Amazon Prime Subscription Tricks

I recently purchased a item from Amazon it was very quick to arrive. Considering we arein covid situation i give Amazon thumbs up for delivery fast.

I also found that most of the products I chose were not eligible for free post with Amazon Primeā€¦

If you pay for Prime with PayPal you can go into PayPal and cancel future/automatic payments. I find it a good value as I do buy things and get one free delivery pays for the month. I also use the Prime video, books and music.

I sub with the annual offer which takes the monthly to under $5. I havent been using it much lately, watching the pennies so not buying much, however I still get good use from video and reading.

I have not bought anything from Amazon for obver 2 years. a mastercard is linked to amazon. suddenly amazon prime bills suddenly appear on a visa card - which is only used for paying bills.

Welcome @kent
So have you asked Amazon why a charge has been made to your Visa card?

Amazon is an online store. Amazon prime is a video streaming service. Did you try a free trial of prime and have perhaps not cancelled within the free trial period?

yep, i had to add that credit card to the Amazon account for them to look at the trail, then they listed an email & address (parts of) - neither were mine, so i have to contact the bank to get them cancelled.

So in reality you have subscribed to a service and willingly given your CC details for the monthly payment.
You may not want to use that streaming service after trying it, so why not just cancel your subscription?
Your CC provider may just ask the same question I ask, and not engage in the chargeback process. They cannot cancel your subscription for you.

Thatā€™s correct. These ā€˜free trialsā€™ are a marketing tool and have replaced ā€˜first month freeā€™ offers. You sign up to the subscription to get the free trial, then it is up to the subscriber to cancel the subscription at a later date. Even Amazon statesā€¦

After your Free Trial, Amazon Prime is just $6.99/month. Cancel anytime.

and

While you wonā€™t be charged for your free trial, youā€™ll be automatically converted to a paid membership plan at the end of the trial period.

When considering such offers, it is extremely important to read the conditions associated with the offer. A question should also be asked for such offers, why do they need my credit card details if it is ā€˜freeā€™. It is only the initial ā€˜trialā€™ period that is free, after that you agree to ongoing subscription until you decide to cancel it.

CC chargebacks wonā€™t be successful as Amazon will point to the contract signed on taking up the ā€˜trialā€™ offer. Chargebacks donā€™t work when one is trying to get out of a contract. One has to go back to the party the contract was signed with to break it.

If the Amazon Prime subscription is cancelled with Amazon and they keep making charges even though further request to cease is made, then a chargeback for subscription payments after the cancellation date may be possible.

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Are you suggesting your CC has been debited for a service being delivered to someone who is not you, evidence the email that is not yours and address that is not yours?

no i have never subscribed to the service, i have never paid for ANY streaming service. the visa card billed has NEVER been used for anything other than paying council rates, the credit card linked to amazon is an expired mastercard. i have not used amazon for 5 years plus. the amazon rep looking at the credit card trail listed an email and address that IS NOT MINE

yes, amazon provided part of an email address and street address that are not mine. so i must now chase this up with the bank

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the reality is i have NEVER signed for Prime, I have NEVER signed for any online strwaming services, the credit card linked to the Amazon account is an EXPIRED MASTERCARD, and i am being billed on a VISA card that has never been used to purchase any products online.

Itā€™s a disturbing event.
Please be patient as we appear to be as confused.
Is the following a reliable reading of your posts?

You have an old account with ā€˜Amazonā€™ the online retailer - market.
That account you have not used for 5 years.
The CC attached to that account a Mastercard is long expired.
Is it correct to say there are no charges against that account or the expired card?
Can we ignore those details for now?

ā€˜Amazon Primeā€™ is a seperate service, business and account, but the same greater parent company. It includes access to an ā€˜Amazon brandedā€™ shop using the ā€˜Amazon Primeā€™ account for goods as well as services.
For paying certain bills you have a Visa CC. This CC has never been used with any of Amazonā€™s businesses or attached by you to any Amazon related business account.

It seems most likely someone has created an Amazon Prime account using the details of your Current Visa Card.
IE a CC fraud attempt.
Amazon Prime appear to have confirmed this. Have you instructed them that you have not authorised the account? Has Amazon Prime accepted you have not authorised the account and that the details are not yours? They may have difficulty agreeing over the phone or by email without further evidence.
If your card details have been misused (which appears very likely) reporting this to your bank urgently as a fraud will minimise the risk of further fraudulent transactions to your account.

