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AMAZON Prime Cunts!

Started by Steven, October 01, 2014, 12:20:19 PM

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Steven

I took up the FREE MONTH offer from Amazon Prime just to see what selection they had, it was crap, I didn't watch a single thing on it. Anyway I ended the membership a couple of days before the trial period ended, guess what? I check my bank statement today and they've taken out £79 for a year's membership, utter cunts! I had to fiddle with the account settings and there was an option to End Membership so I don't get billed the same amount in 2015 or something about Switch to Amazon Instant Video for £5.99 a month and get a £79 refund so I pressed that, still don't see anything in my bank account, what the fuck are they playing at over there? If you do a google search it seems they've done this shit with Prime to many people. If I don't get a refund by tomorrow I'll get on to customer service.

Some clandestine shite going on to entrap people into using their service, anyway they have new shows like Jeffrey Tambor in Trans-Parent etc, worth keeping it for a month, or getting rid of this garbage altogether? Is there anything on there worth watching? I'm still paying for Netflix and I barely use it, maybe once or twice a week, but at least you get all the shows for free, Prime is a subscription service where you need to pay one-off fees to "rent" certain titles, fuck that!

Kane Jones

I was thinking the same thing.  I like having Amazon Prime for the next day deliveries, but now the price has gone up to 80 quid they can fuck right off.  I'm not paying a flat fee and then paying to rent the films and TV shows.  That's blatant theft.

BlodwynPig

I didn't realise I had signed up for it...and got done (they never warn you about renewing, it just renews, but I cancelled once i found out).

Anyway, I didn't do any reading around the subject and thought it was just for free delivery - which i don't want.

A week ago I saw the Tambor Transparent thing highlighted and suddenly realised I could watch it free and have been doing so. And also I have access to loads of crap for free...unfortunately I have left it a bit late as my prime will expire soon.


mobias

Quote from: Steven on October 01, 2014, 12:20:19 PM
I took up the FREE MONTH offer from Amazon Prime just to see what selection they had, it was crap, I didn't watch a single thing on it. Anyway I ended the membership a couple of days before the trial period ended, guess what? I check my bank statement today and they've taken out £79 for a year's membership, utter cunts! I had to fiddle with the account settings and there was an option to End Membership so I don't get billed the same amount in 2015 or something about Switch to Amazon Instant Video for £5.99 a month and get a £79 refund so I pressed that, still don't see anything in my bank account, what the fuck are they playing at over there? If you do a google search it seems they've done this shit with Prime to many people. If I don't get a refund by tomorrow I'll get on to customer service.



My girlfriend had exact same problem. If I remember rightly it took about a week to get the money back in her account but it did get there.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Steven on October 01, 2014, 12:20:19 PM
Prime is a subscription service where you need to pay one-off fees to "rent" certain titles, fuck that!

Hang-on, are they charging me for watching Trans-parent?

I couldn't work it out - there was no "billing" option, just click and play.

Harpo Speaks

Quote from: Steven on October 01, 2014, 12:20:19 PM
Prime is a subscription service where you need to pay one-off fees to "rent" certain titles, fuck that!

They made a complete fuck up of the dashboard interface, it's just a cluttered mess where the free title are mixed in with the rentals. Or it was, I haven't looked on there for a while.

amnesiac

I'm a long-time Prime customer, it's there so I watched Life on Mars as I'd only seen Ashes to Ashes ermm their original thing Extant is BOLLOCKS. There was a pilot for an alien invasion that was pretty bad but i'd have watched it but it didn't get picked up.
My family like Kyle XY but apart from that it's just an add-on that they forcing me to have.

Steven

Quote from: Harpo Speaks on October 01, 2014, 12:36:49 PM
They made a complete fuck up of the dashboard interface, it's just a cluttered mess where the free title are mixed in with the rentals. Or it was, I haven't looked on there for a while.

Yes it's a fucking shambles, you can't list what's free and what's not.

