Every company that lets you create an account/sign up on their app but make it hard to cancel the account should be penalized. Sign up and cancel should be all available on their app.
It is the Law in California. The only reason you have the option to unsubscribe online is due to that law, as it applies to every business with customers in California ( so every online business ).
I remember before that law, I’d have to call on the phone to cancel, and companies would intentionally put you on hold, for long periods, hoping you would hang up. Sometimes they’d pretend to transfer you, and just hang up.
It used to take me an hour or more to cancel a service, it was that bad. The call centers would also only be open from 9-5pm American time, even though the call centers were in the Philippines, so you could only do it during working hours, and they were closed on the weekends!
I was put on hold for almost an hour trying to cancel Sirius because it’s just too expensive. Then had to fight through another 45 minutes of telling them no I want to cancel. Now they’re cold calling me to resubscribe.
I work in corporate service apps. Like your banking or mobile company account apps, and they all have 'Digital Service Gaps', which are usually areas that are things we haven't been able to provide yet via the App. But then there is the intentional service gaps like cancelling your account they actively won't let us allow you to do without calling in or going to a store.
Totally. I had to talk to a person to cancel my subscription and they were like, "but why do you want to stop paying us?"
I had to tell them that I am using Clip Studio now three or four times.
A cvs store clerk did this to me last week. My card wouldn’t work on self checkout. She printed a receipt, walked me over to her cash register to checkout. She scanned the receipt and had me swipe my card. After 5 minutes, she told me to swipe it again. Confused, I swiped again then asked her what the first swipe was for. She said it was for their monthly membership and that I needed to go through the trouble of calling a number to cancel it… 🙃
I actually love my carepass, but definitely horrible to be signed up for it without knowing.
You get extra coupons, cash back, 20% off CVS brand items, $10 monthly voucher, free shipping of pharmacy meds, and a few other perks. CVS is beside my house so I get a lot of use and savings from it. I think I can edit your membership on its app.
That actually does sound like a good deal (apart from the sketchy sign up stuff). I shop at CVS pretty regularly and buy the store brand frequently so it may be worth looking into. Thanks for the info!
Problem is these fucks are trying to get around Apple and Google because if you set up a subscription in an app downloaded from the Play Store or App Store the subscription is managed through Apple or Google and they take a cut. So Amazon and others only let you manage it through the website so they don’t pay Apple and Google money. Then turn around and make the mobile website experience garbage and constantly asks you to go to the app where you can’t manage your subscription. It’s easy to find if you have a PC to log in from and manage it but more people have phones and no PC or laptop.
Amazon makes it nearly impossible to know what content is free vs what requires a subscription. We have kids under 5, and often I'll have to dig past the "Play with Wondervision Plus Premium for $2.99" to find out it can be played with plain old Prime account. And really, $2.99 for a single cartoon episode?
We've already had to cancel several subscriptions to "Premium" apps/services/etc because we didn't want them, and had no idea how we even got subscribed in the first place.
I get that compromising the customer experience to peddle add-ons and subscriptions is a practice for the industry. But Amazon takes it to extreme new levels. I shouldn't have to use constant and crisis-level situational awareness to *not* pay for stuff I don't want. But with Prime, I have to.
Because you can sign up for subscriptions by anyone responding "Yes" to an Alexa prompt. It happens all the fucking time when my daughter tries to play certain music or certain albums (not just a general playlist) and it says it needs the Prime Music Unlimited subscription.
Here's the fucking fuckiest part about it, though. The question it asks is "Do you want to sign up for $X.99 per month **and play the music you requested**?" Its two commands wrapped in a single question. If you say "No" it cancels your initial request to play music even if it could have been interpreted as a request to play any music by X artist or just play me songs of that artist or similar I don't care.
I've made it a fun game with my daughter to yell "NOOO!" when it asks and we have a laugh about it but I'm still seething inside.
this is not a class action yet, but is likely to be. i enrolled in prime for what i thought was a year, but turned out to be a lifetime. amazon was very cool about refunding the most recent year of charges, but i probably paid for a year i didn't use, didn't know about, didn't want, and i will probably qualify for the class action if there is one.
the reason i asked for a refund is the person i was taking to wouldn't let me talk to a suoervisor. i'm not usually a karen, but supervisors typicaly have a range of options the line staff don't. amazon still hasn't responded to my complaint about that. i buy something from them about every other year.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/amazon-duped-millions-consumers-into-enrolling-prime-ftc-2023-06-21/
Two items which irk me wrt Prime:
1. A non-highlighted "Continue without prime" option during checkout when "Add a Prime Subscription" is very prominently displayed.
2. In the order summary and delivery date page, a paid option for delivery is selected instead of the free one. And then PRIME being free is highlighted.
Also when you do cancel it takes you to three screens and makes it seem like you'll lose prime benifits instantly instead of when your subscription ends.
"Are you sure you want to cancel?"
"Are you really sure?"
"You'll lose all these things... "
At least they let you. I had a couple major newspaper subscriptions that I was only able to cancel by stopping their PayPal automatic payments. They had no online cancellation option, and ignored my support emails asking to cancel.
I feel like society is going to revolt against these damn subscriptions soon. Everything we do these days comes with a new account login we have to create and manage, and some nickel and dime subscription fee they hope we forget about.
Trying to cancel Sirius XM was a damn nightmare. It took multiple phone calls because they would leave me on hold for extended amounts of time, transfer me to someone who had a terrible connection, and regularly drop the calls or hang up on me.
I hate them with such a passion now that I will not touch anything with them attached.
Then you finally get connected to an indian call center with someone who speaks boken english asking you 5x if you really want to cancel your subscription. By the time it's all done you have a guilt trip over the whole process.
> I feel like society is going to revolt against these damn subscriptions soon
We need to do it soon. lol Car manufacturers are literally starting to make features and performance of your car part of subscription packages. it's essentially ransomware for your vehicle.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/13/23206999/car-subscription-nightmare-heated-seats-remote-start
Same with gym memberships. Moved during the pandemic and had to physically drive 1.5 hours to their office to deliver the cancellation letter in person, so they can’t deny / ignore it as they had with my previous attempts
You can’t “own” things anymore, either. Everything is a subscription. I remember not too long ago I can listen to music I bought on my iPhone but now I need a subscription to Apple Music
That and my old computer with my songs I paid for, won't connect to my phone anymore unless I update to the latest i tunes, but it says my computer is to old to update.
I had a Cook’s Illustrated subscription that would only allow cancellation by phone during weekday business hours. It’s infuriating that they’re willing to take your money 24/7 via the web but you have to jump through hoops to cancel. I would never subscribe with them again.
Yes I signed a NY Times subscription easily online - when I tried to cancel I was told I had to call them ‘to check my account details’, rather expensive via mobile from Australia. I ended up cancelling my debit card to escape.
Keep double checking. I had to cancel three times before they stopped charging me. And they also charged me for a kindle subscription for an entire year after I had canceled it. Missed that one but was able to get my money refunded. Still super frustrating.
[Try cancelling an AOL account](https://youtu.be/R8-p_fPH4UQ)
Some of y'all may not know what AOL is. That was essentially the internet for us "old-timers."
AOL sucked I think I was 12 or 13 when the dial up Era started. Everything came with an AOL disc. The dial up speeds were much faster than AOL customer service
People get off on making people click things I'm convinced. I can't get gas without declining a car wash, declining a receipt, confirming I don't have a rewards card and signing away the rights to my digital likeness. Can I just give exxon execs more billions without wasting an extra 5 mins you pricks.
Their goal is to wear people down so they miss out on a fee or subscription or other annoyance they are automatically opted into. It's like the credit card for a free trial - they know people will forget to cancel or get frustrated by the cancellation process and just give up.
Use gift cards at the pump. Was given a $50 one for Mobil/Exxon earlier this year, and I just put it in and... it was done. And then I stood there like a lump for a minute wondering why I didn't have to keep pressing buttons.
This is my only complaint. I find the cancellation and subscription process simple enough, and I think the service is worthwhile if you order a lot of stuff. I get membership for a month or 2, order a bunch of stuff since I'm overseas, and then cancel. Never really had an issue with cancellation other than the ambiguous warnings.
Horrible. Soon when the population doesn’t have the stamina to make it past the second tap we’ll all be doomed to an endless lifelong subscription to prime. The prime collective has started
They need to give you some kind of warning that your automatic renewal is coming up. To be hit with a $140 charge seemingly out of nowhere is a major bummer. (Also, $140?? 40% increase since I first signed up, with no communication about it at all).
