Amazon Prime: one in four people sign up to service ‘by mistake’ Over a quarter of people who unwittingly sign up to Amazon Prime don’t realise until they see they have been charged

More than a quarter of people who have signed up to Amazon Prime did so accidentally, with many only realising they had subscribed to the service when they later checked their bank statement, a survey has found.

Consumer body Which? surveyed nearly 1,200 people ahead of this year’s Amazon Prime Day, which the e-commerce titan is advertising as a “two-day parade of non-stop deals” for subscribers from 15 July.

What is Amazon Prime? Amazon Prime is a subscription service offering customers perks including next-day delivery on their purchases at no extra cost, and access to free films and TV shows. It costs £7.99 per month, or £79 per year. The i newsletter latest news and analysis Email address is invalid Email address is invalid Thank you for subscribing! Sorry, there was a problem with your subscription.

Amazon Prime’s accidental subscribers

However, it appears that many Britons have signed up for Prime not because they wished to avail of the service but because they mistakenly clicked an incorrect button when paying for their purchases.

Nearly half of the people Which? polled had a Prime membership or had previously been subscribers. Of this group, 28 per cent reported they had accidentally signed up to Amazon Prime.

Almost one quarter of people who had unwittingly signed up said they did not realise the error until they checked their bank account and saw they had been charged, and nearly one in five said they only discovered they had been paying for the service when they received an email indicating that their subscription was about to renew.

Clear and transparent?

Amazon said in statement: “All customers who join the Prime programme actively decide to sign up and each has the option to cancel at any time. The sign-up process is clear and transparent, with multiple touch-points asking the customer if they would like to proceed.”

But some respondents disagreed. “I signed up accidentally because the button is more prominent than the alternative,” one customer said.

Ray Walsh, a digital privacy expert at the online safety group ProPrivacy.com, said: “The problem with Amazon Prime is that many people do not bother to read the agreement and presume that they are simply making use of temporary free next day postage.

“The reality is that they are signing up to a permanent contract to the full suite of Amazon services, which must be cancelled in order to stop paying the fee. As this fee is small it may go unnoticed for a prolonged period of time.”

Beware free trials

Mr Walsh also advised online shoppers who knowingly sign up for a free trial for a subscription service to make a note of when they do so to avoid being left out of pocket later on.

Read more

How not to get carried away in the Amazon Prime Day madness

“One method used by firms to coerce people into purchasing subscriptions is to offer a month free trial that automatically turns into a paid contract.

“If you forget you have agreed to the free trial, you could end up paying for a number of months,” he said.

@kt_grant