Whether or not you are an Amazon customer, you probably have heard of Amazon Prime membership. If you are a frugal person like me and waiting to hear when Amazon announces its 30-day free trial, then you should read this post. I will address some issues and concerns and how they might be related to you and your experiences. I will unmask Amazon Prime’s disguised price hikes in their ingenious marketing ploy that gives the company an opportunity to camouflage this ploy to overcharge customers. I will explain how I was overcharged.
You are probably aware that Amazon customers are only eligible for one free trial of Prime every 12 months. That happens generally in the beginning of the year, in January. So, knowing that I'd get a one-month free trial membership with Amazon Prime, I signed up last month. I ordered a couple of books and some other items. I set a reminder for myself to come back on time and to cancel my membership. Yesterday was the last day. I went online to cancel it but it said that I'm not a member because I signed for a free trial. That means you won't be charged when the free trial period ends. But unbeknownst me to that is not what happened. I was charged.
Today, out of curiosity I checked my bank account and I realized that Amazon had charged me $13.09 —that is for one month of Amazon Prime. It neither showed on my Amazon account nor did I receive an e-mail confirming the charge. So, technically a free trial period is a ploy to attract more customers and unbeknown to people, Amazon signs them up automatically to its Prime membership. This is exactly what happened to me. I did not subscribe to the Prime membership, it was only a 30-day free trial. But this is not an isolated ruse to deceive people, overcharging is another Amazon Prime hidden scheme.
So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of it. As I mentioned above, I did not sign up for a Prime membership, but I was charged $13.09. Let’s add up that number. For a twelve month membership, if I pay $13.09, which I was charged, it would add up to $157.08.
When I saw that number, I went online and did some research. I looked through Amazon Prime’s website and nowhere could I find that number. I became more suspicious of Amazon. And then I asked myself, what is that cost for? Why it is not mentioned on Amazon’s website? What is shady about it? I needed to find answers for all these questions.
So, before I turned to Amazon and contacted its customer service, I checked Amazon Prime’s page to find the current costs of membership. This is what I found on Amazon’s website. As of May 2018, Amazon has updated its Prime membership, which is as follows:
So, after my initial research, I turned to Amazon’s customer service folks and they were oblivious about it. At least they couldn’t explain why customers are charged at such a high rate. Some were not able to answer my questions. They were slow, impatient, and sometimes appeared rude. Other people had similar experiences. Finally, I asked them to direct me to their manager and one of them did. I chatted with Vinay, who claimed to be from the leadership team. He was so impatient, impetuous and rude. He forced me to end the chat. He yelled at me: END CHAT! I talked to numerous people at Amazon’s customer service, but not all are that bad. Here is my correspondence with Vinay:
So, as you can see Vinay from the leadership team was not willing to explain why Amazon Prime charged me $13.09, which is $157.08 for year. Most of the people with whom I talked to were foreigners. I also speculated that it might be because of unfamiliarity or something that they were not trained for, but when I pressed them for explanation, I realized that they were not actually unaware of it, but rather they were unwilling to explain the price that is designed to fleece innocent customers out of their money. Even sometimes their language was incoherent and impossible to understand. I think they may use Google translator like this one, which sometimes I couldn't understand what he was saying.
What I am trying to convey is that it actually does not say the actual price, which may influence people’s decisions. If we add $.10 cents of tax to $12.99 that is $13.09, which is $157.08 for the entire year - the right amount that I was changed. The issue that I am concerned with is that Amazon Prime does not mention that on it is page. That is an ingenuous scheme. This is unethical and it should not be without consequences.
In 2014, I was charged for the whole year. I only realized towards the end of the year when I checked bank account. I was not notified by e-mail or otherwise. When I contacted Amazon Prime, they said, well, sorry to hear that. You always have the option to cancel your membership. You can cancel your membership now, if you want. That was their excuse. Amazon has carefully planned that and they know how to get away with it because they know that poor customers have no other choice than opting out, but Amazon has already drained their pockets.
Finally, I think it is imperative for everyone to share their experiences and expose schemes and ploys played by giant corporations such as Amazon. We can make them accountable and stop them from exploiting innocent and poor people. (Here I am going off on a tangent a little bit). We should share our ideas and experiences with each other to fight back against corporate greed and aggression. They are leaching off our hard work, our hopes, and success, and then use them against us not only economically but also politically.
Big corporations want to own us and rule us. We need to stand up and not let this happen. We should work together to be creative and raise awareness in our social circles, in colleges and universities, in workplaces, and in households. We have to make our hard work, our sweat, our success matter. This is the hallmark of our modern values. We have to stand for it and don't let giant corporations take control of them.
We need to get these things personal and turn it as a grassroots campaign on the street and on the web. Our laws are our tools, we can hold giant corporations accountable for their actions either it is related to global warming, health issues, human rights crises or small things like falling for the marketing ploy of Amazon Prime.