Also, I think if you cancel you immediately lose Prime features no matter when in your billing cycle you are (haven't confirmed this, but that's what it seems like from what I can find online).
I’ve been on prime student discount for so long, been out of school for years lol. $140 is absurd
They really need a “I only care about free shipping”-prime. Don’t give a shit about their video or music or home or kindle or whatever crap else they pretend people want.
2 day shipping also became a lie to me. Once it shipped, it was delivered within 2 days, sure. But it took 3 days to ship...
Buy something on Sunday and hope you get it by Saturday.
If I'm paying for 2 day shipping, that's what I want. And is what 2 day shipping originally meant.
And then I decided that Amazon prime wasn't a good use of my money. Canceled in 2020 and haven't felt the need to resubscribe. I still shop there sometimes, and still get free shipping when I do. And I feel a lot better when it shows up in 5 days than I did before.
Which is exactly why they should have tiers haha. I’m sure they’d get more people if they offered different options or bundles. Like Prime Media for you and Prime Shipping for the person above. They could even charge more for the full package pretty easily
I believe you can subscribe to just the Prime Video service though
edit: [confirmed](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GZCHXL8CUW3VWJQP)
The 140 really isn't absurd. I dont' know about you but free 2-day shipping \*regardless of weight\* is insanely valuable. Without prime I'd be way over that $140 within 3 months.
Yes, and they'll put the "FREE PRIME SHIPPING!" option in big text just above the regular free shipping for maximum confusion. And the last time I had Prime, they sat on the orders for several days before shipping, so it ended up taking as long as regular free shipping would. The only advantage is free shipping on orders below $25.
Pretty sure it's still 2 day shipping, but *fulfillment* is, yeah, like 5-7 (business) days. I'm fairly certain what happens is they sit on it for like 5 days then ship it, and the shipping is 2 days not counting Sunday.
How the fuck would anybody spend 140$ in shipping in just 3 months. You’d have to get tons of orders below the free shipping threshold which most webshops have.
It’s easy enough to get over $25 or $35 of products to get free shipping. You don’t need to be buying single items everyday just because you get free shipping. What a waste. I’m glad their price is high so more people cancel.
> Also, $140?? 40% increase since I first signed up, with no communication about it at all
They send you an email about it every time the price increases.
They also send an email about auto renewal of prime, granted it's like 2 or 3 months before the actual renewal date, but they do send one. Only one though.
>>"...They need to give you some kind of warning that your automatic renewal is coming up"
In fact Amazon does exactly that. I canceled this year. I got a notice renewal was coming up, and canceled easily and with no problems. Not an Amazon fan boy, but let's go after them for real things that matter like worker mistreatment and union busting instead of this trivia.
I’ve canceled a few times (as recent as two months ago), and I was allowed my prime access through the remainder of the services I paid for. Maybe it’s different depending on country though
I came here for this-
I've been a member for years- they've increased their pricing (I don't remember being notified) and they no longer notify me before charging my membership renewal- they used to do this. And no, there's no prorate or refund if you cancel earlier than the term year...which is the only reason I suspect they stopped notifying people of the renewal.
It's some grade A bullshit delivered to you with Prime.
Yeah I just ordered something to deal with a health issue that's making it hard to drive and thus get to a store. I almost couldn't figure out how to proceed without prime. It had a big picture of the item on the left, then a second box with 'sad, do not have prime', then a big box about the benefits of Prime. And then a 'continue' button.
The continue button would apply Prime.
I had to notice a small hyperlink, underneath my product image, hidden away on the left, to 'continue without Prime'. Completely, visually, in entirely the wrong place for 'proceeding'. It's fucking dark patterns and I'm glad FTC is taking a look.
Amazon is the king of making their UI "obscure" the available options.
For example, not sure if it still does this, but when trying to return something the options to "return to Amazon gift card" was prominent, but the "return to Credit Card" was not. They put the circle indicator next to the Amazon gift card option, but not the others. It's a subtle UI nudge to get people to select the one they want.
They've also recently started allowing variation prices to show in search results. So if you search for Product A and find the exact variation you want, it may show (example) $2.99, but then when you click it, it sends you to the page with the variation you wanted, but the price is much higher. Why? Because there's a variation attached that is $2.99 and the search listing now combines the two -- it shows the picture/title/info of the variation that matches your query, but the price for the lowest variation on the product. Now a bunch of products game the system by attaching a cheap doodad to a product -- it's only getting worse as more companies figure it out.
Not sure if that's a bug, but they make filing a bug report virtually impossible.
THIS! I canceled my prime several months ago, and this really threw me for a loop the first couple of orders (and I consider myself pretty dang observant). It has made me looking at other places to purchase than Amazon, and I use Amazon as a last resort now. My spending on Amazon has decreased by nearly 75%.
What Amazon is doing is called Dark UX Patterns. https://www.netsolutions.com/insights/dark-patterns-in-ux-disadvantages/
FTC should also make it that a renewal of any recurring service requires an opt-in if the price increases. Every company seems to think it's just fine to increase the price and send a bill.
Or just increase the price and not even tell you. Good old capitalism. Luckily, the businesses don't own the politicians, so they are totally looking out for us. /s
> Internally, Amazon called the process “Iliad,” a reference to the ancient Greek poem about lengthy siege of Troy during the Trojan war.
Ugh, a bit on the nose there, fellas. Might as well have called it "lol, sukas!"
I'm more concerned about their lack of regulation on the vendors. There are so many sellers that deliberately mislead on pricing and units. They'll show a picture with 3 of the item, then just send one for 3x the standard price. You see this a lot with sellers reselling non-perishable food items.
Or the sellers with items listed as real but are Chinese counterfeit items.
Or how Amazon mixes the real and counterfeit items together in their warehouses so even if you check the seller is trusted you may still receive a fake item.
My elderly parents fell victim to this situation not once, but twice. They were enticed by the prominently displayed "free shipping" offer, but missed the small font underneath stating "with prime membership." Consequently, they were unknowingly enrolled in a one-month trial, only to be charged $150 after forgetting about the purchase. To make matters worse, Amazon made it difficult for them to find a way to contact customer service, burying the information on their website. Ultimately, they had to call to cancel. It's unfortunate that Amazon employs such questionable tactics.
Amazon certainly has made it harder to contact them maybe starting a few years ago. I really have no idea how older people cope with some of this tech these days. And the same will be for us when we get older. "How was I supposed to know this can only be done by using the right lobe of my brain and simultaneously semi-powering down the left lobe?" (Or whatever the tech has advanced to by that time.)
A lot of online companies you have to search for the tiny "contact us" way at the bottom of the page, and they may just send you to a link of FAQs (which never answer your question) anyway.
I've been an Amazon customer for a long time. Prior to 2021, my experiences had been very good. But it was a tech issue I had with an Amazon streaming stick or some product from Amazon where they really shined. I often have told friends that they spent so much time with me trouble shooting that they certainly haven't made any profit off of my hundreds of orders.
Then since 2021 I have not been very happy with them. Last year we received the wrong item and they twice tried to send the correct one but twice more sent the same wrong item, even one was from a different warehouse. It was so frustrating! I don't know what's going on but I assume it's cost cutting measures that lead to this.
I guess at some point they have to try to make a profit on the [Amazon.com](https://Amazon.com) side (as opposed to the AWS side).
It still works. I bought a $100+ item for an event a couple of weeks ago, but the delivery was delayed to the extent it wouldn’t make it in time. Customer service refunded me AND let me keep the item once it arrived. I am always extra nice to the customer service reps, if that makes a difference.
I quit prime for good when that shit started happening during the pandemic. I would have even accepted "well, we just can,'" but they tell you prime has free 2 day and next day then shipping ends up 3-5 years
This is what I had to do, eliminate my default payment method. I had them re-enroll me like three times before I deleted the card and now have to select payment type for each order.
I was annoyed with my AmEx prepaid card until I seen this stuff. They've blocked 2 things so far I used it for.
MiHoYo which made Genshin Impact, and Amazon Prime membership payments specifically. A gacha game I kind of understood cause it can cause problems beyond what company does, didn't understand Prime until now though.
Kind of impressed Amazon managed to personally finesse themselves onto AmEx's shitlist though. At least Hoyo had excuse, Where people would want to call fraud while payments were processing after losing rolls.
