Help with Amazon Prime membership!

Miss_Moneysaver

Hi,

I have no idea what to do next so I thought I'd ask on here!
Basically, I noticed that I was being charged twice for Amazon Prime, from the same bank account and same Amazon account, a while ago. I had opened a Prime account years ago (used to use it for Lovefilm) and I am sure it was when we lived in our old house 9 years ago! I had cancelled it on my Amazon account using their drop down menu on the top of my account home page. I wasn't using it at the time (busy life) so though nothing of it.

Roll on a bit of time (years) and I set up another subscription for Amazon Prime using the same drop down menu and same bank account.
A few months ago I noticed it had cone out twice within one month so I watched it again the following 2-3 months and, again, it came out twice.

I chatted to someone (via my Amazon account) at Amazon and they said it was just looking like that on my statement and that it was only coming out the once. It wasn't, I deducted all payments from my statement that month and the Amazon payment was definitely coming out twice. They refused to do anything.

My bank, Barclays, couldn't stop the payment. I tried online and it wasn't listed on my SO's/DD's. Barclays said it wasn't a SO/DD.

I cancelled my 2nd Prime membership to see what happened. Same as before, via the drop down menu. Payments stopped for this one but carried on for the original. I was still paying for Amazon Prime but didn't have it by this point.

I returned to Barclays who said it was paid off shore so they couldn't cancel it and said Amazon had to. So, I got in touch with Amazon again and they said there is no other payment coming from my account, however, they said records showed I had cancelled my original Prime a long time ago. They had no details of the payments coming out twice and told me they couldn't do anything! The payment is Amazon Luxemborg.

They told me to close my bank account! I don't want to do this as I have all of my payments coming out of this account.

Barclays have told me to contact the financial obudsman as I have probably overpaid >£1000, and the payments will continue.

Has anyone else had this happen and what happened?

Fosterdog

Sounds like somehow there is a second Amazon account somehow linked to you, I know when I first ever signed up for Amazon many years ago it wasn't email based but username based, over time I remember being prompted to add an email address and for a couple of years I could log in with either the username or the emails address and eventually they stopped username log in and now it's all done by email.

Maybe you had an account back in the days over usernames and somehow instead of converting that to an email based account you've set up a new account. Or possibly you have at some point bought from and signed up for Prime in another country? Ever used Amazon US? Or any of the European Amazon's? Possibly the Japanese one? This comes up on here quite often where people have assumed that all Amazon purchases are the same but each country has its own account base and prime memberships

custardy

Have you shopped on other Amazon sites like .FR,.DE.com?

Miss_Moneysaver

As far as I'm aware I have only ever used the UK site. It is the same Amazon account I have used the whole time.

Ectophile

Make a formal complaint to Barclays, and insist that they repay all the money that has been taken out of your account since you instructed them to stop the payments.


They are required to stop regular payments if you ask them to.

born_again

When did you tell Barclays to stop the payment 1st time?
If it was after PSD (payment services directive) was introduced 2007. Then they were wrong not to take your instruction to stop it.

But FCA have also said that any payments over 13 months do not have to be refunded. As it is the account holders responsibility to monitor their account and raise issues.

These payments are card payments CPA's. and are not listed on any account as a regular payment, they are a agreement between you and retailer and the banks have not part in them unlike DD/So's.

Wonder if it is a old legacy account from lovefilm before Amazon took them over.

DCFC79

How has it been allowed to be taken out for so long ?

Check your statements.

bris

Are you sure you just cant remember the log on details? Do you have any old email accounts it could be linked too?

Mr_Singleton

DCFC79 wrote: »

Check your statements.

Victim blaming!

I stopped a payment in 2001..... are you suggesting I need to check my statements to see if the company have re-activated it with out my consent in 2019?

Fosterdog

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Victim blaming!

I stopped a payment in 2001..... are you suggesting I need to check my statements to see if the company have re-activated it with out my consent in 2019?

But in OPs case if it was over £1000 worth of payments that's 10+ years of payments being taken that they haven't noticed, sort of understandable for the period they had signed up a second time and were expecting the payment to be going out but what about the several years prior when they failed to notice?

Plus if Amazon can't see these payments as being linked to OPs account in any way then it must be going towards a different account so either OP somehow has a second account without realising or somebody else has used OPs bank details to sign up.

Also, yes it is your responsibility to check your bank statements regularly and deal with any irregularities, of course no company should be setting up a new payment instruction without your consent or permission but that still doesn't absolve you of the responsibility of checking everything going in and out of your account. There's a big difference between an old cancelled payment being taken and you noticing in the first month or two and an old cancelled payment going unnoticed for 10+ years.

born_again

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Victim blaming!

I stopped a payment in 2001..... are you suggesting I need to check my statements to see if the company have re-activated it with out my consent in 2019?

Its not victim blaming. It pure common sense that you check your statements. Even the banking regulator understands that people need to check their statements.

FCA have also said that any payments over 13 months do not have to be refunded. As it is the account holders responsibility to monitor their account and raise issues.

Surely if you stopped it in 2001, then you will have checked to ensure that payments were not taken in the next few months.