I just received an email informing me that my Amazon card was just charged $119.78, and asking me to confirm the charge.

I have NO knowledge of the charge, NONE WHATSOEVER, checked the Amazon website, and confirmed that my last order was for six and a half bucks, two weeks ago, looked like fraud, so I got on "chat" with Synchrony Bank -- they are the issuer of my Amazon card, and they sent me the warning email.

I asked what was ordered, and the name and shipping address on the order.

After being escalated to a manger, it turns out that the charge was for Prime membership renewal, but I had NO previous knowledge that the charge was going to be placed.

WTF, Amazon -- have you never heard of email? You just go ahead and charge a customer's account without informing him?

Recurring charge?

If you agreed to an automatic renewal, then they may not notify you upon renewal. The only contact would be you cancelling the membership.

Well, look on the bright side, it wasn’t some dink in Panama buying a TV.

quote:

WTF, Amazon -- have you never heard of email? You just go ahead and charge a customer's account without informing him?

Probably the same they of system used in Sirius. When you sign up it's in the very small print that you agree to a auto renewal at the end of the term. No warning, just a payment.

In there Terms of Membership...

quote:

UNLESS YOU NOTIFY US BEFORE A CHARGE THAT YOU WANT TO CANCEL OR DO NOT WANT TO AUTO RENEW, YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR PRIME MEMBERSHIP WILL AUTOMATICALLY CONTINUE AND YOU AUTHORIZE US (WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU, UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW) TO COLLECT THE THEN-APPLICABLE MEMBERSHIP FEE AND ANY TAXES, USING ANY ELIGIBLE PAYMENT METHOD WE HAVE ON RECORD FOR YOU.

Yep. When you signed up for an annual Prime membership, you agreed to a recurring yearly charge until cancelled.

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Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Yep. When you signed up for an annual Prime membership, you agreed to a recurring yearly charge until cancelled.

Yup.

Though I thought they sent a heads up email a few days prior to the impending charge? Or maybe they used to and do not, anymore?

Unless they've stopped the notifications, I've always received an email from Amazon ahead of the renewal informing me that it would occur around a specified date.

"Without notice to you" is a crappy policy.

Amazon has my email address; they use it to send me junk mail at least once a day. How about sending an email with some useful information?

Restating the problem (maybe I did not state it clearly, as not one of the replies above this post addressed it):

I received an email from Synchrony Bank, the issuer of my Amazon Store card, stating that a charge in the amount of $119.78 had been placed on my account.

I had no knowledge of the charge, so I checked the Amazon website for recent orders. I found NOTHING in this amount, and no orders for the past two weeks.

It would cost Amazon NOTHING (other than a small amount of bandwidth) to inform the customer that this charge had been placed. Or maybe show SOMETHING on the "recent orders" section of the website, where all other charges are shown, you know, the logical place to look if you are trying to identify a charge.

The way the they are doing it now, there is nothing readily apparent to explain the charge. The key words in that sentence are "readily apparent."

Replying to ensigmatic and Waterbury Bob, the Amazon chat agent referred to an obscure setting, buried somewhere in the website, that would activate a heads-up email. Apparently, youse guys had it turned on and I did not.

The agent told me that he turned it on for me, but I still have not found where it is.

The "funny" thing is: One's Prime membership charge doesn't show up in their "Your Orders" list, either, IIRC?

Yeah, they don't handle this well, I agree.

(We're not Primer members anymore, anyway.)

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:

One's Prime membership charge doesn't show up in their "Your Orders" list, either, IIRC?

You are correct. It does NOT appear on the Orders list.

You really have to hunt for it, and that assumes that you know what you're looking for.

In this case, I had no idea what I was looking for, other than an explanation for a charge of just under $120. If I had known that it was for membership renewal, that would have given me a clue where to look, but then again if I had known it was for membership renewal I would not have had to search for it. Catch 22.

Now that it has been identified, I put it on my calendar, so next year should not be a surprise.

I've been an Amazon Prime member for years.

They always notify me by email prior to renewing.

Maybe your notification went to email hell, it sometimes happens.

They notified me way back in august ,
Check you spam ,probably just an oversite on you

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Originally posted by 45 Cal:

Check you spam

Nope, nothing from Amazon in the spam bucket, but I never realized that there are so many hot women who want me to play Hide-The-Salami with them. I might have to reply to one of the pharmaceutical ads in order to take care of all those ladies. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

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Originally posted by V-Tail:
Nope, nothing from Amazon in the spam bucket

I've been a Prime member since its inception, and I've never received a heads up about the renewal charge. I always forget when its supposed to come and end up calling Amazon every year when it drops.

For those of youse who might want to receive a notification, follow this yellow brick road:

amazon.com -> Accounts & Lists -> Prime -> Membership (Update, cancel and more)

There is a checkbox labeled "Remind me before renewing." If checked, they claim that they will send an email three days prior to renewal.

When someone, or something entity, takes the action of hiding something...well you know.

I had the same thing happen with my AAA membership. They automatically renewed it a full month before it expired. I didn't get any notification of such, nor ok it, and I certainly did not like it being done 30 days in advance of the expiration date.
.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
There is a checkbox labeled "Remind me before renewing." If checked, they claim that they will send an email three days prior to renewal.

A bogus claim. I have had that box checked since forever, and never get a reminder.

You sure this wasn’t some Spam e-mail that just LOOKS like it’s from Amazon??

I receive a heads-up 30 days prior. We'll see if it's different this year.