Have you signed up for the “free” (costs you $79 if you don’t cancel before the end of the trial) trial of Amazon Prime yet? Seems like a lot of people have, and they’re getting upset with Techdirt about it. Techdirt is apparantly the number one search result for AMZ*Prime Club, which is how this ripoff shows up on your credit card bill. So people who didn’t read the fine print are now upset with the wrong company for the charge they technically authorized (although this sort of thing is a really seedy practice that no self-respecting company would ever resort to). So I thought I’d add to the fun and link to the Techdirt articles a couple of times apiece, to ensure their continued high ranking in the search engines:
Amazon Prime AMZ*Prime Club
Amazon Prime AMZ*Prime Club
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At the end of Jun you debited an unauthorized payment. I understand it was an amazon.com and your screw up. Please return my 79.00 immeadiately if not sooner. Do not do this again. It was taken out by ANZ Prime Club. Shame on you people. Edward Kosowski
Thank you, Edwaard, for proving my point, that people are really, really STUPID.
The big question:
HOW DO I GET THIS CHARGE REMOVED?????
My advice to you is to call your credit card up and tell them that this is an unauthorized charge.
What the *&!!@* is AMZ*Prime Club? I want the charge to a card I do not even have credited to me. I have filed a fraud report with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff and with my bank.
Dear Phil,
I highly doubt you have done any such thing, since you are clearly too lazy to even read the blog entry you are commenting on.
Have a nice day.
I too fell for that and i’m 80 years old and am on constant alert for this sort of crap. I called prime club an had it removed from my cedit card now i’m thinking of canceling that.
Canceling credit cards is seldom a bad idea, although life is steadily marching towards a point where you can’t live without them. Virtually any sort of rental, including hotel rooms, requires them. Paying cash just isn’t always good enough anymore, and that’s sad.
Dear Sir or Madam
I placed an order on 12/07/07 for 1 item (The Secret in Spanish) Im still have no received this item, and I was charged 79 us dollars.
Could you please let me know when the book will arrive
Regards
Sonia
No, I’m sorry, I can’t. I know a great many things, but I’m not psychic. Please check with whoever you ordered the book from.
Hi Folks… I also seem to have unwittingly signed up for the Prime Club option and just now see a $79 charge to my credit card. Before I was going to the bank to issue a “unauthorized charge” complaint, I phoned Amazon directly, and got an immediate courteous refund and cancellation of that option.
I was billed by AMZ Prime Club and then charged a late fee of $15.00 for a credit card I never got!!!!!
HEY! This web site is NOT Amazon.com! Stop asking wolfger to remove your Amazon charge! (I know… won’t do any good… people that stupid won’t read my post, and if they do, they won’t understand it.)
On the bank charge of $79 that people did not think that they authorized, which they did (myself included) there is also a telephone number: AMZ*Prime Club 866-557-2820.
Call that number 1(866)557-2820. When it answers press 7. Then tell them that you don’t want to be in their Prime Club and that you want the $79 put back into your account. They will do it, no questions asked. Don’t act all indignant and upset and screamy. That will get you nowhere. Just calmly ask for the charges to be reversed. Then file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. This is not illegal, but it is a bad business practice.
Posting on this website will not do anything. This is not related to Amazon.com.
I may have been stupid enough to get duped into this seedy “shipping club”, but I am at least smart enough to spot a telephone number and know to call it.
They told me that they are reversing the charges. I hope the other idiots that are reading this blog will call that telephone number and just ask to have the charges reversed. Screetching on some dudes website only shows how silly you are.
Thanks, Suzy!
Thanks Suzy a lot! It did help. They promise to give back money to me.
Please reimburse me for the charge for AMZ*Prime Club which I did not request.
No. You’re an idiot. And apparently unable or unwilling to read, which is what got you into this mess in the first place.
Wolfget, lmao! I did find the info I was looking for here.
putz
Woflger, It is good thing I read your writing carefully, but I see further comments from those who didn’t has been quite a trouble 🙂
omg thank you so much suzi, that was so helpful of you :]
Hello, I had the same charge to my credit card, and what i did was to cancelled the menbership in my amazon account, then I sent an email to the customer service asking then to refund my money, they responded my email, saying that they will do it, i have to wait to see if it is true.
Thanks Suzy. I just saw this charge on my card. Even though this site has absolutely friggin’ nothing to do with AMZ Prime Club you ARE doing a good service keeping this info here. Thank you, thank you, thank you, oh and thank you Google Gods for bringing me here.
What the hell is this scam Amazon is pulling? I have the same charge for joining the Amazon Prime Club which I never actually joined, nor would I want to. I had to argue with the Amazon people for about 10 minutes before they finally agreed to refund my $79.
Thanks Suzy for the info. The person at Amazon was very nice and not problem with removing the charge.