You are probably aware that Amazon customers are only eligible for one free trial of Prime every 12 months. That happens generally in the beginning of the year, in January. So, knowing that I'd get a one-month free trial membership with Amazon Prime, I signed up last month. I ordered a couple of books and some other items. I set a reminder for myself to come back on time and to cancel my membership. Yesterday was the last day. I went online to cancel it but it said that I'm not a member because I signed for a free trial. That means you won't be charged when the free trial period ends. But unbeknownst me to that is not what happened. I was charged.
Today, out of curiosity I checked my bank account and I realized that Amazon had charged me $13.09 —that is for one month of Amazon Prime. It neither showed on my Amazon account nor did I receive an e-mail confirming the charge. So, technically a free trial period is a ploy to attract more customers and unbeknown to people, Amazon signs them up automatically to its Prime membership. This is exactly what happened to me. I did not subscribe to the Prime membership, it was only a 30-day free trial. But this is not an isolated ruse to deceive people, overcharging is another Amazon Prime hidden scheme.
So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of it. As I mentioned above, I did not sign up for a Prime membership, but I was charged $13.09. Let’s add up that number. For a twelve month membership, if I pay $13.09, which I was charged, it would add up to $157.08.
When I saw that number, I went online and did some research. I looked through Amazon Prime’s website and nowhere could I find that number. I became more suspicious of Amazon. And then I asked myself, what is that cost for? Why it is not mentioned on Amazon’s website? What is shady about it? I needed to find answers for all these questions.
So, before I turned to Amazon and contacted its customer service, I checked Amazon Prime’s page to find the current costs of membership. This is what I found on Amazon’s website. As of May 2018, Amazon has updated its Prime membership, which is as follows:
- Starting May 11, 2018, new members will be charged $119/year for an annual Prime membership and $59/year for an annual Prime Student membership.
- Starting June 16, 2018, existing Prime members with an annual membership will renew at a rate of $119/year. Prime Student members with an annual membership will renew at a rate of $59/year.
- Monthly Prime members continue to pay $12.99 per month. Monthly Prime Student members continue to pay $6.49 per month
So, after my initial research, I turned to Amazon’s customer service folks and they were oblivious about it. At least they couldn’t explain why customers are charged at such a high rate. Some were not able to answer my questions. They were slow, impatient, and sometimes appeared rude. Other people had similar experiences. Finally, I asked them to direct me to their manager and one of them did. I chatted with Vinay, who claimed to be from the leadership team. He was so impatient, impetuous and rude. He forced me to end the chat. He yelled at me: END CHAT! I talked to numerous people at Amazon’s customer service, but not all are that bad. Here is my correspondence with Vinay:
Here's a copy of the chat transcript you requested:
| |
|
So, as you can see Vinay from the leadership team was not willing to explain why Amazon Prime charged me $13.09, which is $157.08 for year. Most of the people with whom I talked to were foreigners. I also speculated that it might be because of unfamiliarity or something that they were not trained for, but when I pressed them for explanation, I realized that they were not actually unaware of it, but rather they were unwilling to explain the price that is designed to fleece innocent customers out of their money. Even sometimes their language was incoherent and impossible to understand. I think they may use Google translator like this one, which sometimes I couldn't understand what he was saying.
What I am trying to convey is that it actually does not say the actual price, which may influence people’s decisions. If we add $.10 cents of tax to $12.99 that is $13.09, which is $157.08 for the entire year - the right amount that I was changed. The issue that I am concerned with is that Amazon Prime does not mention that on it is page. That is an ingenuous scheme. This is unethical and it should not be without consequences.
In 2014, I was charged for the whole year. I only realized towards the end of the year when I checked bank account. I was not notified by e-mail or otherwise. When I contacted Amazon Prime, they said, well, sorry to hear that. You always have the option to cancel your membership. You can cancel your membership now, if you want. That was their excuse. Amazon has carefully planned that and they know how to get away with it because they know that poor customers have no other choice than opting out, but Amazon has already drained their pockets.
Finally, I think it is imperative for everyone to share their experiences and expose schemes and ploys played by giant corporations such as Amazon. We can make them accountable and stop them from exploiting innocent and poor people. (Here I am going off on a tangent a little bit). We should share our ideas and experiences with each other to fight back against corporate greed and aggression. They are leaching off our hard work, our hopes, and success, and then use them against us not only economically but also politically.
Big corporations want to own us and rule us. We need to stand up and not let this happen. We should work together to be creative and raise awareness in our social circles, in colleges and universities, in workplaces, and in households. We have to make our hard work, our sweat, our success matter. This is the hallmark of our modern values. We have to stand for it and don't let giant corporations take control of them.
We need to get these things personal and turn it as a grassroots campaign on the street and on the web. Our laws are our tools, we can hold giant corporations accountable for their actions either it is related to global warming, health issues, human rights crises or small things like falling for the marketing ploy of Amazon Prime.
Comments
Post a Comment