MSE News: Been charged for unwanted Amazon Prime? Here's how to cancel

A question about : MSE News: Been charged for unwanted Amazon Prime? Here's how to cancel

We've seen stacks of complaints from confused shoppers whose accounts have been debited Ј79 by Amazon...

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Been charged for unwanted Amazon Prime? Here's how to cancel

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• One of the forum members who is quoted at the bottom of the article seems preternaturally unlucky*, so I'm not sure that's really the best quote to use.
  * Some may say Inattentive.
• yep its very clear indeed when you sign up to prime, people dont read what they are signing up to
• How many of these complaints are really valid and not just a case of people not paying attention to what they're doing?
  I've used Amazon for years. My order history shows over 200 items ordered from them in 2014 alone (some of them will be ebooks or music tracks, admittedly) and many more dating back to 2000. During that time, I never 'accidentally' took a Prime trial. Hundreds of orders and I avoided this thing that is apparently so easy to get suckered into.
  I am now on Prime, because I found out that as I took an OU course recently, I'm eligible for student prime at Ј39 per year, and since I was subbing to Amazon Prime Instant Video anyway, made sense
• If there are a lot of customer complaints, then Amazon are getting it wrong.
  It doesn't matter if you think that they (the customers) shouldn't have got it wrong, they have.
  Fifty percent of the population are below average intelligence (and a good few more don't pay as much attention as they might), and these people need to be accounted for in the way systems are designed.
  I find that whenever I order something from Amazon I have to continually bear in mind that they are trying to nudge me into signing up for Amazon prime and make sure I don't!
  This is something Amazon need to sort out because it is well below their normally irreproachable level of service.
• when will people start to take responsibility for things they do, it is clear from the information that you are charged at the end if you do not cancel but unfortunately people don't read!
  Saying that there are plenty of other examples including PPI, why haven't I received thousands of pounds worth of cash back because I make sure I read the documents.
• This particular one was misleading. I knew I didn't want Prime because I didn't want to pay for it, but when the box came up, I clicked what I thought was the relevant button to just proceed with my purchase only to find it had registered me for Prime. In my case I then cancelled it straight away having had to search around to find how to do it. I can remember people complaining on here at the time that it was very misleading.
• Nice to see there are some sensible people on here.
  Far far far too many people thinking it's not their fault or responsibility.
  Even saying that because they'd not used it after the trial period they didn't need to pay for it!
  An email saying you've got x days left would be nice but if you log into your account it tells you there as well.
• More here
  https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/31486996
• I cancelled my Prime last week, by going into my Amazon account, select 'Your Prime Membership' and clicking 'End Membership'. I got a Ј46.12 refund…
  So it would appear that you CAN simply just cancel it.
• Here is an extract from an email sent to me from Amazon last time I took advantage of free Prime. States quite clearly what to do.
  If you want to continue your Prime membership after your free trial, do nothing. Your membership will automatically continue and we will charge the payment method you used when you signed up Ј79 for the next year and annually after that. If you prefer, you can choose "do not continue" before the initial charge, or "do not continue" before any renewal charge in Your Account and your payment method will not be charged for the next year. You can always request a refund of the most recent charge if your benefits have not been used in the new term. If we are unable to charge your preferred payment method, we will charge another payment method we have on file for you.
• It states very clearly that it's a 30 day trial and if you don't cancel you will be charged, it's similar to the Spotify or Deezer offer. I don't understand where the confusion lies.