Amazon did not ask if I wanted to stay a member and just charged my credit card $108.41 to renew membership.

I am done with Amazon prime.

Well, not for another year. But it does tell you it auto-renews when you sign up.

yep they should have sent you an email
about renewal, I got one on my prime...

We use it quite a bit, so the free shipping
pays for the fee, and I dumped Pandora for Amazon Prime Music on the phone, works great, no advertising, at the $10 a month for ad free spotify or pandora it pays for itself double.

Then again maybe I'd spend less if I didn't have prime.....

I always get at least two emails leading up to the new charge as well

How much was it prior to that? I think my membership is $99/yr plus I suppose there is some tax or fees. For me, it's an excellent value. I use them alot not only for shopping, getting most anything I need in 2 days but also more and more using Amazon Prime Video. I use that almost as much as Netflix and it's less money, even though Netflix IMO is a bargain.

Most subscriptions will auto renew without asking. I take that for granted and either try to set a reminder to cancel if I don't want it or if I get a notice of renewal, I consider that a bonus of consideration.

Mine just renewed as well but they charged me $100.84. No notice why they charged more than $99

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Amazon did not ask if I wanted to stay a member and just charged my credit card $108.41 to renew membership.

Is it possible they sent you an email that was identified as "spam," so you missed it?

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
I am done with Amazon prime.

After Justified, we haven't used the video streaming, much. Never use the music streaming at all. Their pay-per movies and TV shows are ridiculously priced, IMO. Especially when I can wander down to the video rental place and rent the Blu-ray for an evening for $2.50. Some DVD/Blu-ray rentals are only a buck.

So it's main benefit has been the free 2-day shipping. I'd have to run the numbers to see how it shakes out.

It is nice to spot something and not have to wait until there's enough queued-up to make it worth the shipping. But, that also encourages profligate buying, so, if it's any less than a wash, I might have to dump it, too.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BRL:
How much was it prior to that? I think my membership is $99/yr plus


It was $99.00 last year.

I've never used any of the pay-per stuff so that part does not concern me.
I love the easy shopping and free freight on all the items I can easily search for and buy.
Since there is sales tax it limits me to lower cost items ~ never on big ticket stuff.
I buy all my CD's from Amazon and lots of books too.
The Video Prime free/included is enough to justify it for me alone.
I think it is a good deal ~ hopefully when mine renews it won't be jacked up too much.

They give you notification that the renewal is coming. Switch to the monthly pricing if you'd rather -- I think it's $12/mo.

Prime is an excellent deal IMO.

Prime for the free shipping pays for itself.

But then I also use Prime Now and Prime Pantry.

I get free one day and same day delivery with some stuff.

I get free shows, free movies, free music, and the occasional free book.

I get free music storage and photo storage and discounts for Amazon products like the Echo and Audible.

Easily the best $100 a year I spend.

It doesn't look like the price has risen from $99/year.

The extra is most likely sales tax. Amazon just recently started collecting sales tax for a bunch of additional states.

(And yes, Amazon is very clear that your Prime membership auto-renews every year, unless you cancel.)

Amazon revenues keep going up, their profits roll along at the bottom. Their increase in Prime is to help profits.

IIRC a few years ago the Supreme Court ruled a state can't force an out of state business to collect sales tax (ie, CA cant force Amazon to collect CA sales tax). I believe I read CA struck a deal with Amazon where Amazon gets a fairly healthy "collection fee" for collecting sales taxes.

The free shipping more than pays for prime as much as we purchase from them. All of the other benefits are just frosting on the cake.

If you want to complain about cost, look at your phone plan. That will take the sting out of the cost of Amazon Prime.

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
IIRC a few years ago the Supreme Court ruled a state can't force an out of state business to collect sales tax (ie, CA cant force Amazon to collect CA sales tax)

In the OP's case, Amazon isn't an out of state business. They have at least five warehouses in Tennessee.

quote:

Originally posted by SR025:
I always get at least two emails leading up to the new charge as well

I do as well. Is is possible the OP has an out of date email address in his Prime profile?

I wonder what my threshold for cancelling Prime would be? Probably $300/year but even then I'd really have to think about it. We use it a ton.

It's still an amazing deal. I feel like I'm ordering something weekly off of Amazon. I certainly won't be canceling anytime soon.

quote:

Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
Amazon revenues keep going up, their profits roll along at the bottom. Their increase in Prime is to help profits.

IIRC a few years ago the Supreme Court ruled a state can't force an out of state business to collect sales tax (ie, CA cant force Amazon to collect CA sales tax). I believe I read CA struck a deal with Amazon where Amazon gets a fairly healthy "collection fee" for collecting sales taxes.

Utah struck a similar bargain with Amazon, which went into effect Jan 1.

The extra is probably sales tax.

Here in Florida, if the vendor has a physical presence in the state, like maybe an Amazon warehouse or distribution point, they must collect sales tax on the whole amount of the transaction IF there is a transfer of tangible goods.

If the transaction is for a service only, with no tangible goods transferred, there is no sales tax.

Example: If I go to a car repair place and they do some adjustments for maybe a hundred bucks but do not sell me any parts, there is no sales tax.

If they replace a three-cent washer along with the hundred bucks of labor, there is sales tax on the whole amount.

The shop that maintains the V-Tail does it this way: Annual inspection is $1,250.00. That is inspection only. No repairs. They do the inspection, which is labor only, and give us an invoice. No sales tax.

Along with the invoice, they give us a "punch list" of discrepancies found, that need to be repaired. This is done on a separate invoice and since it will probably include some parts, this invoice was, in the past, subject to sales tax for the total amount, parts and labor.

I said "in the past" because Florida has now changed the rules so that any and all repair work done to aircraft that are certified to operate with gross weight more than 3,000 pounds, is now not subject to sales tax. This is a fairly recent change.

Getting back to the original question, should sales tax be charged on Prime membership in Florida? If it is a service only, then by Florida law, sales tax is not applicable. Yes, I understand that original poster is in Tennessee, not Florida, but his post just made me question the charges in Florida, where I was assessed sales tax on the last Prime renewal.