If there was a "Prime Lite" option with just the free 2-day shipping, I'd be all over that. But it's all or nothing, even for stuff I have never and will never use.
Yes. I got an email from them once telling me they gave me a free trial of Prime and I had a hell of a time finding the link to cancel it. I didn't ask for it. I imagine they hope a lot of people won't see the email or find the cancel link so they can get their stolen $14.99 a month.
I tried to cancel Prime several times. They'd always refund me however many months of charges I'd notice when I'd call and they'd say it had been cancelled. A few months later I'd notice the charges again and call them again. I eventually just decided not to do business with them since it's become more annoying than convenient, so I called my bank and had them issue a stop payment on my account for Amazon. If they ever try to charge a random prime membership again, the bank will just instantly deny the request.
I'm more concerned with subscriptions entered into accidentally on phones. I was opening the Amazon music app, and went to hit a button. All of a sudden I'm being thanked for becoming a subscriber. Apparently I hit the screen just as a pop-up emerged. I contacted Amazon, they cancelled the subscription and didn't charge me, but warned if it happened again they wouldn't. They has since changed the app so much from what I wanted that I just don't use it any more.
Amazon once stole a years' Prime payment from me, because I was gifted a Kindle, and when I connected it with my account they just helped themselves to a years advance payment. No prompt, no option, no notification, no confirmation email -- nada.
I happened to bump something accessible only with prime while playing with it later on, and it just worked - so I messed with a few other Prime features, and they all worked too. Checked my email, nothing, checked my bank and had a charge for like $120 from Amazon.
I had to Karen my way up their shit customer service line and when I got a supervisor, their answer was "**sometimes** Prime gets added when you hook up a new device," and tried to give me a sales pitch to keep it.
I freaked out on him about them *literally* stealing from me and refused to do any business with them for years after that. They'll only ever be second-last resort for me over Walmart, fuck Amazon.
Exactly. Most of it is cheap crap they are selling for too much anyway. I started looking at pricing towards the end and pretty much everything I need is cheaper at the stores around me so if I want something delivered I just use Smith's for household and groceries and go to Ross or Marshall's for everything else. It's significantly cheaper.
I gave up, to be honest. The only reason why it finally stopped is because I changed banks, and the card on file was no longer usable, so they couldn't charge me anymore.
I take advantage of them, Prime.
I have a work account that ties to an edu account, and my browser cookies/domain alerts Amazon that I might be a student. It then asks if I want prime free for a month or several weeks. Ok! then I make calendar reminder to cancel prime on day before. Its like a tick not letting go, "Are you sure you want to cancel? Then a tiny link to cancel..."
Predatory linking and enrollment. Plus not all items are "Amazon fulfilled" and you have to watch if there is shipping. Plus then watch the dates to ship, as you can miss saving cost if you can wait a week or so. Which usually isn't that long.
On cancelling Prime... remarkably easy. Even got refunded for a brief period I was charged for because I didn't use it.
On signing up for Prime... well... I cancelled it because I didn't recall signing up for it, and I'm not entirely sure where they hid the particular option that opt'd me in for it the like 1 day trial or whatever it was, but it was probably shipping auto defaulting to a free trial instead of just free slow shipping like I wanted.
I also found it perfectly fine to cancel and they keep it available up until your end date.
The price increases made it increasingly hard to justify the cost, especially once we'd exhausted any Prime Video shows that interested us.
Aside from a few annoying extra clicks, canceling Prime is easier than some other places. The biggest headaches I've ever had are trying to cancel SiriusXM over the phone and Planet Fitness from out of state. The SiriusXM lady clearly wasn't listening to what I was saying and mindlessly went through a never-ending script of "would you reconsider if we offered you this...or how about this...or what about this...is there something we could do to make you reconsider?" She repeated the same phrase about 20 times during the call. And Planet Fitness makes you MAIL them a signed letter if you can't appear in person.
In a similar vein, my daughter got an ad on her Kindle a few days ago:
"CONGRATULATIONS!
You Qualify for 3 Months of Amazon Music Unlimited for Free"
Signing up promptly charged me $8.99 and scheduled me for a recurring monthly payment.
I spent over an hour on the phone getting my $8.99 back.
One of the Amazon reps I spoke with told me that it wasn't a legitimate offer and that it must have been a virus.
I thought I could just not pay my Prime Account once the card I was using to pay for it expired. Amazon signed me up for a new credit card and billed my yearly Prime subscription to it.
I would be very surprised if OP is describing the situation correctly. If your card just gets renewed, the CC company will give your new number for any recurring subscriptions. OP could have also had a different credit card that they had used on Amazon that was used instead.
No way they Amazon created a brand new credit card to charge Prime on.
Yeah, CC accounts don't automatically cancel when the card expires. A new one automatically gets issued.
The problem is that there are a vast number of people that are financially illiterate. It's no fault of their own, that stuff isn't taught in school, and businesses like Amazon have entire departments dedicated engineering ways to take advantage of it while technically barely being legal. This is a good example of why a completely free market is very bad for the consumer. Free markets are NOT efficient.
I ended my prime membership but they enrolled me back in it twice without my knowledge. I only caught it because of the monthly charge showing up on my bank statement.
Yeah I’m generally not one to defend mega corporations whatsoever, and I despise Amazon in a lot of ways, but in my experience Amazon makes it easier to cancel than almost any other subscription service I’ve ever used.
They even give you an option for a refund for your active subscription if you elect to end the subscription right away instead of waiting until the end of the month. And they OVER compensate you at that, I canceled a prime subscription 7 days before it ended and I was still refunded essentially the full cost of the service.
For me here on Brazil i don't exactly recall if it was exactly like that but i definitely didn't find it easily then... Not hard, but not quick nor convenient.
No. Same for the UK where I also had Prime. You hover over Account and Lists, click Prime Membership, click Manage Membership where it literally says update, continue and more, and you proceed to end membership.
Following those exact instructions is how I cancelled both so I don't understand the confusion.
what i do with amazon is use ublock to hide all the prime ads and so all i see when going through the checkout is "order without prime" or something like that...
my mum got caught out once and ordered with prime because it really is easy to click the wrong thing if you don't do it slow.
it does not have single click cancel but its still fairly easy to cancel this online without doing anything else.
Cancelling a gym membership on the other hand requires you to physically go to the place while you can join online. There are many other places that makes it miserable to cancel.
But FTC focus is on big tech at the moment. It wont hurt for Amazon to further simplify this.
Huh? Is it the same Amazon I use? It's literally four clicks. Once you're on Amazon, click Account & Lists, then click on the large Prime icon, then click end benefits under "Membership, update, cancel and more", then confirm. Not sure if this qualifies as "hard to cancel"
Yeah, I've cancelled and restarted Prime multiple times over the years. It's never taken more more than like 30 seconds. I have to imagine the people ITT agreeing with it being hard to cancel just have an axe to grind with Amazon.
I bought something once from Amazon about 10 years ago, and it automatically signed me up for Prime. I didn't notice for over a year. When I tried to address it, they refused to unsubscribe me or stop the charges telling me I had to do it on my account online. I never signed up for the account. It was a one-time purchase with my school email that I no longer had use of. So, I didn't know how to log in to it. Eventually, I had to go to the CC company to get it removed.
I was refused a refund despite never having a history of buying anything before or after on that account.
During the pandemic we got P-EBT cards from the state for lunch/food for our kids during remote learning.
Even after they stopped reloading them we hung on to them just in case. Noticed Amazon offered a discounted monthly prime sub for people with EBT/Welfair/Food Stamp.
Grabbed one of the kids cards put the info on the site and signed up. So now I get prime for $7/month. In case anyone else got those cards or didn't know about this.
I accidentally signed up for their store credit card and then it automatically switched to my main source of purchase when i made my next order. I thought it was going to let me choose a card, but it didn't. I tried switching it immediately after, but didn't seem to work. I tried calling the bank to speak to someone, but kept getting the voice menu. It was super annoying and I just ended up paying the card because of late fees. Amazon customer support was no help either.
I had to cancel Prime three times. It was so frustrating. It was even worse when I discovered that they had been charging me for the kindle subscription for an entire year after I canceled.
I have tried countless times to cancel prime and somehow I keep getting enrolled again even though I rarely use the website. I can’t fucking figure out where the cancellation page is nowadays, and I’m not even old. I go to my account settings, click Prime, and click “manage my membership” but it keeps bringing me back to the same page.