THANKS SUZY
I WILL CALL TOMORROW MORNING TO SEE IF THEY WILL REFUND ME MY MONEY
This is too funny. LoL. 🙂 Amazon probably get a lot of complaints about their free “Prime” membership trial.
I could not think that Amazon ( PRIME CLUB) can do such type of cheating, Does Amazon have PRIME CLUB. They have charged 79 US Dollar and I have filed a case through my VISA Card for Cheating case.
Vinod Goel
At the may you debited an unauthorized payment. I understand it was an amazon.com and your screw up. Please return my 79.00 immeadiately if not sooner. Do not do this again. It was taken out by ANZ Prime Club. Shame on you people Jana
Jana, you understand incorrectly. I have nothing to do with this. Please learn to read. It will save you from many troubles such as this in the future.
Amazon.com I ….. I vonna my many back immadiately!!!!!!
Thank you very much for the information suzy. The lady that answered was very helpful and nice and said that the money would be debited back.
All should do this if they want the problem solved, beats ranting at someone who A) had nothing to do with it, and B) can’t do anything about it. lol.
hahaah, oh man…reading the posts from the angry people about the charges made my day. People really can’t read…
Suzy! thank you so much for that information! it was a great help. i just saw the charge on my credit card, so i googled AMZ*Prime Club and found this site. i called them immediately and they refunded my money.
and some of you people need to read. and stop yelling at the people who are actually trying to help.
thanks :).
Thanks from me, too, Wolfger and Suzy. You were truly helpful. I was idiotic enough to stumble into the AMZ*Prime Club free trial trap, but smart enough to read the blogs Google led me to, and to call the number right beside the charge on the credit card. Charges reversed.
However, 1 warning: DO NOT USE the AMZ*Prime Club free shipping before you call or email to cancel your membership. If you used it during the 1-mo. free trial, no problem, but if used after that, you might be stuck with the $79 fee. The reason it shows up on your credit card bill is that the free month trial is over.
I, too, will file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and I urge all others to follow suit. The volume of BBB complaints and the bad publicity should force Amazon to stop this shameful lure. Wd. be nice if they would offer a public apology, but don’t hold your breath . . .
nice post
but reading the comments i notice how really stupid some ppl can be
is it too hard to find out that this post is ABOUT THE PROBLEM and the problem is AMAZON???
oh my
I found that charge on my credit card as well. If you look, it should have a phone number next to the charge. The one next to mine says 866-557-2820. I called that number and connected to Amazon and then through a simple request they refunded the $79.00 to my credit card. No hassle other than a few minutes of account verification on their end.
Hello. I think you are eactly thinking like Sukrat. I really loved the post.
Thank you, Coach. I can’t believe how much traffic this post continues to get a year and a half later. Hopefully it’s helpful to some people.
Sean Price in the house..
HOW TO GET THAT $79 refunded/back/returned….
for all you numb nutz who got charged the $79 and didn’t make any purchases YOU WILL get your money refunded easy and painless.
Can I cancel my membership to Amazon Prime?
You can cancel your Amazon Prime membership (except for any promotional trial memberships) and receive a refund of the membership fee if you or your registered guests have not made any eligible purchases. To do this, visit the Manage Your Prime Account section of Your Account and click the “Cancel membership” button. <– where it says PLAIN and SIMPLE
You may cancel your membership at any time, and end your Prime benefits immediately. You will receive a full refund of your membership fee if you or your invited guests have not used your Prime benefits since your most recent charge.
Refunds are not available once benefits have been used. You can continue enjoying your Prime benefits until the end of the current period without being further charged by setting your membership to “Do not renew” above.
oNe
Huh, I’m at the shipping option at an amazon order right now and found this article looking up the Prime option, thanks Wolfger.
I’ve read somewhere else that this ‘free’ prime charges you off the back just for signing up for the trial.
Do that many people blindly follow amazon to sign up for whatever gives them a discounts?
guys, ive canceled mine already
but the question is, when will i get my refund? within weeks?
Superb details listed here. I have been browsing for a few days before I discovered this! Now i am bookmarking your webpage so that I will be able to show our son when he gets home.
FYI, my wife contacted Amazon by e-mail AND by phone to cancel the service about a week after joining. They still tagged our credit card for $79 three weeks later.
Wolfger, don’t ASSUME that “everyone just doesn’t read the fine print.” We knew about the charge…that’s why we cancelled after the first week. Some companies won’t cancel your “service” no matter what you do within the first 30 days. They hope to reap money from people who forget about the service or are too busy to go through the cancellation process. When I was a computer consultant in the 90’s, one of my client companies had this attitude.
A company that wastes our time over something that we’ve already notified them twice to cancel will ultimately mean less business from us. They just acknowledged they have one of our cancellation notices on record and “they had no idea” how it fell through the cracks, but they’ll get it corrected. My experiences with other companies’ “try it for 30 day deals” lead me to believe it’s 50-50 that we’ll have to call a third time to get our money back.
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