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Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

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Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#141

Post by crazygringo »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #135
crazygringo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up At least for me, it's easy -- the Prime credit card, which has no extra fee beyond Prime itself. I get 5-7% back, instead of the 1-2% with my other credit cards. It literally pays for itself and more over the course of a year. The faster shipping is just a bonus. And I'm not buying junk I don't need either. It's literally just regular toiletries, my norm…

It’s usually cheaper if you can source it from the manufacturer even paying their shipping rate. In fact the pricing structure on amazon often seems to include this shipping from manufacturer charge in the total cost just you aren’t aware of it. You still get 3% back on that card without prime on amazon fwiw.

> It’s usually cheaper if you can source it from the manufacturer even paying their shipping rate.

This is rarely the case. In fact, it's against Amazon's policies for manufacturer/third-party listings.

But I've found that even when that's the case, returns can be such a gigantic hassle it's not worth it -- getting an RMA, having to pay for return shipping, being forced to use an inconvenient shipping service of their choice, things like 15% restocking fees...

If you're buying something for the first time and then discover it doesn't work the way you expected, it's amazing how much easier and cheaper Amazon returns are.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#142

Post by [deleted] »

udkl wrote: post #132
crazygringo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up At least for me, it's easy -- the Prime credit card, which has no extra fee beyond Prime itself. I get 5-7% back, instead of the 1-2% with my other credit cards. It literally pays for itself and more over the course of a year. The faster shipping is just a bonus. And I'm not buying junk I don't need either. It's literally just regular toiletries, my norm…

Try the PayPal Debit card if you are in the US (and I think UK) .... you choose the category each month for a 5% cashback.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#143

Post by crazygringo »

udkl wrote: post #132
crazygringo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t know why any non-Prime customer would want to sign up At least for me, it's easy -- the Prime credit card, which has no extra fee beyond Prime itself. I get 5-7% back, instead of the 1-2% with my other credit cards. It literally pays for itself and more over the course of a year. The faster shipping is just a bonus. And I'm not buying junk I don't need either. It's literally just regular toiletries, my norm…

Try the PayPal Debit card if you are in the US (and I think UK) .... you choose the category each month for a 5% cashback.

I don't think Amazon purchases fall into any of their available categories:

https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wallet/rewards/rewards-cat...

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#145

Post by nunez »

lol they're STILL doing this.

As of the time this was written, if you go through the order flow for anything, at any price, the first shipping option will be "get one-day shipping FREE with Amazon Prime", wrapped in a huge CTA. Between that and checkout is a "are you sure?" nag screen where they tell you all of the benefits of going Prime.

I don't shop at Amazon nearly as much as I did in past years, but I was shocked to see how challenging it was to voluntarily pay for one-day shipping because of all of this!

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#146

Post by zzrrt »

gretch wrote: post #65
whatamidoingyo wrote: post #36

A few years ago, I got a new phone and a new number. I eventually went to Amazon, entered password, and then was prompted for the OTP, which was sent to my previous number (which I no longer had access to). I kept trying things until I was completely locked out of the account. I emailed them, no help. So, while being locked out of my account, I couldn't cancel my subscription to Kindle (lost all of the books, too). I…

> I'd hope that they fixed this. If an account is locked, it seems like it would be common sense to place a hold on any subscriptions associated with it. The problem with this is you can deny someone's service very easily just by knowing publicly associated data (e.g. email address) and intentionally getting the password wrong a few times. > So, while being locked out of my account, I couldn't cancel my subscription…

> The problem with this is you can deny someone's service very easily

I can’t tell if you’re already saying this, but that’s a problem regardless of whether they suspend charges for your subscription at the time you’re locked out. They only need to ensure the suspension can smoothly be undone when you regain access.

It might be tricky if there are services being provided that don’t require you to log in to receive. But in this case it seems pretty clear Prime should not charge you if you also have no way to access it due to them blocking you.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#147

Post by FireBeyond »

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #136
FireBeyond wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an answer for that: "Shipping is 2 day." That doesn't mean it will be shipped as to arrive within two days from ordering, but when we ship it (which may be that day, or may be three days later) you'll get it within 2 days...

The two days before you received the package was two days. QED.

Oh to be clear, I think that explanation is BS, and Amazon is just lawyering the answer. But that's how they see it.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#148

Post by MrMember »

udkl wrote: post #73
al_borland wrote: post #68

I cancelled Prime last year after getting fed up with Amazon in several ways. Bringing ads to Prime Video was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I do still end up ordering from time to time, and the checkout process for non-Prime members is horrific. Multiple Prime sign-up offers that I always need to carefully read so I don’t click the wrong thing, illogical default shipping options, with more tricks to try and…

For good or for bad, I've switched to Walmart for many of my orders as well as home delivery of groceries now and then and they have been decent. It's good to have competitors who are catching up.

I used Walmart delivery for groceries a fair amount last year and didn't have a single issue. I used it maybe six times this year and there was an issue with the order five of those times. Several times it was delivered to the wrong address. The other times I was missing around half of my order. I was able to get refunds without any issue every time but the experience was so awful I canceled and haven't used it at all the second half of this year.

Re: Amazon fined $2.5B for using deceptive methods to sign up consumers for Prime

#150

Post by mikert89 »

sib wrote: post #100

It's sad to see it come to this. When I worked there (more than a decade ago) senior leaders and old-timers were extremely proud of the fact that they did things like sending "your Prime membership will renew in (a month - I think) - be sure to cancel if you don't want it to" emails. This was quite different from typical subscription services providers at the time. In fact, I had more than one old-timer mention that…

I think the company just took retail and AWS to their logical conclusion, and so the old culture doesn’t even make sense
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