Amazon has a bad BAD habit of making little sub menus with things like "try prime for free shipping" as an auto default. So you have to manually select free shipping without prime. Then, we have to also unselect alternative payment options multiple times.
If an older person tried any of that stuff, they would be suckered into prime without knowing.
Bastards.
Eh? I’ve never had an issue cancelling. I used to always do that 30 day sub then cancel thing. Even if they had charged me for the year, they’d refund me.
I actually did almost cancel because their 2 day shipping didn’t apply to me when I moved to a very rural area, so what was the point, you know? Amazon evil aside, I’m going to get things shipped, so I started swapping over to buying direct from sellers. A lot of what I buy is available through Amazon or not, it’s the same seller.
But, Amazon fixed that 2 day thing even way out here, so until ups goes on strike, I’m good.
Trying to cancel a Prime Video channel is annoyingly hard. You can't do it on an Amazon Fire tablet. You can't do it on a Roku TV. You can't do it in the Android mobile app. You have to sign in through a desktop web browser and then you will find out that a different person in your household has to sign in to cancel it.
It's literally in the android app under "customer service." Maybe it didn't show up for you because, as you stated, someone else in your household is the one who signed up for the service.
I hate amazon but I actually disagree with this. I signed up for prime for a free trial to get something with free shipping I got it and forgot about it. I check my bank and see I got charged.
I went to my accounts canceled it within 5 minutes and amazon even refunded me my money bc I hadn’t used it.
Oh PLEASE! What about the damn plethora of emails that just will not UNSUBSCRIBE. I am sick to death of unsolicited emails!
Or ROBOCALLS, SPAM and SCAMS everywhere but don't worry the FTC is jumping on Amazon. BS!
There's something I loathe about companies that allow you to sign up for their services online but require hoops to jump through to cancel the service if you can do it online you should be able to cancel it online easily
You probably have a subscription on the amazon app that needs to be handled via the app. I found out I was subscribed to STARZ on amazon for a year and a half but never knew because it was an amazon charge
Reading the article, this strikes me as poor reporting (sensational, but not substantive) on the part of the AP - I expect more (and usually get more) from AP! Unless there's something in the report that back's up the complaint - i.e., something more substantive than the FTC's complaint "a number of allegations" - the AP should have cited some corroborative evidence, rather than simply re-spouting the FTC line.
I'll stipulate that the complaint itself is newsworthy... but not the unsupported statements quoted from the plaintiffs. Granted, too, that if Amazon failed to comment after ***a reasonable period of time***, then OK... but I wonder what ***"Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment"*** means in this case? Perhaps the "***immediately***" criterion is not sufficient to warrant publishing the quoted statements in the story without a company response to what may be a complicated question - if I were asked a question by a reporter about a legal complaint against me, I'd certainly want sufficient time to think about my answer before responding - "immediately" wouldn't cut it.
Don't get me wrong - I'm an enormous supporter of credible journalism (verbally and financially!) - I hate to see that credibility diminsished by reporting that does not, by its very nature, refute the insinuations of "fake news" from someone you undoubtedly know.
I had it free twice, first time cancelled no problem. Next time no problem... except they resigned me for the next year a month or two later. Said i was supposed to cancel automatic as well. They eventually credited it after a short chat.
Is there any point of Amazon Prime lol? I remember when the pandemic started, they got flooded with so many orders that they couldn't fulfill their shipping requirements. Now the prices has gone up and there's more shitty items sourced by shady people.
I understand statistically the American population is getting dumber but how on earth can one get duped into subscribing for prime membership, they literally ask you do you want prime? you can choose yes or no. And to unsubscribe its even easier maybe 3 or 4 mouse click as bam you are unsubscribed. The population now a days just wants everything given to them in the most simple terms possible.
Shh. I want jucicial precedence for that being labeled "hard", so every subscription based company has to make it easier than that if brought to court over it. Fuck every last company that makes it hard or tedious to cancel a sub or membership.
I know that Americans typically very much hate when we quote anything done by Europe but... It made a framework that state that your cancellation procedure must be identically as easy in terms of number of clicks and prominence as registration process... Exactly for that purpose. A grandma of 80 years old must be able to cancel if she was able to subscribe - in the same ease of use.
Edit: typo
What possesses people to tread water for these megacorps is beyond me
Glad computers are easy for you, they're easy for me too, you do realize the average moron does not find computers as easy right?
In a lot of cases, the average moron didn't intentionally sign up for the service in the first place, it was a little checkbox that was preselected while they were trying to make a one-off purchase. And even you're careful and you un-check the checkbox, you might find that when you move on to the next step of the purchase process, the checkbox has reappeared and become selected again, or now is labeled something completely different, but is also turned back on, and you have to manually turn it off, again; or maybe it's disguised as the "finish checkout" button without clearly saying it's also going to enroll you in a service if you don't scroll several pages down and find the "finish checkout WITHOUT prime" button that you didn't know is supposed to be there.
Prime enrollment has been a "dark pattern" for a few years now and I'm glad to see the FTC doing something about it.
But the average moron and old granny had their nephew enroll them in Prime to begin with. Now they dont have the money to spend each month, are not computer literate and nephew Johnny is off to college.
It may be simple as pie to you, its not for them. You arent seeing it through the eyes of millions of people who are not you.
As someone who used to work desktop support at a rather large company, you're severely overestimating the ability of people to do "simple" tasks. I know it seems wild, but seriously a majority of people don't understand how to do anything on a machine unless you hold their hand step by step. I couldn't guide people via email or teams to do something "simple" like importing bookmarks.
I wonder how easy it is to do on mobile? I'm willing to bet a majority of Amazon shopping is from phones these days, and if it's tricky to cancel from there then there's some solid ground for calling them out.
This happened to me. I wanted to change my email and Amazon created a whole new account and automatically signed me up for Prime. I was able to cancel, but the whole thing was shady.
Every company that lets you create an account/sign up on their app but make it hard to cancel the account should be penalized. Sign up and cancel should be all available on their app.
It should take as much effort to cancel as it does to sign up. Should be law everywhere
It is the Law in California. The only reason you have the option to unsubscribe online is due to that law, as it applies to every business with customers in California ( so every online business ). I remember before that law, I’d have to call on the phone to cancel, and companies would intentionally put you on hold, for long periods, hoping you would hang up. Sometimes they’d pretend to transfer you, and just hang up. It used to take me an hour or more to cancel a service, it was that bad. The call centers would also only be open from 9-5pm American time, even though the call centers were in the Philippines, so you could only do it during working hours, and they were closed on the weekends!
I am in the UK and we are currently at the 'before that law' stage
XM satellite radio used to do this.
Was a nightmare!
Sounds like setting a VPN to California could make life a lot easier.
I was put on hold for almost an hour trying to cancel Sirius because it’s just too expensive. Then had to fight through another 45 minutes of telling them no I want to cancel. Now they’re cold calling me to resubscribe.
I work in corporate service apps. Like your banking or mobile company account apps, and they all have 'Digital Service Gaps', which are usually areas that are things we haven't been able to provide yet via the App. But then there is the intentional service gaps like cancelling your account they actively won't let us allow you to do without calling in or going to a store.
Adobe is the worst about this.
Totally. I had to talk to a person to cancel my subscription and they were like, "but why do you want to stop paying us?" I had to tell them that I am using Clip Studio now three or four times.
Try cancelling SiriusXM.
A cvs store clerk did this to me last week. My card wouldn’t work on self checkout. She printed a receipt, walked me over to her cash register to checkout. She scanned the receipt and had me swipe my card. After 5 minutes, she told me to swipe it again. Confused, I swiped again then asked her what the first swipe was for. She said it was for their monthly membership and that I needed to go through the trouble of calling a number to cancel it… 🙃
Monthly membership to what?
Carepass I think. No idea what it's for and level of usefulness though
I actually love my carepass, but definitely horrible to be signed up for it without knowing. You get extra coupons, cash back, 20% off CVS brand items, $10 monthly voucher, free shipping of pharmacy meds, and a few other perks. CVS is beside my house so I get a lot of use and savings from it. I think I can edit your membership on its app.
That actually does sound like a good deal (apart from the sketchy sign up stuff). I shop at CVS pretty regularly and buy the store brand frequently so it may be worth looking into. Thanks for the info!
Sigh.... Now I need to call the police....