Note your bank and CC will have provided details (or on line) of how to do this through a 24hr x 7 day contact number, (or should have based on my experience with similar issues). Failure to promptly advise your bank/credit card provider may leave you exposed to the cost of any ongoing misuse of your card.

There is a possibility other personal information relating to yourself was provided to Amazon Prime in setting up the new account with your Visa Card. Hopefully you can also act promptly to verify the full extent of those details with Amazon Prime. This may prove time consuming ing as Amazon Prime will likely see two different identities, (yours and someone else) associated with the account. They will have limited capacity to verify which is the real owner of the CC used. Itā€™s likely they will rely on your bank to verify your ID through the actions you take to report the misuse of your card to your bank, asap.

Please let us know how you are progressing and how well your bank responds.

ā€˜https://www.amazon.com.au/prime?&tag=googhydr0au-22&hvadid=382635085160&hvpos=&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10288653010494588550&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_15icin9ae5_e&hvtargid=kwd-390550845750

Amazon - Mastercard - no charges - yes that is correct.
Visa - only pays council rates. body corp etc - no online purchases - correct
Amazon contacted - I had to link the visa card to the amazon account so they could look at purchase history - that was done yesterday (11 June), then the card deleted immediately. They provided incomplete street address & email address - none of which were mine. I told Amazon this - their reply was to take it up with my bank. Due to the low charge $6.99, i presume no confirmation email was sent to me / my phone. I run Linux on my computers, i never do banking over the phone
cheers

Thanks for clarifying.

It could be that you have been unknowingly scammed or your Visa card details have been taken when you used it somewhere (a place you have used it has unlawfully taken the credit card number, CCV and expiry date of the card). These details have then been used to set up a Prime subscription.

I would be also reporting it to the police as it is likely that those who used your Visa card details to set up the subscription arenā€™t very smart and have left trails to enable them to be caught.

As it is an authorised use of a card, chargeback should be possible.

This sounds very stange and Amazon wouldnā€™t be asking for this. It smells of a scammer. Were they also the ones who contacted you to say that your credit card has been used for setting up the Prime subscription and why they need your credit card to verify if there were other transactions. If this was the case, It is definitely going to be scammers. One of our neighbours almost got sucked in by scammers who claimed to be from a bank and used the same technique in their scam - called to advise of unauthorised transactions and needed personal, banking and credit card details to investigate the ā€˜unauthorised transactionsā€™. When contacting the bankā€™s fraud team, they confirmed it was a scam.

Also giving you a wrong address is part of their scam to give you confidence in themā€¦that they are sharing information with you so you are more likely to share information (credit card details) with them.

Even if you deleted your card, if they are scammers they wll still have it.

A bank or business will never contact you and ask for credit card details for some reason. If this has occurred, it will most likely be a scam. Contact your credit card company immediately using a phone number from statement or you already have, let them know what has happened and they possibly will cancel the card and issie a new one. They will also be able to check if there are other unauthorised transactions used on the credit card and commence chargeback for these as well.

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Visa provides the following advice and information.
@phb has also commented that the Amazon contact may be part of a scam.

ā€˜Getting help | Visa

Donā€™t delay contacting your bank, and ensure you locate their contact number from your online banking or as @phb suggested. DO NOT use any contact details from any correspondence with Amazon.
EG if it is CBA their advice.

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the card remains at home and is only used to pay bills online at hme.
contacted Amazon & communication was via their pop up ā€œchatā€ option. this was done AFTER the card had been used, and it was the way that they provided the address and email

How difficult it can be.
Note how quickly and significantly Amazon responded once in the greater public eye?

The need for a legislative response to such circumstances is self evident. As usual Australia appears to be playing catch up, while the protagonist is a multi-national enterprise.

Not only Amazon, I wonder if Choice is considering its position, @BrendanMays? Governments are often ā€œlooking atā€ all sorts of things, including the view from the memberā€™s washroom mirrors. :wink:

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Hey @mark_m, thanks for sharing this. We often here about Amazon as one of the worst examples of this practice. Weā€™ve just launched a new campaign calling for new reforms to stop practices like this:

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