MSE News: 'Just got my Amazon Prime £79 back': Find out if you can do the same

Bobo32

Having recently ordered 2 CDs from Amazon (without prime) to make the total over £20 so they could be eligible for free delivery, It then transpired that one of the CDs was not eligible for free delivery. Therefore, I signed up for the free trial of prime to get free delivery.

I just went to cancel my free membership which runs out on 10/7. After clicking End my membership, I was offered to extend my free trial for another month which obviously I accepted and it now runs out on 9/8. I don't know if this is a limited time offer for people cancelling free memberships or whether I will receive the same offer next month when I go to cancel my extended trial.

Either way, there is currently a way to have at least 2 months prime membership for free!!

Karen_nicoll

This is great. I had no idea I had signed up for amazon prime. But seeing this in Martin Lewis’s email, I found I had paid for it. 1 email later amazon have refunded me for 2 years. So that’s nearly £160 pounds. What a result

lorzel

I've got my 4 months back - but I am more concerned how I was inadvertently tricked into subscribing. I am always so careful and I only spotted the recurring monthly charge when doing my financial audit.
To me, this is a e-trader taking advantage of his dominant market position, who needs to be fined appropriately. Which trading standard should this be logged with?

custardy

lorzel wrote: »

I've got my 4 months back - but I am more concerned how I was inadvertently tricked into subscribing. I am always so careful and I only spotted the recurring monthly charge when doing my financial audit.
To me, this is a e-trader taking advantage of his dominant market position, who needs to be fined appropriately. Which trading standard should this be logged with?

Evidently not..........

sajith.sahib1

Thanks to The Legend Martin Lewis. I just received my refund of £7.99 from a payment made in 2017. I told them exactly what happened when inadvertently signed up. It only took them less than 5 minutes on the phone to sort this out.

EddyB

I went to Amazon to buy some more vitamins, selected the lowest priced bottle, but then found that I could only order that bottle from that product page if I agreed to buy it via "Subscribe and Save". So as there was a line saying that I could opt out of "Subscribe and Save" at any time, that membership wouldn't cost me anything, and as the saving for the bottle was not to be sniffed at, I went ahead and ordered.

However, I have just signed into Amazon, then gone to "Your Account > Manage Your Prime Membership", and found the following!

Prime (Free Trial)

Payment Option: Monthly (£7.99/month). Save £16.88 over the next 12 months by changing to an annual plan.

Next Payment: On 5 July 2019, you will be charged £7.99 for another month of Prime.

So I have been automatically signed up for Amazon Prime and at no point was I told I am now to pay £7.99 per month! This is unfair. I was not given the choice. I was NOT told that "Subscribe and Save" means automatically signing up to Amazon Prime!

Let me absolutely clear about this: on the product-page in question and on all succeeding pages there was NO INDICATION WHATSOEVER that Prime was involved, that I was signing up to Prime. I am exceedingly careful about Amazon and its tricks. I have avoided its trickery with regard to Prime for several years.


There is a button on my "Your Account > Manage Your Prime Membership" page saying "End Trial and Benefits", so I will quit Prime immediately (as I simply never need "Immediate one-day delivery".)

I would appreciate other people's thoughts about this. I think signing people up to a monthly direct debit to Prime when offering a no-charge membership of "Subscribe and Save" qualifies as a scam.

What do you think, Martin Lewis :money: ?

worried_jim

Martin won't see this. Simply cancel your free trial before the first payment.

spadoosh

I would agree with your point to a certain extent.

Ignoring the fact that amazons customer service is pretty good, ignoring the fact that this has been going on since the dawn of amazon prime, yes its a scam.

Taking those things on board, where customer service happily give you a refund of fees paid unintentionally and have even been known to chuck in a few months or a trial or something then it becomes much less of a scam and more of a bad selling practice.

I also think there is something that mentions youll be signing up to prime and links to information about it. No doubt its particularly small if it is there though.

EddyB

I have done that, Worried Jim, but I don't believe in walking away from scams and allowing others to be scammed, hence my reporting it here so others may be warned.


Thank you very much to whoever moved my original post, above, over to this old thread. It has been most interesting reading all the earlier posts on much the same Prime trickery.

spadoosh

I dont know how useful those warnings are.....

There have been warnings about this since 2008.....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1360985/amazon-prime-free-next-day-delivery-warning&highlight=amazon+prime+automatic