Netflix is a lesser evil but do similar where you can't list stuff via their star rating, obviously to try and promote other titles as I gather they buy stuff in packages from studios - if you want THIS hit show, you have to take 5 other also-rans too.

Quote from: mobias on October 01, 2014, 12:35:56 PM
My girlfriend had exact same problem. If I remember rightly it took about a week to get the money back in her account but it did get there.

I don't know if I can wait that long, I'll give it `til tomorrow then get on the phone.

Quote from: BlodwynPig on October 01, 2014, 12:36:29 PM
Hang-on, are they charging me for watching Trans-parent?

I couldn't work it out - there was no "billing" option, just click and play.

Is it any good? Tambor was QUITE the holier than thou arse about it while in a room with Jim Norton which is quite the accomplishment. Yes unless you are still on your free month trial you're going to be charged, and even if you end it are probably still going to be charged, the account system is so messed up it's hard to tell what's going on. I suppose they've done this on purpose to make people switch to the Instant Video option for the refund if they even notice what's going on, and can wangle their way into a standing order that way.

shiftwork2

I did the free trial (and to be fair it did cancel ok) but the whole deal is underwhelming.  Yes the delivery is next day, but they required a signature even for the £3.99 CD I'd bought.  Not useful if you're out all day.  Secondly the video streaming was shonky in a way that Netflix has never been (I've since heard that BT cache Netflix shows locally or regionally or something, maybe that's why) and the video I watched was actually mislabelled.  And lastly the selection of Kindle books for rental is totally underwhelming and you can only have one out at a time.

BlodwynPig

It is reasonably good...a bit Jewish introspective, but watchable.

But I have not been told that i am paying - if I am still a Prime customer, I assumed it would be free - I'm going to have to check this out.

Would it be so hard to have a message saying "You will be charged £2.99 for watching this, click here to accept"

amnesiac

oh I keep forgetting the Kindle Lending Library is part of it as it's so bad, I think the only thing I ever borrowed was the 5:2 Diet, and it's more of a pamphlet.

amnesiac

Quote from: BlodwynPig on October 01, 2014, 12:46:44 PM
It is reasonably good...a bit Jewish introspective, but watchable.

But I have not been told that i am paying - if I am still a Prime customer, I assumed it would be free - I'm going to have to check this out.

Would it be so hard to have a message saying "You will be charged £2.99 for watching this, click here to accept"

I REALLY fancy the Louis CK mum actress who I saw in the trailer. Her eyes are something else.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Steven on October 01, 2014, 12:20:19 PMI took up the FREE MONTH offer from Amazon Prime just to see what selection they had, it was crap, I didn't watch a single thing on it. Anyway I ended the membership a couple of days before the trial period ended, guess what?... If I don't get a refund by tomorrow I'll get on to customer service...

In my own experience, there's never been any trouble cancelling a service with Amazon – FWIW, I've previously taken up and cancelled two (actually maybe) Prime trials without then being charged. If you have been wrongly charged, I wouldn't wait and see what happens but to contact customer services now.

Quote from: Steven on October 01, 2014, 12:20:19 PM...
Some clandestine shite going on to entrap people into using their service, anyway they have new shows like Jeffrey Tambor in Trans-Parent etc, worth keeping it for a month, or getting rid of this garbage altogether?...

I doubt it. This online streaming subscription services is getting increasingly popular and competitive (e.g. I've just cancelled one service and automatically was offered a deal) and I would be a little surprised that Amazon thinks that the best way to compete is to deliberately charge people money for a service they don't want.

Quote from: Steven on October 01, 2014, 12:20:19 PM... but at least you get all the shows for free, Prime is a subscription service where you need to pay one-off fees to "rent" certain titles, fuck that!

Mmm, not really. Amazon has incorporated being able to purchase and rent content through the same portal – this is something that quite a few people saw as an advantage over competitors.

