Amazon prime charged me despite cancelling my membership. What can I do

[ChildOfTheMoon]

I cancelled my prime membership on 2nd January.
My membership ended on 11 Jan. I received all emails confirmation of cancellation on 2nd Jan
yet amazon have automatically decided to take it upon themselves to charge me for another month.
I watched a film yesterday, before my membership ran out. Finished the film but didn't close prime down . As a result they are saying I've used prime and will not refund me. I had no idea it was not supposed to be active since it allowed me to play, I assumed it must still be active yet.

I assumed once my membership expired Amazon couldn't continue to use prime membership anyway? Since I had cancelled it. How can they automatically renew the membership after customer has cancelled ? Surely this isn't allowed.
They have activated my membership and charged me without my permission and are now refusing to refund me the full amount.
The way I see it is I shouldn't have used any prime at all since it should have expired when my membership ran out.
I didn't realise what time of day it would expire, and had I tried to use it without a membership then it shouldn't have been allowed to play at all. Surely it should say you don't have a membership to watch this?
Is there anything I can do anout this?
Amazon are basically telling me too bad.
I find it so infuriating this company is allowed to active membership and charge people without their permission .
I didn't renew it because I can't afford to take prime this month , and while it may be a little amount for some people this month it is for me considering I'm not going to short for a bill and will likely have to pay £24 for a late fee and admistration fee for that bill which I cannot afford since my rent has now increased £60 this month a month and I'm struggling this month as it is.
I'm just bloody fuming these companies can just disregard the cancellation agreement and charge people anyway

@PamelaParis your entitled to use your membership right up until the point of expiration
After this point amazon should have cut access. However due to a "system error" they auto renewed my contract for another month . I assumed since my amazon was still active that my previous months access had not expired yet.

I suspect your membership ended at midnight on the 10th rather than midnight on the 11th - that's always been the case when I've used them and cancelled (which I do - a lot).

When you went on to watch the movie, are you sure you didn't click anything that signed you back up to prime again?

You were probably using it on the renewal date rather than the end date, if this wasn't clear it might be worth saying you thought the renewal date was the last day you could use it especially if this was was not clear anyway which it doesn't sound like it was.

My prime has a renewal date which is the first of the month. I think the membership ends the previous day so sounds like you used you used your membership on the renewal date not the end date. So your end date would have been the 10th and the renewal date is the 11th.

If you cancelled and they agree you cancelled then watching a film should not have retriggered your membership - it should have stopped working. I got charged for Amazon music for 6 months after i cancelled. I called them and they very quickly cancelled and refunded the whole lot. Call them or ask for a call back rather than trying online chat.

If you just go to cancel your membership on the website or app, does it not just let you cancel and refund you for the days you hadn't used it? I forgot to cancel a trial, got.charged and a few days later I went on a to cancel and had the option to just cancel after the current month or cancel immediately and get refunded £8.45 for the rest of the month.

I would keep going back to them. That clause mentioned upthread is about people who decide after the money has gone out that they then want to cancel.

You told them on the second that you want to cancel so they shouldn't have taken a payment on the 12th in the first place. And your access should have been cut off at midnight on the 11th.

Why did they take a payment on the 12th at all? Why did your access remain open?

That's what I'd be focussing on in my responses.

If they took payment on the 11th then your access ran out on the 10th and the 11th was the renewal date

It's easy to accidentally resubscribe if you click the wrong thing.

They've offered a partial refund as you did use the service. But try again. They've always been helpful when I've bothered chasing up Music etc when I forget to cancel after a trial.

You may have cancelled after the next month had rolled over.

Im sure contacting Amazon directly will be more fruitful than a moan on Mumsnet.

Worst case scenario you're down £8.99, it's likely you'll live.

How did you pay? Debit card or bank transfer? Can you try that route…contact your credit card or bank and ask for funds to be reversed? Amazon is predatory. Once after I cancelled prime Amazon hunted around and electronically located an inactive credit card (not used by me for over 3 years) on which my daughter had ordered a very low cost item from Etsy more than 3 years prior I contacted the credit card and blamed them….i mean really allowing an inactive card to pay for prime?? They refunded me.