Consumer Alert
Were you charged for Amazon Prime without your permission?
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Online shopping can be convenient and easy. But with sometimes lots of screens before you get to check-out, you could wind up signed up for a service without even knowing it. What’s worse, it can be tough to cancel. Read on to learn how to protect yourself from unwanted services and charges.
Today, the FTC filed a lawsuit against Amazon, saying the company violated the law by enrolling people in its Amazon Prime subscription service without their permission, continuing to charge them, and making it hard to cancel.
The FTC says the company used a series of hurdles — known as “dark patterns” — to make it hard for customers to understand that they were starting a Prime subscription. These dark patterns also made it hard for people to cancel their Prime subscriptions by making them hunt for the right place to cancel online, and then click through complicated extra pages to cancel. Often, consumers would call Amazon’s customer service, only to be referred back to the website to cancel, making the process even more frustrating.
To help avoid unwanted services and charges when you shop online:
- Watch what goes into your shopping cart. Even if you empty your cart and leave the site without completing your purchase, you still could have been enrolled in a subscription service.
- Watch for pre-checked boxes. They may sign you up for a product or service.
- Carefully review your order before completing a transaction. If something got added that you don’t want, make sure to remove it.
- Make sure you didn’t get charged for something you don’t want. Check your order confirmation to see. If you did, contact the company to cancel and get a refund. Make sure you get — and keep — the written confirmation.
- Watch your bank or credit card statements. If you’re in a subscription, you’ve tried to cancel, and the company won’t stop charging your account, dispute it with your credit or debit card issuer.
- Look for auto-renewals. Unless you cancel, you’ll continue to be charged.
If a company signed you up for a subscription service without your permission, or if you have problems with canceling a subscription service, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
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I just closed my Amazon account due to the website enrolling me in Amazon Prime with out my permission several times and charging my credit card. I will no longer use Amazon for shopping. Their tactics of automatic enrollment and charging my credit card without my permission should be a crime and they should be put out of business for these illegal business practices.
Hi same and it takes form my credit cards and my debit card but never even signed up for it how do I stop it
AMAZON have been charging me £8.99 for months now I DID NOT SIGN UP WITH THEM . I am absolutely disgusted that the Government can let these parasites get rich on the back of ordinary people who cannot afford to pay for SUBSCRIPTIONS THEY NEVER EVER SET UP . Just for them to BECOME ONE OF THE RICHEST COMPANIES IN THE WORLD ! …I have tried to cancel even though I never even signed up for this. Vile company …I am a pensioner. It’s set up for nothing more than DAYLIGHT ROBBERY . My Son the same pairing for NOTHING
Just purchased two items on Amazon. During checkout they offered me a week of Prime for .99 cents. Immediately went and checked my credit card and instead of charging me .99 cents for a week the charged me $14.99 for a month. Contacted customer service and have been playing games with them for over 45 minutes. They just keep saying they need more time to look into it...Now they are asking for a screenshot of the offer that they made in checkout...who saves a screenshot before they checkout?...and now the chat timed out and disconnected me...
Interestingly if you stole $20 from walmart or 200 from walmart you would be arrested and ago to jail... but a corporation steals fro you and all of a sudden its a "civil" matter... how about this arrest the CEO and board members of Amazon for theft and put them in jail like, you do a poor single mom who needed some diapers for her baby
In reply to Interestingly if you stole … by puppydog
great point. it makes me sick that everybody is being scammed by the biggest company to ever exist. if all this stolen money was going to needy people or animals it would be one thing but that its going to Amazon is the worst. I left my comment and filed a complaint on here yesterday and was just reading other comments.
