[PLUG-TALK] I closed my Amazon account

John Jason Jordan johnxj at gmx.com
Wed May 31 19:18:26 UTC 2017


On Wed, 31 May 2017 08:13:45 -0700
Daniel Hedlund <daniel at digitree.org> dijo:

>On Tue, May 30, 2017 at 9:40 PM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at gmx.com>
>wrote:
>> just cancel the Prime membership.' Well, not so easy. You can cancel
>> t but not for thirty days.

>My experience, having cancelled my prime subscription a few times over
>the last decade, has been that you just turn off auto-renew.  It was a
>setting in the prime section of your account and if you turn it off,
>your prime subscription is automatically downgraded back to a normal
>account at the end of the subscription period.  Basically zero fuss
>and only an email or two to let you know when it's close to expiring.
>
>A lot of services nowadays, when you cancel or downgrade, let you keep
>the service until the very end of the period in the hopes that you
>keep using it and later change your mind.

I got an e-mail this morning that they had canceled my account, per my
request. In the future I am sure Amazon will sell things to me.

In the present case I was pissed off that they hoodwinked me into
signing up for Prime, and then wouldn't cancel it for 30 days. The page
for the item said free shipping and fulfillment by Amazon, so I added it
to my cart. When I got to the checkout page I noticed that there would
be a $10 shipping charge, but there was a button to select free
shipping. Nothing anywhere said that if I selected free shipping I
would be automatically signed up for Prime. I suppose there probably
was a notice about it somewhere, but it was sufficiently hidden that I
didn't see it. 

And note that Prime may be a cool deal, and maybe I should have signed
up for it a long time ago, but looking at the benefits none of them
looked worth having to me - I never stream video or music, not
interested in games, never watch or care about sports - in short I am a
very untypical American. 

I might also add that I have long had a hate relationship with Amazon.
Many years ago in Firefox I blocked the entire Amazon domain from
leaving cookies. If I want to peruse Amazon's offerings for something
that I am shopping for I don't want pop-ups saying 'Hi John! Glad
you're back! Here are some things we are sure you will want to check
out!" I don't even want the 'John's account' button on the top of the
page. Besides, if I don't know you my name is Mr. Jordan, not John.
Barring their cookies allows me to shop Amazon anonymously in Firefox,
then, if I do want to buy something I copy the URL for it and paste it
into Opera, where I do allow Amazon to leave cookies. I complete the
transaction in Opera.

You may address me as Mr. Curmudgeon if you like. :)



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