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[sevenlayermuddle]

I think this is a scam, but not yet certain...

...An automated call, claiming to be from Amazon, offering to cancel my prime membership, to avoid getting charged.   I'm invited to press a button to speak to somebody, but have not yet done so.

Interesting thing is, I accidentally subscribed to a free trial of Prime a week ago, easily done with Amazon's interfaces.  And that's OK, I'll enjoy access to the free streaming for a few weeks, then cancel before it becomes chargeable.  Multiple reminders to do so have been set!    But that has another three weeks to go until it expires, so why would Amazon be calling me today (twice)?

And of interest, since I don't trust Amazon any more than anybody else, I have never given them my phone number.  The contact number on my Amazon account is fake (a truncated version of my own number).  Our BT phone account is not even in my name, other half does that.  So, rather odd they should be calling me on a number they should not know.   

So I'm proceeding on the assumption it is a scam, probably aimed at 'phishing' my account details.  I haven't yet elected to speak to the caller, whilst I ponder how best to play it.

If it is a scam, it is certainly a coincidence that I really did take out a prime trial last week, and the scam is targeting people in that situation.   A data leak?  A lucky guess?   Or just an assumption that many (maybe most, excluding techies!), average people have accidentally subscribed to prime in the past, and ended up paying?

[roseway]

I'm sure it's scam. Like you, I got tricked into a Prime trial, and I did exactly the same as you. I've never been phoned by Amazon, and if they've got a number for me it will be an invented one.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Thanks for the encouragement.

Clever scam, though.  Upon answering the first call, given the lucky timing, I actually assumed it was genuine.   But I happened to be busy at that moment, so just hung up, thinking I’d cancel it later.

I link to think I am sensible enough and careful enough to be immune to scams but truth is, sooner or later, somebody might catch me off guard.  Same goes for most of us, I suspect. 

[sevenlayermuddle]

PS:    Actually, I should have tried searching before starting this thread....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49733823


Silly me, for even thinking it might be anything other than a scam.   But a useful reminder that I am indeed silly sometimes, and should bear that in mind   

[burakkucat]

<Cough> As far as I am concerned, Amazon Prime is a scam. 

[licquorice]

I'm afraid these days I work on the principle that ANY unsolicited call is a scam.

[sevenlayermuddle]

<Cough> As far as I am concerned, Amazon Prime is a scam. 

I agree, although it is undoubtably, technically legal.    Interesting nonetheless that Amazon’s legal ‘prime’ scam has been so successful as to give rise to a second order scam, this one hugely fraudulent and totally illegal. 

I'm afraid these days I work on the principle that ANY unsolicited call is a scam.

Me too.  Yet, owing to an unfortunate timing coincidence, lucky on their part, this one nearly had me going.

And not all unsolicited calls are scams.  Not so long ago I took a different unsolicited call claiming to be from Amazon, displaying a UK geographic calling number .  Specifically it claimed to be a delivery driver, wanting to know if we were home before attempting delivery.  That’s ‘we’ as in my other half who, despite my cautions to the contrary, does supply a phone number to the likes of Amazon.   It still seems like a weird call but the evidence is it was genuine, as a guy with a similar sounding voice turned up 10 minutes later with a nicely wrapped ‘amazon’ box, contents of which she had indeed ordered.   

[Alex Atkin UK]

<Cough> As far as I am concerned, Amazon Prime is a scam. 

As much as I hate using Amazon due to their shady tax practices, we find Prime saves us a fortune as we shop there regularly.  My mum also watches Prime Video.

[sevenlayermuddle]

As much as I hate using Amazon due to their shady tax practices, we find Prime saves us a fortune as we shop there regularly.  My mum also watches Prime Video.

If you choose to use prime and it works for you then that’s absolutely fine.   I’m sure they have many happy users.

The reason many of us regard Prime as, in some ways, a scam, relates to the nasty tactics they use to trick people into accidentally signing up for free trials.  These signups  can even go unnoticed, then later turn into card charges.

See
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/amazon-prime-refund/
And
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jan/25/amazon-prime-charges-renewal-automatic

They also had their knuckles wrapped by Advertising Standards Agency, for dodgy claims about the benefits of Prime

https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/amazon-europe-core-sarl-a17-408329.html

[petef]

Very recently I inadvertently signed up to Prime while updating a Subscribe & Save order. Fortunately I noticed and customer services were able to undo the damage. It would have been rather better if I had the option to untick Prime during my order process.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Fair point.

Another dodgy tactic seems to be that they continue to encourage me to "join Prime", even though I'm already part of a Prime Family so getting most of the benefits already.

I also consider it shady that while Prime Video is shared with Prime Family, rentals and I think even video purchases are not.  Purchases however CAN be shared with Google Family, which is a huge bonus now most of my digital copies I got from Blurays have been migrated to Google.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Another scam, even if legal...

Today, I was shopping on Amazon for an internal Sata drive.  I found one I liked and clicked ‘add to basket’, to be confronted by a half screen ‘foldover’ inviting me to add accident & breakdown insurance.   Yes really, accident and breakdown cover, on an internal disk drive.   

Just when I thought the endless phone calls inviting me to reclaim miss sold PPI might be over,  I suddenly envisage it happening all over again, in relation to Amazon selling pointless and useless product insurance policies.   

I reacted by looking for the same drive elsewhere.   Found it on the BT shop for only £5 more than Amazon, which I gladly paid, just to avoid buying it from Amazon.

[Weaver]

I view Amazon’s website through an ad-blocker in Safari iOS and perhaps that helps a lot, maybe improving my experience greatly by deleting a lot of the clutter. I have been doing this for so long that I have no idea what the site would look like without such pruning.

[sevenlayermuddle]

@Weaver,

On iOS too, I get presented with the insurance sales pitch.     I don’t think it is an advert,  it looks like it’s part of the website.   It is presented in such a way, imho, that it would be possible for some people to accept it my mistake.    I’ve only noticed it as of yesterday, so might be new.     Appears for lots of goods, but the Sata drive seemed plain ridiculous.

If you’d like to try it,  just find (for example) any internal Sata drive (search say, “2Tb sata”) and tap “add to basket”....  I’d be interested to know if your ad-blocker prevents it.

[Weaver]

Just tried it, exactly as you specified, and no advert. This Safari ad-blocker, 1Blocker X, can strip out all kinds of annoying crap including particular objects that you pick out and ‘nuke’ by highlighting them; it’s not restricted to third-party content adverts.

—
I have also got it set up to really gut eBay and get rid of the vast amounts of random irrelevant junk on their site, stuff which makes pages slow expensive and makes them so large that scrolling is required.