from Hacker News

Tell HN: Amazon keeps renewing Prime even after I cancelled it

by samh748 on 3/1/23, 12:53 AM with 4 comments

It's been like this for many months now.

I'm an occasional Prime subscriber, and I cancel the subscription whenever I'm done using it. Several months ago I noticed that my subscription was renewed despite I had turned off the renewal. I thought it was my own mistake at first, but after several iterations, I've concluded that Amazon is forcing the renewal on me every time.

Thankfully each time I can request a refund because I didn't shop during those times, so I'm not too bothered personally.

But I can't help but wonder how many people are being charged unknowingly and not catching it. This can't be legal right?

  • by version_five on 3/1/23, 1:09 AM

    Amazon is king of dark patterns so there may be some more aggressive trick they've used to get you to technically "agree" to the renewal? It seems an obvious endgame for prime that they'd make it impossible to cancel. It's lost all its value, so the only way for whoever's in charge to keep their numbers up is to use progressively more trickery. It's funny because 6 or 7 years ago I voluntarily paid for it and considered it a great value.

  • by ofalkaed on 3/1/23, 1:50 AM

    I get the free trial most every year, only time I use Amazon. Last time I got it I had this issue, it turns out you have to confirm your cancellation, at the bottom of the page where it says you are unsubscribed there is a little link saying "confirm my cancellation" or something like that and there is some fine print on the page explaining it, they make it look like it is survey or something.

    If someone is getting unknowingly charged they probably are not good with money in general and never look at their bank/credit card statements/accounts.