't aware that I|'d done so until I saw it on my bank statement. I can imagine there are an awful lot of people who have it who really don't know they've signed up for it, and it looks very much like a deliberate ploy by Amazon to me. It's made me very, very wary of using Amazon at all.

In the past, Amazon have been very helpful to people who say they've been signed up without their consent and have refunded the Prime fee.

Honey_Bear

And they were with me, so I can't knock the service provided after we've been signed up.

I question the ethics of signing people up by default - I even cancelled the order on which it happened before completing it, but I still had no notification that I'd been Primed and was charged for the first month. I thought that cancelling the order would mean voiding the Prime, but it didn't.

Pollycat

Honey_Bear wrote: »

And they were with me, so I can't knock the service provided after we've been signed up.

I question the ethics of signing people up by default - I even cancelled the order on which it happened before completing it, but I still had no notification that I'd been Primed and was charged for the first month. I thought that cancelling the order would mean voiding the Prime, but it didn't.

I've not looked lately but ages ago there were screen shots - custardy will remember this - showing you had to click for Prime membership trial.
I did dummy orders at the time to prove you had to click to be signed up.
And still there were lots of people insisting they were signed up by default.

john823

A couple of years ago, I attempted to become an Amazon seller as I had heard good reports about it as a platform for selling books and music. Although Amazon allowed me to register, they refused to let me list any product for sale. I rolled my eyes tutted and moved on to concentrate on eBay.
A few months later I spotted a missing £39(?) from my bank account which was for a pro-seller account with Amazon, even though they would not let me have an account!
I successfully reclaimed that and moved on forgetting all about it apart from avoiding Amazon like the plague and never using any of their services thinking that would keep me free from false payments.
Early this week, I noticed a large drop in my balance in the bank account I use for eBay. Investigating I found that Amazon had helped themselves to £79 for an Amazon Prime subscription (it starts getting a little more interesting now) I got on to my bank who told me that while they agreed that it was bad practice, it wasn't quite fraudulent and advised me to contact Amazon and ask them to put it right. They even transferred my call to Amazon!
Anyway, after frustrating hour on the phone, I terminated the call and contacted Amazon by email. After several reminders and about 48 hours they finally contacted me to say, wait for it, the only way they could refund me was for me to register as a Prime user and add my card details!
I question how they can charge me for a service I did not want, did not sign up for and how they can only refund me if I sign up for a service that I did not ask for?
If anybody wants to tell me that I must have clicked on a free trial or something or that as one of the phone operators suggested a family member must have used my card to sign up and before going any further I should phone family members in Cornwall, Yorkshire, Scotland and ask if any of them have visited my flat when I wasn't here and signed me up without telling me or even hanging about for a cup of tea I shall get very cross! .
Rant over (for now).