It's a slightly business model than a service like Netflix and more like Now TV, where you can pay subscriptions for a service but also buy or rent movies or box sets on top of that.

Personally, I think the main issue with how Prime does this is that it's very hard to navigate through content that is part of the subscription. 

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Steven on October 01, 2014, 12:20:19 PM
I had to fiddle with the account settings and there was an option to End Membership so I don't get billed the same amount in 2015 or something about Switch to Amazon Instant Video for £5.99 a month and get a £79 refund so I pressed that, still don't see anything in my bank account

I worked for a company that started putting "we must receive cancellation notice six months before end of agreement or it will renew for the same period" into their contracts in 2009. Some bright spark had figured out a way to automatically lock in people to contracts forever unless actively cancelled. That's treating your customers well there. They also brought in a new scheme for existing customers where there was a one month free trial that, you guessed it, locked people into the full contract and started taking money from their bank account if they didn't cancel it. If you refused to pay they brought the full force of their collection department into the mix. If you tried to reduce your current payments the only way you could do so was with a longer contract. If you didn't pay they'd happily take you to court. If the customer went mad and was sectioned under the mental health act they'd give you a couple of months to get your shit together but someone was going to have to pay.

I think the economic downturn around 2008 brought in a new breed of ruthlessness regarding big companies protecting existing profits while expanding and generating new profits. The boffins come up with all sorts of elaborate and downright cheeky clauses and schemes to get money out of people and force them to pay. This is why I am convinced business is essentially evil.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: BlodwynPig on October 01, 2014, 12:35:03 PM
A week ago I saw the Tambor Transparent thing highlighted and suddenly realised I could watch it free

You can watch absolutely everything free now. People who pay are just too lazy to bother googling for 5 minutes to find a torrent. This is ignoring any moral aspect of course.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Kane Jones on October 01, 2014, 12:27:26 PM
I was thinking the same thing.  I like having Amazon Prime for the next day deliveries, but now the price has gone up to 80 quid they can fuck right off...

I think Amazon made a big mistake making it so that the Instant Video and Prime Delivery was combined. If you're paying for both, then all well and good, but if it's only the latter you want, it's a large hike and I don't think the former is strong enough to make people think 'actually, this is worth having.'

Quote from: Harpo Speaks on October 01, 2014, 12:36:49 PM
They made a complete fuck up of the dashboard interface, it's just a cluttered mess where the free title are mixed in with the rentals. Or it was, I haven't looked on there for a while.

It was – but previously the Lovefilm streaming interfaces were dire as well. I was amazed that they took something that was badly designed, revamped it and made it badly designed.

Quote from: Steven on October 01, 2014, 12:42:43 PM...I don't know if I can wait that long, I'll give it `til tomorrow then get on the phone....

Amazon are very quick responding to issues raised online – as I say, if there's an issue raise it now.

Quote from: shiftwork2 on October 01, 2014, 12:45:32 PM
I did the free trial (and to be fair it did cancel ok) but the whole deal is underwhelming.  Yes the delivery is next day, but they required a signature even for the £3.99 CD I'd bought.  Not useful if you're out all day...

Personally, I've never had to sign for anything via Prime. For me, a major reason I like the service is being able to have it delivered to locker rather than paying a cost. It's also been useful when something was needed at short notice – quite recently, a friend was going abroad on a Monday, wasn't able they hadn't been able to get something and wasn't able to get the weekend before; I was able to order it Saturday afternoon (quite late, IIRC) for Sunday delivery.

Quote from: BlodwynPig on October 01, 2014, 12:46:44 PM...Would it be so hard to have a message saying "You will be charged £2.99 for watching this, click here to accept"

Mmm, in the past there always used to be a message asking you to agree to pay the extra money.

Given all the furore about in-app purchases and notification of additional costs, I would very surprised that Amazon had reversed this and not made charges apparent.

Also, you would get an email invoice if you had been charged, surely?