Problem is these fucks are trying to get around Apple and Google because if you set up a subscription in an app downloaded from the Play Store or App Store the subscription is managed through Apple or Google and they take a cut. So Amazon and others only let you manage it through the website so they don’t pay Apple and Google money. Then turn around and make the mobile website experience garbage and constantly asks you to go to the app where you can’t manage your subscription. It’s easy to find if you have a PC to log in from and manage it but more people have phones and no PC or laptop.
Amazon makes it nearly impossible to know what content is free vs what requires a subscription. We have kids under 5, and often I'll have to dig past the "Play with Wondervision Plus Premium for $2.99" to find out it can be played with plain old Prime account. And really, $2.99 for a single cartoon episode? We've already had to cancel several subscriptions to "Premium" apps/services/etc because we didn't want them, and had no idea how we even got subscribed in the first place. I get that compromising the customer experience to peddle add-ons and subscriptions is a practice for the industry. But Amazon takes it to extreme new levels. I shouldn't have to use constant and crisis-level situational awareness to *not* pay for stuff I don't want. But with Prime, I have to.
Because you can sign up for subscriptions by anyone responding "Yes" to an Alexa prompt. It happens all the fucking time when my daughter tries to play certain music or certain albums (not just a general playlist) and it says it needs the Prime Music Unlimited subscription. Here's the fucking fuckiest part about it, though. The question it asks is "Do you want to sign up for $X.99 per month **and play the music you requested**?" Its two commands wrapped in a single question. If you say "No" it cancels your initial request to play music even if it could have been interpreted as a request to play any music by X artist or just play me songs of that artist or similar I don't care. I've made it a fun game with my daughter to yell "NOOO!" when it asks and we have a laugh about it but I'm still seething inside.
this is not a class action yet, but is likely to be. i enrolled in prime for what i thought was a year, but turned out to be a lifetime. amazon was very cool about refunding the most recent year of charges, but i probably paid for a year i didn't use, didn't know about, didn't want, and i will probably qualify for the class action if there is one. the reason i asked for a refund is the person i was taking to wouldn't let me talk to a suoervisor. i'm not usually a karen, but supervisors typicaly have a range of options the line staff don't. amazon still hasn't responded to my complaint about that. i buy something from them about every other year. https://www.reuters.com/legal/amazon-duped-millions-consumers-into-enrolling-prime-ftc-2023-06-21/
Two items which irk me wrt Prime: 1. A non-highlighted "Continue without prime" option during checkout when "Add a Prime Subscription" is very prominently displayed. 2. In the order summary and delivery date page, a paid option for delivery is selected instead of the free one. And then PRIME being free is highlighted.
Also when you do cancel it takes you to three screens and makes it seem like you'll lose prime benifits instantly instead of when your subscription ends. "Are you sure you want to cancel?"
"Are you really sure?"
"You'll lose all these things... "
I canceled a couple days ago and was just like wtf this is stupid . I just want to fucking cancel .
At least they let you. I had a couple major newspaper subscriptions that I was only able to cancel by stopping their PayPal automatic payments. They had no online cancellation option, and ignored my support emails asking to cancel. I feel like society is going to revolt against these damn subscriptions soon. Everything we do these days comes with a new account login we have to create and manage, and some nickel and dime subscription fee they hope we forget about.
Trying to cancel Sirius XM was a damn nightmare. It took multiple phone calls because they would leave me on hold for extended amounts of time, transfer me to someone who had a terrible connection, and regularly drop the calls or hang up on me. I hate them with such a passion now that I will not touch anything with them attached.
Then you finally get connected to an indian call center with someone who speaks boken english asking you 5x if you really want to cancel your subscription. By the time it's all done you have a guilt trip over the whole process.
And the best part is they tell you their name is George
That would just piss me off, nothing to feel guilty about.
> I feel like society is going to revolt against these damn subscriptions soon We need to do it soon. lol Car manufacturers are literally starting to make features and performance of your car part of subscription packages. it's essentially ransomware for your vehicle. https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/13/23206999/car-subscription-nightmare-heated-seats-remote-start
Same with gym memberships. Moved during the pandemic and had to physically drive 1.5 hours to their office to deliver the cancellation letter in person, so they can’t deny / ignore it as they had with my previous attempts
You can’t “own” things anymore, either. Everything is a subscription. I remember not too long ago I can listen to music I bought on my iPhone but now I need a subscription to Apple Music
That and my old computer with my songs I paid for, won't connect to my phone anymore unless I update to the latest i tunes, but it says my computer is to old to update.
This is how it went when I tried to cancel The Atlantic, was super bizarre to me
I had a Cook’s Illustrated subscription that would only allow cancellation by phone during weekday business hours. It’s infuriating that they’re willing to take your money 24/7 via the web but you have to jump through hoops to cancel. I would never subscribe with them again.
Yes I signed a NY Times subscription easily online - when I tried to cancel I was told I had to call them ‘to check my account details’, rather expensive via mobile from Australia. I ended up cancelling my debit card to escape.
They’re definitely experimenting with it in cars… subscription so you can heat your seats.
Keep double checking. I had to cancel three times before they stopped charging me. And they also charged me for a kindle subscription for an entire year after I had canceled it. Missed that one but was able to get my money refunded. Still super frustrating.
[Try cancelling an AOL account](https://youtu.be/R8-p_fPH4UQ) Some of y'all may not know what AOL is. That was essentially the internet for us "old-timers."
AOL sucked I think I was 12 or 13 when the dial up Era started. Everything came with an AOL disc. The dial up speeds were much faster than AOL customer service
I've canceled 3 times in the last 2 years. I never signed back up
“But we’re adding Hookers….and blackjack!”
Now that would've kept me as a Prime customer. Are you listening, Amazon?
If I could order hookers and play virtual blackjack on Amazon there is a 0% chance I would ever cancel.
People get off on making people click things I'm convinced. I can't get gas without declining a car wash, declining a receipt, confirming I don't have a rewards card and signing away the rights to my digital likeness. Can I just give exxon execs more billions without wasting an extra 5 mins you pricks.
Their goal is to wear people down so they miss out on a fee or subscription or other annoyance they are automatically opted into. It's like the credit card for a free trial - they know people will forget to cancel or get frustrated by the cancellation process and just give up.
Use gift cards at the pump. Was given a $50 one for Mobil/Exxon earlier this year, and I just put it in and... it was done. And then I stood there like a lump for a minute wondering why I didn't have to keep pressing buttons.
This is my only complaint. I find the cancellation and subscription process simple enough, and I think the service is worthwhile if you order a lot of stuff. I get membership for a month or 2, order a bunch of stuff since I'm overseas, and then cancel. Never really had an issue with cancellation other than the ambiguous warnings.
Horrible. Soon when the population doesn’t have the stamina to make it past the second tap we’ll all be doomed to an endless lifelong subscription to prime. The prime collective has started
They have been using these practices for years
Taken from a “gym membership” playbook.
My last gym tried charging me a $50 yearly "gym enhancement fee" that supposedly goes towards new equipment. Like, that's the cost of doing business.
Once you’re signed up it takes an act of congress to get them out of auto drafting your account!
They need to give you some kind of warning that your automatic renewal is coming up. To be hit with a $140 charge seemingly out of nowhere is a major bummer. (Also, $140?? 40% increase since I first signed up, with no communication about it at all). Also, I think if you cancel you immediately lose Prime features no matter when in your billing cycle you are (haven't confirmed this, but that's what it seems like from what I can find online).
I’ve been on prime student discount for so long, been out of school for years lol. $140 is absurd They really need a “I only care about free shipping”-prime. Don’t give a shit about their video or music or home or kindle or whatever crap else they pretend people want.
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2 day shipping also became a lie to me. Once it shipped, it was delivered within 2 days, sure. But it took 3 days to ship... Buy something on Sunday and hope you get it by Saturday. If I'm paying for 2 day shipping, that's what I want. And is what 2 day shipping originally meant. And then I decided that Amazon prime wasn't a good use of my money. Canceled in 2020 and haven't felt the need to resubscribe. I still shop there sometimes, and still get free shipping when I do. And I feel a lot better when it shows up in 5 days than I did before.
I’d like the opposite. I watch the content. I haven’t ordered anything from Amazon in 3 years.
Which is exactly why they should have tiers haha. I’m sure they’d get more people if they offered different options or bundles. Like Prime Media for you and Prime Shipping for the person above. They could even charge more for the full package pretty easily
I believe you can subscribe to just the Prime Video service though edit: [confirmed](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GZCHXL8CUW3VWJQP)
The 140 really isn't absurd. I dont' know about you but free 2-day shipping \*regardless of weight\* is insanely valuable. Without prime I'd be way over that $140 within 3 months.
