If you're like me, you have an intense love-hate relationship with Amazon.com.
My biggest pet peeves include Amazon's poor worker conditions, their irresponsible overuse of polluting packaging, the killing off of small businesses and Amazon not paying their fair share of taxes. In fact, Amazon paid NO corporate taxes last year.
Those are some serious sins, yet I confess that I am a Prime member paying their annual fee, year after year, and doing most of my shopping there, for electronics, books and food, lots of food. I even bought my transportation there: an e-bike.
Remember a few years ago when David Letterman interviewed Jeff Bezos in the early days of Amazon?
Bezos boasted then that $79 would get a customer a year of free 2-day shipping. Letterman, feigning excitement, repeated, "Seventy-nine dollars!!?
Bezos matched the enthusiasm with a circus barker's "that's right!!!!"
"Well then," Letterman quipped, "it's not free!"
The annual membership charged is now $119.00 per year or $12.99 per month, ($156.00). Customers know that 2-day delivery is very well-paid for, and not ''free." The first 30 days of the annual subscription are free, however, and you can cancel anytime.
The annual fee, moreover, does provide some extra services which could be considered "free," such as streaming videos and television shows, Kindle and music services, and free 2-hour delivery of groceries and restaurant fare through "Prime Now," which is found on a different website entirely, and NOT linked to the Amazon website!
(https://primenow.amazon.com/)
What I did not realize, what my mother did not realize, and what none of my friends and associates ever realized is that Amazon will quietly charge you $14.99 a month when you use the "Amazon Fresh" grocery service which is on the same website as the behemoth store.
Several among us have been charged for what we thought was a service included in our memberships. Amazon Fresh prices are relatively high, so this is no bargain service.
If you contact Amazon customer service and tell them you were unaware of the extra charges, they will do nothing, except offer another you a different customer promotion. After alerting one of my employers, she found out that she incurred nearly $400 in hidden charges over the past 2 years for using Amazon Fresh. Harsh for a single mother.
Don't use Amazon Fresh if you already pay for an Amazon membership. You can get everything you need from Prime Now, with "free" 2- hour delivery. Don’t overpay for your Prime membership, either.
If you qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, you may apply for a deep discount on the Prime membership, payable in small monthly payments here: https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16256994011
This is not widely known, nor well-advertised.
Did you incur hidden charges or overpay for Prime?