Amazon tricks customers into signing up for $79 annual membership | Hacker News Reader

Amazon tricks customers into signing up for $79 annual membership

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7 pointstonylampada11 comments

The title is good link bait, but a little overblown. Summery of the article: - Customer signs up for free trial of Prime. - Customer doesn't remember it when the free trial is over - Contacts Amazon support and they refund the charge.

The outrage.

Was about to post the same exact thing.

I bet this guy doesn't know how the Ask toolbar got installed on his computer either.

Hi, author here. No. Fortunately, they don't make Ask toolbar for Ubuntu. ;-)

My point is Amazon is using deceptive practices to push Amazon Prime - which are actually very similar to to the strategy employed by crapware like the Ask toolbar. You just don't expect that when you're making a purchase over amazon. Well at least I never would, until now.

Are you really telling me you think it's okay for Amazon to do that - and there's no reason to complain here?

This is not a new practice for Amazon. This happened to my Significant Other during holiday shopping five years back. Utterly confused when we saw it on the bill. Bill searching, etc. My SO remembered seeing something, but thought it was just a one month trial, not signing up for a subscription. A bit of shame for feeling sucked in.

The only difference between our stories is that upon doing the research, we decided that Prime was a good fit for our Amazon purchasing patterns and haven't canceled yet.

Actually I accidentally overpassed the trial, then just canceled for next month... and I got an automatic rebate having not used the subscription

Amazon has amazing customer service , at least in my experience

Stupid complaint is stupid.

Nothing to see here people, move on.

"Seriously, this should be worth jailtime."

This "news" is actually worth life.

Maybe our advertising/sales laws prevent the same practice in the UK, but here you explicitly have to opt-in to the Prime trial in a very obvious way, and as far as I can remember it's also very clear that it will be auto-renewed at the end of the trial.

This is ridiculous. The user chose to do the free trial, which is opt-in (Amazon may be pushing it hard, but you still have to explicitly select it). If they don't remember or claim victimhood, they can't be trusted on the internet.

Have you considered teaching your wife how to read?

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