Amazon robdogs, specifically Prime

kyoto49

Well-Known Forumite
Just a heads up really for anyone who has used Amazon recently, you've quite likely inadvertantly signed up to Amazon Prime without even knowing it :(. I noticed a charge on my CC bill today for £79.00. Spoke to my cc company who said they are overwhelmed with complaints from people who have used Amazon, and found a charge for £79.00 on their CC 30 days later having signed up to Prime without even realising it. She even gave me Amazon's number to enable me to get a refund!

So, if you've used Amazon for christmas shopping please do check your statements to ensure you also aren't paying for something you don't even want, or knew you'd requested.

Nice earner though, and I wonder how many £79.00's they get from customers who don't check their credit card statements!!

Amazon are now on my boycottted companies list!

Happy christmas all
 

Frontal

Well-Known Forumite
If you click 'free next day delivery with Prime', you get signed up to Prime, and it asks you to confirm on the next page. Even then you have 30 days to cancel it ... and EVEN THEN they always offer refunds without dispute in 99% of cases.

It's been that way for years, and every year people complain about not reading what they are signing up for.
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
It's been that way for years, and every year people complain about not reading what they are signing up for.
There's only one thing worse than a stupid person. That's a stupid person who can't accept responsibility for their own stupidity.
 

kyoto49

Well-Known Forumite
If you click 'free next day delivery with Prime', you get signed up to Prime, and it asks you to confirm on the next page. Even then you have 30 days to cancel it ... and EVEN THEN they always offer refunds without dispute in 99% of cases.

It's been that way for years, and every year people complain about not reading what they are signing up for.

The thing is i consider myself pretty savvy about this stuff, and no way was it clear that I was signing up for Prime, had it been I wouldn't have friggin selected that option. I got a refund because they could see I hadn't used it, which is obvious really as I didn't realise I'd signed up for it. I write software and it could be massively more obvious that a customer is about to sign up for Prime than it is. A confirmation email would also have been helpful.

If my credit card company is getting sick of customers with this issue, so much so that they provide Amazon's phone number to call then it's pretty obvious it's not clear enough to customers using Amazon, otherwise no-one would accidentally select it. Personally I think it's a nice little earner for Amazon and they almost deliberately make it less than obvious that customers have signed up for Prime.

Anyway, this post wasn't to analyse whether I am an idiot or not, it was to try and help others to prevent them getting ripped off for £79
 

Frontal

Well-Known Forumite
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of really good reasons to boycott Amazon - notably because they are well known for trying to screw over book publishers and authors.

Have a read here .

There is a reason pretty much everyone in the book industry hates Amazon, they are absolute bully's who are slowly killing off the book industry through illegal practices.
 

Glam

Mad Cat Woman
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of really good reasons to boycott Amazon - notably because they are well known for trying to screw over book publishers and authors.

Have a read here .

There is a reason pretty much everyone in the book industry hates Amazon, they are absolute bully's who are slowly killing off the book industry through illegal practices.
I'm sure @darts22 mentioned something about how it's Amazon that fix the book price.
 

Frontal

Well-Known Forumite
Yeah, Amazon essentially insist on exclusive deals.

Basically, they insist on been, say, £3 cheaper that the normal RRP, as they wanted to be cheaper than the independent bookshops.
They make the publisher sign deals to say that the books cannot be sold at a competing price mark anywhere else (including the authors own website, etc).

This ends up with the cheapest place to get the books is amazon, even if you buy directly from the publisher. Because Amazon have a monopoly on online book sales (the vast majority of entire book sales nowadays), people just kinda have to bend over and take it or their books won't be sold.

This is doubly bad for small time publishers, as they effectively can't sell their books themselves as they are more expensive than amazon, and end up strangling their own revenue streams. Even the big publishers struggle under the pressure.
 

darts22

Well-Known Forumite
I'm sure @darts22 mentioned something about how it's Amazon that fix the book price.
Yes thats right, something like 60% of the RRP
This disencouraged me to buy things from Amazon, they are trying to take over the world, but the other week I ventured into buying and item from Amazon with free P&P, I got all the way throughj to the checkout and was given the option of signing up to Prime or paying £4.95 P&P, sneaky bastards.
Did not order and now will not use their site again
 
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