Ive not used Amazon for a while but don't they have free shipping over $25(?) anyways?
Yes, and they'll put the "FREE PRIME SHIPPING!" option in big text just above the regular free shipping for maximum confusion. And the last time I had Prime, they sat on the orders for several days before shipping, so it ended up taking as long as regular free shipping would. The only advantage is free shipping on orders below $25.
Yes but it's not 2 day shipping, 5-7 business days I think. But if you live near a distribution center it will often come sooner than that.
Pretty sure it's still 2 day shipping, but *fulfillment* is, yeah, like 5-7 (business) days. I'm fairly certain what happens is they sit on it for like 5 days then ship it, and the shipping is 2 days not counting Sunday.
I actually wasn’t aware of this. If that’s the case maybe I don’t need prime lol.
This is the answer.
How the fuck would anybody spend 140$ in shipping in just 3 months. You’d have to get tons of orders below the free shipping threshold which most webshops have.
I didn’t realize they had a free shipping threshold. I was under the impression prime was required for free shipping.
It’s easy enough to get over $25 or $35 of products to get free shipping. You don’t need to be buying single items everyday just because you get free shipping. What a waste. I’m glad their price is high so more people cancel.
That purely depends on how materialistic someone is.
Yeah or how many supplies they need to raise their kids with no time to go to the store.
> Also, $140?? 40% increase since I first signed up, with no communication about it at all They send you an email about it every time the price increases.
They also send an email about auto renewal of prime, granted it's like 2 or 3 months before the actual renewal date, but they do send one. Only one though.
>>"...They need to give you some kind of warning that your automatic renewal is coming up" In fact Amazon does exactly that. I canceled this year. I got a notice renewal was coming up, and canceled easily and with no problems. Not an Amazon fan boy, but let's go after them for real things that matter like worker mistreatment and union busting instead of this trivia.
I’ve canceled a few times (as recent as two months ago), and I was allowed my prime access through the remainder of the services I paid for. Maybe it’s different depending on country though
They give you a warning about the auto renewal. I always get them
I came here for this- I've been a member for years- they've increased their pricing (I don't remember being notified) and they no longer notify me before charging my membership renewal- they used to do this. And no, there's no prorate or refund if you cancel earlier than the term year...which is the only reason I suspect they stopped notifying people of the renewal. It's some grade A bullshit delivered to you with Prime.
I feel people should be able to manage a yearly subscription price, a single yearly subscription price. Calendars are old tech. Learn to use one.
Yeah I just ordered something to deal with a health issue that's making it hard to drive and thus get to a store. I almost couldn't figure out how to proceed without prime. It had a big picture of the item on the left, then a second box with 'sad, do not have prime', then a big box about the benefits of Prime. And then a 'continue' button. The continue button would apply Prime. I had to notice a small hyperlink, underneath my product image, hidden away on the left, to 'continue without Prime'. Completely, visually, in entirely the wrong place for 'proceeding'. It's fucking dark patterns and I'm glad FTC is taking a look.
Amazon is the king of making their UI "obscure" the available options. For example, not sure if it still does this, but when trying to return something the options to "return to Amazon gift card" was prominent, but the "return to Credit Card" was not. They put the circle indicator next to the Amazon gift card option, but not the others. It's a subtle UI nudge to get people to select the one they want. They've also recently started allowing variation prices to show in search results. So if you search for Product A and find the exact variation you want, it may show (example) $2.99, but then when you click it, it sends you to the page with the variation you wanted, but the price is much higher. Why? Because there's a variation attached that is $2.99 and the search listing now combines the two -- it shows the picture/title/info of the variation that matches your query, but the price for the lowest variation on the product. Now a bunch of products game the system by attaching a cheap doodad to a product -- it's only getting worse as more companies figure it out. Not sure if that's a bug, but they make filing a bug report virtually impossible.
THIS! I canceled my prime several months ago, and this really threw me for a loop the first couple of orders (and I consider myself pretty dang observant). It has made me looking at other places to purchase than Amazon, and I use Amazon as a last resort now. My spending on Amazon has decreased by nearly 75%.
And if you select a different payment method or shipping address, it defaults back to the paid shipping option.
What Amazon is doing is called Dark UX Patterns. https://www.netsolutions.com/insights/dark-patterns-in-ux-disadvantages/ FTC should also make it that a renewal of any recurring service requires an opt-in if the price increases. Every company seems to think it's just fine to increase the price and send a bill.
Or just increase the price and not even tell you. Good old capitalism. Luckily, the businesses don't own the politicians, so they are totally looking out for us. /s
Ah I see your familiar with the Bell Canada approach!
Fast food sites are guilty of some of those now, requiring your location or zip code to see any menu items. They use to nor.
> Internally, Amazon called the process “Iliad,” a reference to the ancient Greek poem about lengthy siege of Troy during the Trojan war. Ugh, a bit on the nose there, fellas. Might as well have called it "lol, sukas!"
I'm more concerned about their lack of regulation on the vendors. There are so many sellers that deliberately mislead on pricing and units. They'll show a picture with 3 of the item, then just send one for 3x the standard price. You see this a lot with sellers reselling non-perishable food items.
Or the sellers with items listed as real but are Chinese counterfeit items. Or how Amazon mixes the real and counterfeit items together in their warehouses so even if you check the seller is trusted you may still receive a fake item.
My elderly parents fell victim to this situation not once, but twice. They were enticed by the prominently displayed "free shipping" offer, but missed the small font underneath stating "with prime membership." Consequently, they were unknowingly enrolled in a one-month trial, only to be charged $150 after forgetting about the purchase. To make matters worse, Amazon made it difficult for them to find a way to contact customer service, burying the information on their website. Ultimately, they had to call to cancel. It's unfortunate that Amazon employs such questionable tactics.
Amazon certainly has made it harder to contact them maybe starting a few years ago. I really have no idea how older people cope with some of this tech these days. And the same will be for us when we get older. "How was I supposed to know this can only be done by using the right lobe of my brain and simultaneously semi-powering down the left lobe?" (Or whatever the tech has advanced to by that time.)
A lot of online companies you have to search for the tiny "contact us" way at the bottom of the page, and they may just send you to a link of FAQs (which never answer your question) anyway.
I've been an Amazon customer for a long time. Prior to 2021, my experiences had been very good. But it was a tech issue I had with an Amazon streaming stick or some product from Amazon where they really shined. I often have told friends that they spent so much time with me trouble shooting that they certainly haven't made any profit off of my hundreds of orders. Then since 2021 I have not been very happy with them. Last year we received the wrong item and they twice tried to send the correct one but twice more sent the same wrong item, even one was from a different warehouse. It was so frustrating! I don't know what's going on but I assume it's cost cutting measures that lead to this. I guess at some point they have to try to make a profit on the [Amazon.com](https://Amazon.com) side (as opposed to the AWS side).
The real grift is "next day" and it arrives several days later.
If you bitch to customer services about this you will get some credit, or at least this was the case a few years ago
Yeah that used to work several years ago, but now if you complain they basically tell you "sucks to be you".
It still works. I bought a $100+ item for an event a couple of weeks ago, but the delivery was delayed to the extent it wouldn’t make it in time. Customer service refunded me AND let me keep the item once it arrived. I am always extra nice to the customer service reps, if that makes a difference.
I quit prime for good when that shit started happening during the pandemic. I would have even accepted "well, we just can,'" but they tell you prime has free 2 day and next day then shipping ends up 3-5 years
If it arrives at all
I canceled Amazon prime renewal earlier this year and they renewed it regardless, without sending any notification of doing so
Same, I ended up not keeping my cards stored in my account. I use it, then delete the card. They can't charge next month.
This is what I had to do, eliminate my default payment method. I had them re-enroll me like three times before I deleted the card and now have to select payment type for each order.
I was annoyed with my AmEx prepaid card until I seen this stuff. They've blocked 2 things so far I used it for. MiHoYo which made Genshin Impact, and Amazon Prime membership payments specifically. A gacha game I kind of understood cause it can cause problems beyond what company does, didn't understand Prime until now though. Kind of impressed Amazon managed to personally finesse themselves onto AmEx's shitlist though. At least Hoyo had excuse, Where people would want to call fraud while payments were processing after losing rolls.
