Sophie - An interesting conversation about Amazon MP3 promotional credit

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February 2020

Date:	2014-09-02 20:42
Security:	Public
xpost	http://soph.livejournal.com/238061.html
Tags:	amazon
Subject:	An interesting conversation about Amazon MP3 promotional credit

I just had a very interesting conversation with the support team at Amazon.co.uk.

I was calling about a $1.00 Amazon MP3 credit that I had acquired on the 27th of July 2013. This credit was given to me on Amazon.com (as opposed to Amazon.co.uk, where my account actually is) for a 'Free App of the Day' order I made in the Amazon Appstore for Android app. (Note that none of this is referring to gift certificates. It's possible they may have the same issues, but I was not calling about that.)

My issue was that I couldn't use the credit on Amazon.com, because it would keep asking me for my card details, and I obviously didn't want to give them.

I learned a few things from the call:

It is not possible to use the promotional credit unless you turn on your 1-Click setting.
If you have a promotional credit on your account, Amazon will use that before your selected payment method.
It is not possible to see whether you have any promotional credit on your account before you purchase; you have to contact Amazon by phone and ask.

All of these combine to make the ultimate money-sucker: Thought you had Amazon MP3 promotional credit but actually don't? Normally you'd be able to see that sort of thing on an order confirmation screen, but sorry, you have 1-Click turned on. Boom, that's £0.99, sucka.

But that's okay, she said, I have a £1.00 credit on my account, so you'll be fine.

"Wait a second," I said. "Is that 1 pound or 1 dollar?"

She confirmed to me that she was seeing a 1 pound credit on my account on Amazon.co.uk which I had received on 12th October 2013 and expired Tuesday 30th September.

So I go to check my email, wondering if I'd missed something... but no, I didn't get any email about this credit at all. In fact, I never even *made* any orders on Amazon.co.uk in October 2013, a fact that I was able to confirm by looking at my order history on the site. On Amazon.com I hadn't made any orders in 2013 at all.

She couldn't tell me which order the promotional credit came from; I'm not sure if this was for security or simply because nothing was showing up.

So at this point I'm left with a mystery promotional credit for £1.00, and I have no idea where it came from. (And it wouldn't have gone to my Spam folder as I have filters specifically set up so that any emails to my Amazon account email addresses do not get flagged as spam; I've had this set up for ages.)

So, now we have a case of: In order to use promotional credit that you don't even know exists, you need to turn on 1-Click.

Does this seem fishy to anyone else?

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User:	marahmarie
Date:	2014-09-02 21:08 (UTC)
Subject:	*(no subject)*

Let me get this straight:

"It is not possible to use the promotional credit unless you turn on your 1-Click setting." +

"It is not possible to see whether you have any promotional credit on your account [...] you have to contact Amazon by phone and ask." +

"Thought you had Amazon MP3 promotional credit but actually don't? Normally you'd be able to see that sort of thing on an order confirmation screen, but sorry, you have 1-Click turned on." =
____________________________________________

You must turn on 1-click to use any promo credit but you still can't see the promo credit; once you turn on 1-click what happens is "sorry, you have 1-Click turned on. Boom, that's £0.99, sucka".....???

Sorry but I'm hung up on the "that's £0.99, sucka" part. The rest I was following OK, I think, up until that. Do you mean that even once you turn on 1-click you still can't see the credit so that's why you'll lose (in other words, that that's why you'll pay £0.99 more than you should at that time)? The way you have it worded sounds like you will be charged £0.99, sucka, just to have 1-click turned on, which I am thinking is probably not what you meant.

Edited (clarity) 2014-09-02 09:11 pm (UTC)

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User:	shanaqui
Date:	2014-09-02 21:44 (UTC)
Userpic:	(KateYA) Solemnity
Subject:	*(no subject)*

I think it's:

-You think you have promotional credit
-You have 1-Click turned on so you can't check
-If you didn't have the credit, it just charges you using your payment method, with no way to check first or stop it

1-Click doesn't cost anything, but not being able to check if you have any promotional credit could.

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User:	marahmarie
Date:	2014-09-02 23:08 (UTC)
Subject:	*(no subject)*

I considered "-You have 1-Click turned on so you can't check" before writing my reply but that idea seems to be cancelled out by: "It is not possible to see whether you have any promotional credit on your account [...] you have to contact Amazon by phone and ask." In other words, there's no way to check, period, regardless of whether you have 1-Click turned on or not - that's how I'm reading it.

If turning on 1-Click to redeem promo credits negates your ability to see those credits and to know you have those credits then that is just a whole 'nother world of f*'d up, right there. I just want to know if that's what Sophie means, or if you simply can't see these promo credits, period.

Edited 2014-09-02 11:10 pm (UTC)

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User:	shanaqui
Date:	2014-09-02 23:11 (UTC)
Subject:	*(no subject)*

From my experience with Amazon, you can't see promo credits, period. However, normally, when you have 1-Click turned off, you can review an order before you complete it to see whether gift certificates, etc, have been applied. Because promo credits require the use of 1-Click, you can't do that checking like you could with any other payment type.

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User:	sophie
Date:	2014-09-03 10:53 (UTC)
Subject:	*(no subject)*

I have no idea whether you can see promo credits without 1-Click turned on, but you certainly wouldn't be able to use them, so I doubt they would be displayed.

My apologies for wording it as if it cost money to turn on 1-Click!

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User:	marahmarie
Date:	2014-09-03 22:03 (UTC)
Subject:	*(no subject)*

*feels sheepish*

Sort of how I was reading it, but no biggie! :)

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User:	cxcvi
Date:	2014-09-03 11:32 (UTC)
Userpic:	Escape
Subject:	*(no subject)*

Yes. That definitely feels very "long time, no sea" to me.

Are you sure we didn't buy anything in October, though?

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User:	sophie
Date:	2014-09-03 16:06 (UTC)
Subject:	*(no subject)*

If we did, I'm not sure where the info would be where I haven't already looked. I have no emails from amazon.co.uk or amazon.com in October (and as already stated, there's no way it could have gone into Spam as I have a filter set up to avoid that), and there's nothing in the order history on either site for October.

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