How do we get our money back. This has been happening for years and I don't want to know why, I want to know how I can get my money back and then some. They stole from us and need to be held accountable. If a hungry person steals bread, they end up paying the price, but somehow it's fine when a multimillion dollar business does it
I have charges that I did not make on my acct
same here over five hundred dollars now and rising for nothing. i want in on the lawsuit they need to be taken down for such conduct ive contacted them several times one of them laughed at me i owe these crooks nothing sue them for millions of dollars please
I'm glad someone is stopping these charges.I was just shopping and bought some items, Amazon charged my card for everything they could,prime tv,etc.I had to cancel my card and get a new card.Im on ssi I caught it . Chime had issud me a new card or they would keep charging for everything they can.Thank You.Randy Fraley
I don't have an account for Amazon but get messages from my bank stating a charge was tried for prime. Even though my blocks the charge, I get these messages once a month.
Ian being charged for something I never applied for
I've been getting charged for the past two years for Amazon prime. I've never used Amazon prime. Everytime I cancel my bank card they still find out my new one and continue to charge my new one. I barely make any money and what little money I do make, half of it goes to Amazon and have no way of getting it back. This has been going on for two years now charging me $16.43 two or three times a month.
this is happening to me too. Amazon says they see I have no prime subscription and they can see who is using it but they say they won't cancel it. I really think at worst this is a scam being done by Amazon and at best they're being hacked.
I ordered an item on amazon belgium. To proceed to payment , I had no option but to click on prime video subscription 0,00 euros. So I clicked. Instead 2.99 euros payment flashed. I refused this. Naturally this was the only option of not wanting prime. I payed only for my item. Next day I received an email that I have been charged.
A house guest asked my Alexa decide to play a song and Amazon automatically enrolled me in music unlimited.
Yes, I didn't subscribe to amazon channels and $4.51 and $11.29 keeps coming out of my account and I would love my money back.
amazon prime is taking a monthly payment from my account but when I go into my amazon account it states i do not have prime.
I have prime and music and it's 15 dollars for prime and 5 for music per month bur recently I started getting charged over 16 dollars a week for prime and my subscription still says monly and cheaper than what I'm being charged.
Yes they have taken money from my account for Amazon prime without my permission
I never even subscribed to prime, and it says I don't have the subscription, but the monthly charges continue even after I removed my card as a payment method.
Ashamed to say, they got me to. I apparently logged in with the wrong email 4 years ago and made a single purchase, for which they charged me monthly for Prime until today. I didn't notice because my real Prime account is setup for annual billing. Seeing if Amazon will fix this or lose this family as customers forever.
I changed my debit card .# and they charging me with an outdated card
This is still happening. Cancelled my Prime subscription and yet they still continue to take monthly from my account. Any chance of hitting them with a big enough fine that they actually abide by the law??
You keep charging me for things I didn't get!! Why!!
I made an order today on Amazon and after I reviewed order every thing seemed to be right except for the free shipping which is always checked for a scheduled deliveryso before making the purchase i made sure i chcked the box for free shipping like i always do with orders that are availible for free shipping. Then made the purchase went through the order and showed a one Month Free membership for Prime but was charged 1.99 for 1st month. I canceled at once and it did go through but Amazon needs to be held accountable for there deceptive practices for there Prime Subscriptions They have scammed so many people by there shipping rates and especially with there subscription luring practices Crooks.
I canceled Amazon prime free, 30 day offer and one month later they suspended my account for not paying even though I have a confirmation from Amazon . I canceled the prime account 30 days prior.
Never have used any Amazon "products or services" yet they have my credit card info and have withdrawn money from that account.... isn't that "bank fraud thru the Mail?"
How many times have they done this to people ... ? looks like a "business model"
I got charged for Amazon Prime and when I went on line and hit the number for customer service to dispute it connected to a scammer which got me for another almost $2000.
According to Amazon they have no record of the transaction but on my bank statement it clearly says Amazon Prime Subscription.
To me they are at fault because I was clearly hacked on their website.
I will gladly join the lawsuit against them because this is totally ridiculous and it’s costing people thousands of dollars.
Did it twice today. I was supposed to have free shipping for 24 hours, so I tried to place a $12 order. They are congratulating me for joining Prime (and hitting my account) before I ever confirm order, and there wasn't the normal tricky plan to buy prime for fastest shipping. The confirm order button shows that I WILL be charged when, in fact, I HAVE BEEN charged.