*edit* After checking, Transparent is labelled as content that comes with Amazon Prime Instant.

Steven

Quote from: Ignatius_S on October 01, 2014, 12:50:15 PM

Yeah I'm sure it's an acceptable platform for some people, it's the same as Sky has been for years, lots of mainly bad channels with the subscription with a couple of the premium channels .. Films or whatever needing one off payments. It's just not my bag man, I have a hard enough time scrolling around Netflix for ages to find something that I may bother to watch without having to then pay for the privilege, I did the same on Prime and even the premium stuff didn't spark much interest, and as checkout girl mentioned, you can get most of it for free if you're decent at searching, it should be easy to use but it's not, as you point out the format is a mess and you can't work out what's free and what isn't.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: checkoutgirl on October 01, 2014, 01:00:21 PM
You can watch absolutely everything free now. People who pay are just too lazy to bother googling for 5 minutes to find a torrent. This is ignoring any moral aspect of course.


I know this...but if I have already accidentally paid for it, I'm going to use it and don't wish to get stung again for the privilege!

Ignatius_S

Quote from: BlodwynPig on October 01, 2014, 03:07:09 PM

I know this...but if I have already accidentally paid for it, I'm going to use it and don't wish to get stung again for the privilege!

You woudn't have been charged for it.

olliebean

I was surprised when I found out how Prime Instant Video (or whatever it's called) works, because all the publicity I've seen about it has just said x amount per month or whatever for access to our huge streaming library, with no mention that a large chunk of that library requires extra payments on top of the subscription. I'd call it very misleading, frankly.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: olliebean on October 01, 2014, 03:22:46 PM
I was surprised when I found out how Prime Instant Video (or whatever it's called) works, because all the publicity I've seen about it has just said x amount per month or whatever for access to our huge streaming library, with no mention that a large chunk of that library requires extra payments on top of the subscription. I'd call it very misleading, frankly.

Amazon has never included the paid-for content as part of the titles you would be able to access via a subscription. The quoted amount of titles is what you can watch through the subscription alone.

When the publicity against what's on offer has been analysed, it's been claimed that a single episode will be counted as an individual title, whereas most people would see a series as a single title. (IIRC, it's been claimed that Netflix's titles were also bumped). However, this has been clarified to 'Unlimited streaming of more than 15,000 movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video.'

MojoJojo

What is weird is they that even with stuff that's available for free, you still have the option to rent it. Which makes absolutely no sense.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: MojoJojo on October 01, 2014, 04:16:23 PM
What is weird is they that even with stuff that's available for free, you still have the option to rent it. Which makes absolutely no sense.

They're basically saying "It's free but if you want to give us money for it anyway because you're an idiot then that's fine".

Steven

Yep, also on the selection screen they list several series of the same show as separate icons and use different graphics for each one to give the illusion of more choice, Netflix doesn't do this.

mook


Steven

Just got off the phone with Amazon, apparently I was refunded yesterday but it's not showing up in my account yet due to the bank being slow, `twas sorted out by an American bloke called Rolly B, thanks Rolly!

BritishHobo

Fuckin' just had this bollocks with Amazon Student. Six month trial that ended four days ago, and I was automatically charged for a year's membership. Am I to assume that there's a clause in the terms & conditions that makes this my fault, and a refund out of the question?

Intentionally not sending an e-mail with the billing information really is sodding cheeky.

Fucking Amazon Prime cunts.

BPFHAY

Amazon Price Cuts? Excellent!

the midnight watch baboon

I forgot to cancel once when it was £49, but they did refund when I rang up. Maybe 3-4 years ago now though!

I have had the Prime free trial at least 3 times now so I don't know how good their filter is for weedling out the repeat cheapskates. Well it's shit, thinking about it lulz!

Steven

I assume they're legally covered to do this and it's worth their while for the amount of money from people who don't notice/don't contest the fee/forget to cancel vs the amount spent on call centre people sorting it out for angry customers.