Skip to main content

Amazon India Prime Offer - A scam or a bug?

TLDR; Amazon.in shows and sends me a Prime offer that I can't avail (it leads to an error message)

I have escalated this issue to Amazon India through various means, but the team wants screenshots (even after sharing them through Twitter) and so here's the post explaining that...

1. Amazon India sends me an email: Your Prime membership ends soon - Renew early to lock in old price of ₹999 1499 for another year of Prime.

The newsletter comes like this:

Prime promo email from Amazon India

Rajesh, Renew Prime early and save ₹500

Your Prime membership ends soon Renew today

Expiring soon

DON'T GO A DAY WITHOUT PRIME!

Your Prime membership ends soon - Renew early to lock in old price of ₹999 1499 for another year of Prime. Continue enjoying uninterrupted Prime benefits.

Renew today

Kindly ignore if you have already availed this offer.

Please note that product prices and availability are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time this newsletter was sent; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.in.
Reference: 645589581

2. Amazon Prime Video shows a banner asking me to renew with an offer

3. Clicking the Amazon.in Prime offer, leads to an error page

You are no longer eligible for this offer.

This purchase is non-refundable. Offer limited to one per customer and account. Your Prime membership will not be auto renewed after next membership. Terms & conditions apply.

Contacting Amazon India Support

Here comes the weirdest support loop...

  1. I contacted the chat support and explained the issue
  2. Chat support connected me with a Prime team through the call
  3. A Prime team member says it is a Youth-only offer (which is wrong)
  4. I contact Amazon Twitter support with the necessary screenshots. Even after seeing those screenshots, they either reply with canned messages and then say it is a Youth-only offer (they also shared a link to the Youth-only offer page, which was not opening for me)
  5. Another canned reply came from the Amazon social media team.

What could be the reasons (Amazon India Scam or bug?)

  • It is definitely a programming issue in terms of UI/UX. The error page should have provided more details.
  • Probably auto-renewal might be already enabled and the price increase may not be affecting me. In that case, again the error message should have been clear.
  • Since, I didn't avail this offer already, there might be some programming errors.
  • The sales team, email marketing team, and development team may not be in sync. Or, the QA team might not have enough details to test the UX part.
  • While I don't think it is a scam, the support and responses received here are really pathetic
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BehaviorS.js - An alternative to Behaviour.js, event:Selectors and Low Pro libs for unobtrusive JavaScript programming

BehaviorS.js yet another unobtrusive JavaScript library similar to Behaviour.js and event:Selectors but in implementation uses hash based lookup without extending elements; so presumably it should be faster than the rest. The original script and idea was by JLof ; I extended it for DOMContentLoaded support, optimized a bit to avoid scanning of more depths, and added new rules support. I wanted to document the plug a long time and just got time to do it. For the time being BehaviorS.js is available here Update (2006-09-11) : Coralized the link to BehaviorS.js so as to save the load on free brinkster.com webpage Update (2006-09-27) : If the coralized link to BehaviorS.js doesn't work, use http://www21.brinkster.com/guideme/BehaviorS/ Update (2025-06-07) : Now available in https://github.com/rrjanbiah/behaviorsjs
17 comments
Read more

Save American College, Madurai

This post was written in 2008 and outdated now. For update, please check Save American College, Madurai (Update 2011) Update (2011-01-16) : Save American College, Madurai (Update 2011) I'm highly privileged to have 3 degrees (B.Sc. (Spl. Physics), PGDCA and MCA) from The American College, Madurai, South India . Unlike other "commercial" colleges, American College has given room for poor students and uplifted them. And unlike other "elite" colleges who'd give seat only for "intellectuals", American College has produced geniuses. In the recent months, the saddening thing is that the college is under divide (Principal Vs. Bishop). Here is the email I sent to alumnae lately informing about the informations that I received about the developments: Update (2011-01-16) : Save American College, Madurai (Update 2011) All: I was thinking that the " Save American College " campaign was a FUD . But, when I tried to understand the problem through my...
11 comments
Read more

Koodankulam - another ISRO? And best critic from John Rubert

Mahendragiri ISRO is situated close to my hometown and now Koodankulam ... When ISRO was started, there were no industries. At that time, everyone was happy about the project as many believed that it would create more employment opportunities. (As per some conspiracy theories, Kanyakumari was sidelined for being Congress-fort then). Later on few guys got job there... and later on they complained that they're been transferred to other place for being local guys--by Anti-Tamil seniors. Few months ago, an Engineer from Secundrabad who's working in ISRO joined me in train. The guy shared some information... he's recruited/recommended by his Secundrabad colleague, his ambition is to work in NASA, his job is just to check meter and make a note of it..., many guys have similar boring jobs... Anybody who's complaining IT guys should talk to these ISRO guys! ISRO is a big example on how Indian government is spending crores of rupees lavishly. Majority of the projects--ac...
4 comments
Read more