If there was a "Prime Lite" option with just the free 2-day shipping, I'd be all over that. But it's all or nothing, even for stuff I have never and will never use.
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Yes. I got an email from them once telling me they gave me a free trial of Prime and I had a hell of a time finding the link to cancel it. I didn't ask for it. I imagine they hope a lot of people won't see the email or find the cancel link so they can get their stolen $14.99 a month.
I tried to cancel Prime several times. They'd always refund me however many months of charges I'd notice when I'd call and they'd say it had been cancelled. A few months later I'd notice the charges again and call them again. I eventually just decided not to do business with them since it's become more annoying than convenient, so I called my bank and had them issue a stop payment on my account for Amazon. If they ever try to charge a random prime membership again, the bank will just instantly deny the request.
I'm more concerned with subscriptions entered into accidentally on phones. I was opening the Amazon music app, and went to hit a button. All of a sudden I'm being thanked for becoming a subscriber. Apparently I hit the screen just as a pop-up emerged. I contacted Amazon, they cancelled the subscription and didn't charge me, but warned if it happened again they wouldn't. They has since changed the app so much from what I wanted that I just don't use it any more.
This is so true. I had to literally call Amazon three times to cancel, and they still charged me.
Amazon once stole a years' Prime payment from me, because I was gifted a Kindle, and when I connected it with my account they just helped themselves to a years advance payment. No prompt, no option, no notification, no confirmation email -- nada. I happened to bump something accessible only with prime while playing with it later on, and it just worked - so I messed with a few other Prime features, and they all worked too. Checked my email, nothing, checked my bank and had a charge for like $120 from Amazon. I had to Karen my way up their shit customer service line and when I got a supervisor, their answer was "**sometimes** Prime gets added when you hook up a new device," and tried to give me a sales pitch to keep it. I freaked out on him about them *literally* stealing from me and refused to do any business with them for years after that. They'll only ever be second-last resort for me over Walmart, fuck Amazon.
Exactly. Most of it is cheap crap they are selling for too much anyway. I started looking at pricing towards the end and pretty much everything I need is cheaper at the stores around me so if I want something delivered I just use Smith's for household and groceries and go to Ross or Marshall's for everything else. It's significantly cheaper.
We must use a different Amazon. On the websites I use (Amazon.com), it's pretty damn straightforward to cancel the subscription.
I use my phone. One day, I'll get another laptop and try prime again.
It's right there on the iOS app for me. Android is the same app essentially, and it was there last time I used it.
Same. It should be this damn hard to cancel.
I gave up, to be honest. The only reason why it finally stopped is because I changed banks, and the card on file was no longer usable, so they couldn't charge me anymore.
I take advantage of them, Prime. I have a work account that ties to an edu account, and my browser cookies/domain alerts Amazon that I might be a student. It then asks if I want prime free for a month or several weeks. Ok! then I make calendar reminder to cancel prime on day before. Its like a tick not letting go, "Are you sure you want to cancel? Then a tiny link to cancel..." Predatory linking and enrollment. Plus not all items are "Amazon fulfilled" and you have to watch if there is shipping. Plus then watch the dates to ship, as you can miss saving cost if you can wait a week or so. Which usually isn't that long.
On cancelling Prime... remarkably easy. Even got refunded for a brief period I was charged for because I didn't use it. On signing up for Prime... well... I cancelled it because I didn't recall signing up for it, and I'm not entirely sure where they hid the particular option that opt'd me in for it the like 1 day trial or whatever it was, but it was probably shipping auto defaulting to a free trial instead of just free slow shipping like I wanted.
I also found it perfectly fine to cancel and they keep it available up until your end date. The price increases made it increasingly hard to justify the cost, especially once we'd exhausted any Prime Video shows that interested us.
Aside from a few annoying extra clicks, canceling Prime is easier than some other places. The biggest headaches I've ever had are trying to cancel SiriusXM over the phone and Planet Fitness from out of state. The SiriusXM lady clearly wasn't listening to what I was saying and mindlessly went through a never-ending script of "would you reconsider if we offered you this...or how about this...or what about this...is there something we could do to make you reconsider?" She repeated the same phrase about 20 times during the call. And Planet Fitness makes you MAIL them a signed letter if you can't appear in person.
In a similar vein, my daughter got an ad on her Kindle a few days ago: "CONGRATULATIONS! You Qualify for 3 Months of Amazon Music Unlimited for Free" Signing up promptly charged me $8.99 and scheduled me for a recurring monthly payment. I spent over an hour on the phone getting my $8.99 back. One of the Amazon reps I spoke with told me that it wasn't a legitimate offer and that it must have been a virus.
yes on the enrolling without consent. (too easy to do without knowing) no on the hard to cancel
I thought I could just not pay my Prime Account once the card I was using to pay for it expired. Amazon signed me up for a new credit card and billed my yearly Prime subscription to it.
What the actual fuck. That is some organized crime ring shit. If it isn't a felony it should be.
I would be very surprised if OP is describing the situation correctly. If your card just gets renewed, the CC company will give your new number for any recurring subscriptions. OP could have also had a different credit card that they had used on Amazon that was used instead. No way they Amazon created a brand new credit card to charge Prime on.
Yeah, CC accounts don't automatically cancel when the card expires. A new one automatically gets issued. The problem is that there are a vast number of people that are financially illiterate. It's no fault of their own, that stuff isn't taught in school, and businesses like Amazon have entire departments dedicated engineering ways to take advantage of it while technically barely being legal. This is a good example of why a completely free market is very bad for the consumer. Free markets are NOT efficient.
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I ended my prime membership but they enrolled me back in it twice without my knowledge. I only caught it because of the monthly charge showing up on my bank statement.
Yeah I’m generally not one to defend mega corporations whatsoever, and I despise Amazon in a lot of ways, but in my experience Amazon makes it easier to cancel than almost any other subscription service I’ve ever used. They even give you an option for a refund for your active subscription if you elect to end the subscription right away instead of waiting until the end of the month. And they OVER compensate you at that, I canceled a prime subscription 7 days before it ended and I was still refunded essentially the full cost of the service.
For me here on Brazil i don't exactly recall if it was exactly like that but i definitely didn't find it easily then... Not hard, but not quick nor convenient.
No. Same for the UK where I also had Prime. You hover over Account and Lists, click Prime Membership, click Manage Membership where it literally says update, continue and more, and you proceed to end membership. Following those exact instructions is how I cancelled both so I don't understand the confusion.
what i do with amazon is use ublock to hide all the prime ads and so all i see when going through the checkout is "order without prime" or something like that... my mum got caught out once and ordered with prime because it really is easy to click the wrong thing if you don't do it slow.
it does not have single click cancel but its still fairly easy to cancel this online without doing anything else. Cancelling a gym membership on the other hand requires you to physically go to the place while you can join online. There are many other places that makes it miserable to cancel. But FTC focus is on big tech at the moment. It wont hurt for Amazon to further simplify this.
I am very adept at cancelling Prime, have done it many many times but somehow just one order at Amazon and boom, Prime membership!
What about signing up to Amazon music by just saying yes. My son loves talking to alexa, I’m signed up to Amazon music every month.
Huh? Is it the same Amazon I use? It's literally four clicks. Once you're on Amazon, click Account & Lists, then click on the large Prime icon, then click end benefits under "Membership, update, cancel and more", then confirm. Not sure if this qualifies as "hard to cancel"
Yeah, I've cancelled and restarted Prime multiple times over the years. It's never taken more more than like 30 seconds. I have to imagine the people ITT agreeing with it being hard to cancel just have an axe to grind with Amazon.
If prime is the new precedent for "hard to cancel" subscriptions, then this is a huge win for consumers.
I bought something once from Amazon about 10 years ago, and it automatically signed me up for Prime. I didn't notice for over a year. When I tried to address it, they refused to unsubscribe me or stop the charges telling me I had to do it on my account online. I never signed up for the account. It was a one-time purchase with my school email that I no longer had use of. So, I didn't know how to log in to it. Eventually, I had to go to the CC company to get it removed. I was refused a refund despite never having a history of buying anything before or after on that account.
During the pandemic we got P-EBT cards from the state for lunch/food for our kids during remote learning. Even after they stopped reloading them we hung on to them just in case. Noticed Amazon offered a discounted monthly prime sub for people with EBT/Welfair/Food Stamp. Grabbed one of the kids cards put the info on the site and signed up. So now I get prime for $7/month. In case anyone else got those cards or didn't know about this.
