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

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  • Hondo45
    Hondo45 Posts: 1 Newbie
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    My wife checked the bank account at around midnight and to her surprise found that £79 had been taken from the account by Amazon Prime. I had cancelled my account with Prime months ago without using it and The website confirms that “you no longer have an Amazon Prime account. I went on Amazon chat at about 12:30 last night and was told that this account was opened on my email address. The email address was not mine. It looks like someone has hacked into my Amazon account and opened a prime account with a new email address. After some 60 minutes of talking, I managed to get this account closed down and a promise of a refund, great I thought money back in my account, not so, it will take 5 to 7 working days to refund the money. This morning I rang Amazon to ask why it would take 5 to 7 days (my bank had told me it should take no more that 12 hours) I was told it was company policy and they could not do it any faster. This money was taken out of my account without my permission by persons unknown and this does not seem to bother Amazon that a customers account details have been hacked.
  • custardy
    custardy Posts: 38,365 Forumite
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    Hondo45 wrote: »
    My wife checked the bank account at around midnight and to her surprise found that £79 had been taken from the account by Amazon Prime. I had cancelled my account with Prime months ago without using it and The website confirms that “you no longer have an Amazon Prime account. I went on Amazon chat at about 12:30 last night and was told that this account was opened on my email address. The email address was not mine. It looks like someone has hacked into my Amazon account and opened a prime account with a new email address. After some 60 minutes of talking, I managed to get this account closed down and a promise of a refund, great I thought money back in my account, not so, it will take 5 to 7 working days to refund the money. This morning I rang Amazon to ask why it would take 5 to 7 days (my bank had told me it should take no more that 12 hours) I was told it was company policy and they could not do it any faster. This money was taken out of my account without my permission by persons unknown and this does not seem to bother Amazon that a customers account details have been hacked.

    Do you think the Amazon site has been 'hacked'
    Or that your security/password failed?
  • 19SSprings77
    19SSprings77 Posts: 1 Newbie
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    We got a reply and a refund almost by return! Encourage your friends to ask for it -
    we got landed back in May, and were really frustrated, but it only took one e-mail
    following Martin's advice.

    Keep up the good work!
  • samwardill
    samwardill Posts: 219 Forumite
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    I am in a big fight with Amazon over the Digital Promotional Credit they give you with Prime orders if you accept slower delivery. They make it really difficult to keep on top of expiry.

    I lost about £60 recently due to expiry. Previously they reinstated expired credit but they refused to do it this time. Previously they have sent me reminders that credit would expire. They failed to do so this time. Amazon Cusomer (dis)Service advised me to contact the UK trading standards department and I will.

    I actually believe that the law is on my side and Amazon will lose. Because they have refunded credit and sent reminders in the past I think that I can argue that this forms an implicit contract term.

    It is very unlike Amazon to get in big fights with customers that they will probably lose. I can only surmise that the whole business model for digital promotional credits is based on a significant majority of them expiring before they are used. I think this is underhand and unsustainable.

    Does anyone else have any experience with Prime Digital Promotional Credit? Does MSE want to help me take on the fight?
  • custardy
    custardy Posts: 38,365 Forumite
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    samwardill wrote: »
    I am in a big fight with Amazon over the Digital Promotional Credit they give you with Prime orders if you accept slower delivery. They make it really difficult to keep on top of expiry.

    I lost about £60 recently due to expiry. Previously they reinstated expired credit but they refused to do it this time. Previously they have sent me reminders that credit would expire. They failed to do so this time. Amazon Cusomer (dis)Service advised me to contact the UK trading standards department and I will.

    I actually believe that the law is on my side and Amazon will lose. Because they have refunded credit and sent reminders in the past I think that I can argue that this forms an implicit contract term.

    It is very unlike Amazon to get in big fights with customers that they will probably lose. I can only surmise that the whole business model for digital promotional credits is based on a significant majority of them expiring before they are used. I think this is underhand and unsustainable.

    Does anyone else have any experience with Prime Digital Promotional Credit? Does MSE want to help me take on the fight?

    Simple question. How do you know/find out the expiry/duration of the credit?
  • samwardill
    samwardill Posts: 219 Forumite
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    custardy wrote: »
    Simple question. How do you know/find out the expiry/duration of the credit?

    When you get the credit the email mentions the expiry. However one credit will not buy anything so you have to save multiple credits. Amazon do not tell you which credit you are using when you use it (you don't have to enter any voucher) so, unless you have a spreadsheet tracking all your credits and purchases that you started the first day that you first got any credit (or the last day that you knew your credit balance to be zero) there is no way to track expiry.
  • custardy
    custardy Posts: 38,365 Forumite
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    samwardill wrote: »
    When you get the credit the email mentions the expiry. However one credit will not buy anything so you have to save multiple credits. Amazon do not tell you which credit you are using when you use it (you don't have to enter any voucher) so, unless you have a spreadsheet tracking all your credits and purchases that you started the first day that you first got any credit (or the last day that you knew your credit balance to be zero) there is no way to track expiry.

    Well unfortunately I dont see you have a claim.
    Yeah,its not a great set up (no doubt by design) however they give you an expiry date at the start.
  • samwardill
    samwardill Posts: 219 Forumite
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    custardy wrote: »
    Well unfortunately I dont see you have a claim.
    Yeah,its not a great set up (no doubt by design) however they give you an expiry date at the start.

    Let's see what the trading standards people think. Personally I think it is disingenuous enough to be unenforceable. We have an unfair terms in consumer contracts law to protect consumers precisely from things like this. I think Amazon would be better off just sorting this out before it blows back in their face. They don't really want the bad publicity that would ensue. They spend millions trying to promote themselves as "Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company". This dodgy practice clearly is intended to deceive customers.
  • custardy
    custardy Posts: 38,365 Forumite
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    samwardill wrote: »
    Let's see what the trading standards people think. Personally I think it is disingenuous enough to be unenforceable. We have an unfair terms in consumer contracts law to protect consumers precisely from things like this. I think Amazon would be better off just sorting this out before it blows back in their face. They don't really want the bad publicity that would ensue. They spend millions trying to promote themselves as "Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company". This dodgy practice clearly is intended to deceive customers.

    Well you are given a free credit and given a date to use it by.
    What are you defining as 'dodgy' in this set up?
  • samwardill
    samwardill Posts: 219 Forumite
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    custardy wrote: »
    Well you are given a free credit and given a date to use it by.
    What are you defining as 'dodgy' in this set up?

    It's not free. You pay £79 / year for free 1 day delivery. You agree to forego the 1 day delivery in return for the promise of a digital video credit of £1 - 3. The issue is that the digital video credit of £1 - 3 is often lost because Amazon make it virtually impossible to keep track of its expiry.
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