Amazon Prime (and other sneaky sales tricks)

Just ordered one of the Pokemon games for my niece and because I wasn't fully concentrating, managed to select Amazon Prime free trial (seems to crop up at more places during the order process). I have since changed my setting so it doesn't renew after the free 30 days, but pissed it was all ready to take my money had I not changed my account settings.

Anyone else been caught by this recently or any other sneaky sales "scams" from websites?

English?

Did it charge you whilst in your trial?

Prime is one of the worst.

So many people come into work (nationwide) asking what this £79 is, after having no recollection of them ordering something from Amazon the year before.

Amazon should do more to explain the service and not just shove it all in small print, on the other hand people shouldn't be so stupid and expect something for free without consequence.

I remember years ago when I first got stung by one of these thanks to love film. I took up a trial but never realised it auto renewed, strawberry floating £78 lost because of it.

My Girlfriends nan got caught with the charge by not cancelling, she got a refund after explaining she hasn't used the service outside of her trial, but they don't make it too obvious to end/cancel.

The thing is they know loads of customers will sign up without realising and they choose not to do everything they can to make it apparent what it entails. All it takes is for a customer to be in a slight hurry and not quite pick up on it. Plus, elderly people get stung a lot - they're not quite as alert to it.

There needs to be an option in your account to switch it off and stop it appearing on the delivery options screen.

Sure, they're just about doing it by the book. Maybe. But it does leave a rather bad taste in the mouth.

The fact there is a market for AMazon Prime in the first place astounds me. How can anyone justify giving Amazon more money just to get faster deliveries?

It isn't just the delivery. You also get Prime Instant Video and Kindle Library which is quite good. If you order enough then it is worth having as next day tracked delivery would cost a bomb if you had it on everything.

Glo ho howy69 wrote:Prime is one of the worst.

So many people come into work (nationwide) asking what this £79 is, after having no recollection of them ordering something from Amazon the year before.

Amazon should do more to explain the service and not just shove it all in small print, on the other hand people shouldn't be so stupid and expect something for free without consequence.

I didn't expect something for free, I didn't want it at all! I'd already passed up one option for it during the order but it feels like it is all over the place now and too easy to select it when you are just trying to finish your order. I think there should be some kind of law that prevents auto renewing after free trial and companies should have to contact you to see if you want to subscribe after the free trial, otherwise they are clearly relying on people not realising.

Amazon Subscribe and Save is quite good as everything is cheaper. You just have to remember to cancel it after the delivery as it's quite easy to forget about it.

I used my recent trial to get pretty much all my shopping done, working 60 hour weeks have destroyed my Xmas shopping time, and living in a non povvo area means those Amazon logistic chaps can hide my stuff without fear of it going missing!

This is how all free trials work.

Dig Dug wrote:I remember years ago when I first got stung by one of these thanks to love film. I took up a trial but never realised it auto renewed, strawberry floating £78 lost because of it.

Takes two seconds to call up and get a full refund.

Even if it's months later they'll give you the money back in full so long as you've not used it loads.

[iup=3636101]ianf[/iup] wrote:
Dig Dug wrote:I remember years ago when I first got stung by one of these thanks to love film. I took up a trial but never realised it auto renewed, strawberry floating £78 lost because of it.

Takes two seconds to call up and get a full refund.

Even if it's months later they'll give you the money back in full so long as you've not used it loads.

Nope. I phoned the, told them I had not logged onto love film in like 6 months and they would not budge a strawberry floating inch only offering a 2 month free subscription as an apology, I told them no I'm not falling for that again.
Everyone I asked about it afterwards were like "love film can totally do that it was your fault".

Love film were banana splits. It got better when Amazon took over.

That reminds me to set my annual trial to not auto renew

My gf nearly got caught out by this. Luckily she mentioned that she got an item next day delivered so I knew she had a prime trial. Checked her account and she'd been charged £79. Luckily the option to cancel with a refund was there.

Got Prime and I don't pay for it 8-)

Never been caught out myself as I dont give them my credit card details but isnt XBL notorious for this too?

[iup=3636094]Jesus is Dead[/iup] wrote:This is how all free trials work.

Yep, not exclusive to Amazon.

Amazon Prime (and other sneaky sales tricks)

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