My girlfriend wanted to watch a movie on Amazon video on our Roku device. She signed up for the 30 day "free trial" with her own personal email and debit card info. But I got an email saying "welcome back to Amazon prime" and was billed immediately in the amount of $12.86 on my bank account because I had Amazon Prime video for several months a year ago. She also got an email about the free trial only she signed up for but was not charged. I cancelled it immediately to avoid future charges on my bank account and called Amazon to get it refunded but was given a runaround, told they couldn't see where I had been charged though I can plainly see the charge on my banking App, transferred to some other department, talking to another hard to understand person with a thick accent, asking for the same info I had already given again, texting me a verification code to verify my account info. again, etc., for 45 minutes before eventually being told they were "locked out" from accessing my account and couldn't help and to hang up and call back and ask for the, "switch accounts" department or something like that. It seemed like they just wanted me to give up and forget about it. This is messed up and I hope I don't get charged again when this so-called "free trial" ends, even though I cancelled it already. From what I'm gathering online they do this sort of thing a lot.
Glad to find this. Over the past year I have been signed up for Amazon Prime multiple times without my permission. I usually receive a text message stating that I've been charged for something from Amazon - even though I didn't buy anything. Upon investigation it's ALWAYS for Prime. Something I don't have and don't want. It is quite aggravating to have to deal with this regularly.
Yes I was trick to getting prime and Amazon music that I never used and had dispute it with my bank and were very hard to cancel it took a while to figure out how to cancel service took me six month or more to figure it out... Yes I paid for services I never used (Amazon Music)
Yes
They enrolled me in Luna + for the past 24 months. Just discovered it today and reached out to get a refund. They refused. I have never even heard of the service and had to google it to know what it was.
They have done this to me twice now and cost me a lot of money
This has happened to me twice now. I deliberately kept saying No to Prime membership and all of a sudden I am signed up. You'd think they'd stop this practice after the FTC action, but "No", it continues.
Amazon has charged my card 3 times for Prime in 2 days
We want to cancel prime but we bought a ton of movies on there over the last twelve years and we want to keep them . Does anyone know if we will be able to keep those or if Amazon will refund us for those movies we purchased? I think they have gotten too big and they need to be slapped for unfair treatment to consumers .
I cancelled a free trial in November but saw a charge today 27/12. On querying it I was told that the auto renewal feature needed to be disabled however why would you be required to do that if you cancelled the membership
I canceled my account but was just charged
i was charged without authorization , its outrage !!!! Lawyer go to work .
I don’t understand why Amazon Prime started taking £8.99 a month from my current account, that I hadn’t even told them about! I couldn’t get through to them so got my bank to block them and refund me. They make billions yearly so why do they resort to fraudulent transactions to boost profits?
I keep selecting NO when checking out to Amazon Prime and it signs me up again anyway. It happened a month ago and I thought maybe I wasn't paying attention so I took it for a month then cancelled. Just tried to order something today 12-30-23 and it did the same damn thing. I made sure I was clicking on NO THANKS and it paused and charged me for another month. I called them up this time and demanded they cancel and refund me immediately. It's a scam they have going on.
Can any Governmental Body open an online, phone or any other channel to complain about amazon deceptive practices?
I clearly Hit the button NO and they still charged me! A theft in broad daylight! Could NOT cancel online, had to call and wait...etc.
Where do I sign up at I. Have proof of 6 years and on going still happening
I've been charged $16.04 a month for 11 months for "Amazon Prime"....a service I never wanted AND NEVER USED. I'm currently trying to claw this money back with my bank but as you might imagine, it's as difficult to work with the bank as it is Amazon. I'm very frustrated.
I have just removed my credit card details from Amazon as I have been signed up for Prime yet again!! I have caught it in the past and cancelled this 'unwanted service'. Can't imagine how much they are making from this trickery.
Amazon has been continuously charging me for subscriptions I never signed up for.
I just discovered the overcharges of a total of $340 for 21 months. Amazon will only refund me 12 months of payments. I want my full refund and I'm going to get it!