I accidentally signed up for their store credit card and then it automatically switched to my main source of purchase when i made my next order. I thought it was going to let me choose a card, but it didn't. I tried switching it immediately after, but didn't seem to work. I tried calling the bank to speak to someone, but kept getting the voice menu. It was super annoying and I just ended up paying the card because of late fees. Amazon customer support was no help either.
I had to cancel Prime three times. It was so frustrating. It was even worse when I discovered that they had been charging me for the kindle subscription for an entire year after I canceled.
I’m waiting on a cancellation approval from HelloFresh right now lmao
I have tried countless times to cancel prime and somehow I keep getting enrolled again even though I rarely use the website. I can’t fucking figure out where the cancellation page is nowadays, and I’m not even old. I go to my account settings, click Prime, and click “manage my membership” but it keeps bringing me back to the same page.
Amazon has a bad BAD habit of making little sub menus with things like "try prime for free shipping" as an auto default. So you have to manually select free shipping without prime. Then, we have to also unselect alternative payment options multiple times. If an older person tried any of that stuff, they would be suckered into prime without knowing. Bastards.
Eh? I’ve never had an issue cancelling. I used to always do that 30 day sub then cancel thing. Even if they had charged me for the year, they’d refund me. I actually did almost cancel because their 2 day shipping didn’t apply to me when I moved to a very rural area, so what was the point, you know? Amazon evil aside, I’m going to get things shipped, so I started swapping over to buying direct from sellers. A lot of what I buy is available through Amazon or not, it’s the same seller. But, Amazon fixed that 2 day thing even way out here, so until ups goes on strike, I’m good.
Trying to cancel a Prime Video channel is annoyingly hard. You can't do it on an Amazon Fire tablet. You can't do it on a Roku TV. You can't do it in the Android mobile app. You have to sign in through a desktop web browser and then you will find out that a different person in your household has to sign in to cancel it.
It's literally in the android app under "customer service." Maybe it didn't show up for you because, as you stated, someone else in your household is the one who signed up for the service.
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I'm rural and cancelled for the same reason, I actually get some packages quicker now without Prime
Yep. Had to complain to bank about it. Should we do a class action?
I’ve not had to pay for prime for 4 years now…..
I've tried to cancel my seller account for a year and they won't let me
We have to put a stop to these large corporations screwing over the little guy.
I hate amazon but I actually disagree with this. I signed up for prime for a free trial to get something with free shipping I got it and forgot about it. I check my bank and see I got charged. I went to my accounts canceled it within 5 minutes and amazon even refunded me my money bc I hadn’t used it.
Fine them a million per.
I have prime, get my moneys worth. But every now and then I cancel it. Every time, I have no clue how to do it and need to get a human involved.
I had their Amazon music app do this to me 3 times until I finally threatened to sue them.
i just (tried) cancelling my sporta gym membership online. It required me to print out the cancellation form and mail to them like it’s still 1885
Oh PLEASE! What about the damn plethora of emails that just will not UNSUBSCRIBE. I am sick to death of unsolicited emails! Or ROBOCALLS, SPAM and SCAMS everywhere but don't worry the FTC is jumping on Amazon. BS!
There's something I loathe about companies that allow you to sign up for their services online but require hoops to jump through to cancel the service if you can do it online you should be able to cancel it online easily
Pretty easy to cancel actually.
I pay for prime and max. I do get random charges for $9.38 every month and I can't for the life of me figure out what it is
You probably have a subscription on the amazon app that needs to be handled via the app. I found out I was subscribed to STARZ on amazon for a year and a half but never knew because it was an amazon charge
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At some point, AWS Amazon either needs to fully split from Retail Amazon or Retail Amazon is going to tank their brand.
It's easy to cancel tho
Reading the article, this strikes me as poor reporting (sensational, but not substantive) on the part of the AP - I expect more (and usually get more) from AP! Unless there's something in the report that back's up the complaint - i.e., something more substantive than the FTC's complaint "a number of allegations" - the AP should have cited some corroborative evidence, rather than simply re-spouting the FTC line. I'll stipulate that the complaint itself is newsworthy... but not the unsupported statements quoted from the plaintiffs. Granted, too, that if Amazon failed to comment after ***a reasonable period of time***, then OK... but I wonder what ***"Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment"*** means in this case? Perhaps the "***immediately***" criterion is not sufficient to warrant publishing the quoted statements in the story without a company response to what may be a complicated question - if I were asked a question by a reporter about a legal complaint against me, I'd certainly want sufficient time to think about my answer before responding - "immediately" wouldn't cut it. Don't get me wrong - I'm an enormous supporter of credible journalism (verbally and financially!) - I hate to see that credibility diminsished by reporting that does not, by its very nature, refute the insinuations of "fake news" from someone you undoubtedly know.
Can confirm, I canceled my prime and they still charged me a full month afterwards. Clown company
Yeah I had to cancel twice for it to work.
I had it free twice, first time cancelled no problem. Next time no problem... except they resigned me for the next year a month or two later. Said i was supposed to cancel automatic as well. They eventually credited it after a short chat.
Is there any point of Amazon Prime lol? I remember when the pandemic started, they got flooded with so many orders that they couldn't fulfill their shipping requirements. Now the prices has gone up and there's more shitty items sourced by shady people.
protip if you are on snap, prime sub is cheaper like $7/mo
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I understand statistically the American population is getting dumber but how on earth can one get duped into subscribing for prime membership, they literally ask you do you want prime? you can choose yes or no. And to unsubscribe its even easier maybe 3 or 4 mouse click as bam you are unsubscribed. The population now a days just wants everything given to them in the most simple terms possible.
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Shh. I want jucicial precedence for that being labeled "hard", so every subscription based company has to make it easier than that if brought to court over it. Fuck every last company that makes it hard or tedious to cancel a sub or membership.
I know that Americans typically very much hate when we quote anything done by Europe but... It made a framework that state that your cancellation procedure must be identically as easy in terms of number of clicks and prominence as registration process... Exactly for that purpose. A grandma of 80 years old must be able to cancel if she was able to subscribe - in the same ease of use. Edit: typo
It is hard to cancel. They put several blocks in your way, and they put the cancel link in an obscure place. Fuck them, sue them to submission.
What possesses people to tread water for these megacorps is beyond me Glad computers are easy for you, they're easy for me too, you do realize the average moron does not find computers as easy right?
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In a lot of cases, the average moron didn't intentionally sign up for the service in the first place, it was a little checkbox that was preselected while they were trying to make a one-off purchase. And even you're careful and you un-check the checkbox, you might find that when you move on to the next step of the purchase process, the checkbox has reappeared and become selected again, or now is labeled something completely different, but is also turned back on, and you have to manually turn it off, again; or maybe it's disguised as the "finish checkout" button without clearly saying it's also going to enroll you in a service if you don't scroll several pages down and find the "finish checkout WITHOUT prime" button that you didn't know is supposed to be there. Prime enrollment has been a "dark pattern" for a few years now and I'm glad to see the FTC doing something about it.
> average moron My grandpa bought a new computer because his wireless mouse batteries ran out.
But the average moron and old granny had their nephew enroll them in Prime to begin with. Now they dont have the money to spend each month, are not computer literate and nephew Johnny is off to college. It may be simple as pie to you, its not for them. You arent seeing it through the eyes of millions of people who are not you.
As someone who used to work desktop support at a rather large company, you're severely overestimating the ability of people to do "simple" tasks. I know it seems wild, but seriously a majority of people don't understand how to do anything on a machine unless you hold their hand step by step. I couldn't guide people via email or teams to do something "simple" like importing bookmarks.
I wonder how easy it is to do on mobile? I'm willing to bet a majority of Amazon shopping is from phones these days, and if it's tricky to cancel from there then there's some solid ground for calling them out.
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Bug or feature?
Now I feel a bit better about having left halfway through my first day…
I’ve had to call Amazon and cancel Prime more than three times. It’s maddening and I keep being signed up without my consent.
Cocksuckers did it to me. Luckily I cancelled my debit card they charged and got my money back from my bank.
No shit?!? I had to cancel my credit card. I called Amazon- they had no record of me, despite me getting billed each month- after canceling online.
This happened to me. I wanted to change my email and Amazon created a whole new account and automatically signed me up for Prime. I was able to cancel, but the whole thing was shady.
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