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Leaving Amazon Prime is tough to do.
A group of public interest advocates have told U.S. regulators they think Amazon deliberately makes it difficult to cancel an Amazon Prime subscription, its customer loyalty program.
In a letter sent to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday, a group led by consumer watchdog Public Citizen asked the commission to investigate whether Amazon.com Inc. has violated consumer protection laws with its process for canceling Prime membership subscriptions.
The letter draws on a report made by the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC), which investigates the “manipulative” design choices in Amazon Prime’s subscription model.
The report, which was researched in the U.S., U.K., and E.U., says that Prime’s subscription model is a “roach motel,” where getting in is easy, but escape is an ordeal.
The steps involved in cancelling Prime are designed to unfairly and deceptively undermine the will of the consumer.
To cancel Prime, the consumer is led through a series of six pages and is ultimately pushed toward maintaining their membership, the NCC claims . The pages include “dark patterns” and deceptive “visual interference” techniques such as yellow warning triangles with an exclamation point inside and text buttons stating “keep my benefits”.
A spokesperson for Amazon told Bloomberg that it is “clear and easy” to cancel Prime online, by phone or by opting out of automatic renewal.
“Customer trust is at the heart of all of our products and services and we strongly disagree with any claim that our cancellation process creates uncertainty,” the spokesperson said. “The information we provide in the online cancellation flow gives a full view of the benefits and services members are canceling.”
TCA reached out to the FTC for comment on the recall and will update the story when we hear back. Amazon Prime, which costs $119 USD per year, is a subscription only service offering free shipping, video streaming and more to its users. According to Statistica, as of Dec. 2019, an estimated 112 million people in the U.S. were subscribed to Prime.
Although complaints often land with the FTC with minimal action taken, Bloomberg reports that at least one of the parties involved in Thursday’s letter, the Center for Digital Democracy, has encouraged commissioners to take actions in the past.
Retail giant Amazon has faced a number of claims of deceptive practices over the years, and has been hit with a range of class action lawsuits alleging the online retail giant falsely advertises its Prime membership to consumers.
Have you experienced difficulty with canceling your Amazon Prime membership? Share your experience in the comments below.
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54 thoughts onAmazon Prime Subscription Too Hard to Cancel, Watchdogs say
I literally just posted a comment about this same subject on a different article about Amazon charging 3rd party sellers extra fees then it falling back on consumers. I explained how I have had numerous unauthorized charges taken off my card when they used to offer the Amazon Prime free two week trial offers for subscribing to certain “channels” like Starz or HBO etc. I’ve had over $200 maybe closer to $500 throughout the years because of those subscriptions alone. Around that same time I was a college student, mom of two young children living off less than $10,000 annually. I became a prime member in the first place because I was supposed to get half off discount for annual subscription. They got my debit card info and requested proof of me being a student but refused the documents and pictures of my current student ID so ended up charging me full price. I have lost so much money because of Amazon- they used to have policy that customer always right- until they became a giant and had Monopoly over the online shopping community and started only caring about getting the next dollar. I cannot begin to imagine how rich that company has gotten just from unauthorized charges a lone. That customer service says they cannot do anything about these charges it needs to be stopped. It’s not right Amazon and all it offers preys on online shoppers ESPECIALLY since Covid started and online shopping became basically a necessity for so many people. It’s like those people who see profit in wartime seeing dollar signs when the rest of the people see loss and suffering. I hope this goes all the way to some settlement for money for consumers reimbursed but maybe more importantly to put Amazon “in check”, put policies in place that prevent them from stealing from it’s customers as deceiving it’s sellers too, which also falls back negativity affecting us consumers.
Add me
I keep canceling and it somehow comes back to charge me every month. I don’t even visit the website monthly. Add me please.
Everytime I cancelled they end up taking money out of my account afterwards I have been told several times they cancelled and still up to now to Amazon prime still take money out my account this not right at all.
I have tried to cancel so many times and for some reason they just wouldnt let me i am so tired of them i think its time someone done something about please ad me to your list and thank you
Please add me
I’ve tried cancelling my Amazon subscription and my credit card still continues to be billed..I’ve called and spoke to foreign people who don’t understand English and accomplished nothing just continuing charges… frustrating.
Add me. Overcharged for months after I cancel.
Please include me. September of last year, l tried cancelling my Amazon Prime subscription because I couldn’t use it & got 1 heck of a run around because I couldn’t remember my password. The representative kept insisting that they needed the password I had used to set up the account. I had had that account for 3 years & had only had to use the password the 1st 2 times I went into the account. After that, I didn’t need it. How in the heck am I going to remember it if I don’t use it? And that is what I asked the representative. They wouldn’t cancel my subscription & after a 9 months of them pulling $12.99 from my checking account, I moved my account to another bank. They got almost $120 from me for something I wasn’t able to use.
Canceled my Prime membership a while back, my kindle started acting up, (unwanted keyboard strokes, web pages opening (or closing) etc.). Then later I received a screen flash from Amazon about renewing my Prime membership (it would appear on my kindle and keep popping up no matter what I did to get rid if it).
Did a reset on the kindle, and everything returned to normal, but when I re-registered the kindle with Amazon, the original problem returned. Its like they have a backdoor in the kindle, where they (Amazon) can disrupt the usage of it, at anytime.