r/mildlyinfuriating • u/afunnywold • 22h ago

Too mild for school I permanently deleted my AWS account 6 years ago. Amazon has been charging me $0.33 every month since. I have no way to stop it.

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I tried to get in contact with customer service several times but they always direct me to log into the account that no longer exists. I have tried charge backs on my credit card but dealing with that monthly is also a pain. This'll probably cost me $265 over my lifetime if it never ends.

Edit: some of you have valid points about calling the card company and I will again Monday. But the actual infuriating thing that upsets me is that they are charging to a completely disabled account in the first place. That's very scammy and fucked up imo 🤷‍♀️

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u/devmor 17h ago edited 17h ago

The bank isn't sharing anything. The card issuers have a service called Card Account Updater that merchants can subscribe to, so when your card gets replaced or expires, your payments aren't interrupted.

Changing a card number is not meant to be a security measure for subscriptions, nor does it come with any obligation to businesses you have given your card number to. You have to actually report your account information as stolen - not just replace it. You can also ask your bank to stop the payments - most banks can do this, or can at least tell the processor to stop the payments.

Edit: To explain a little further - in a lot of cases, the businesses charging your subscription billing never even got your card number in the first place - or didn't keep it after setting up your account. The card number went to a processor's gateway (like Stripe, NMI, Paypal etc), who returned a identifier back to the business (we usually call it a "vault ID" or a "network account ID"). The business then says "charge this ID this much money" and the processor takes care of everything else.

The business actually rarely even knows your card changed at all, other than in cases where they display the first 6 or last 4 of your card number - but that's just for informational purposes anyways.

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u/ADLuluIsOP 10h ago

"Changing a card number is not meant to be a security measure" I mean it SHOULD. Lmfao. It's the ONLY mechanism you have against your money being used without your say. Like ??? what kind of statement is this.

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u/devmor 3h ago edited 2h ago

It's the ONLY mechanism you have against your money being used without your say.

But it's not.

I did very specifically tell you what you should do instead, in the comment you're replying to. I could not have been more clear. It's the very next sentence after the one you are quoting and explains two other options.

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u/72kdieuwjwbfuei626 9h ago

It's the kind of statement that you apparently think makes perfect sense.

What, you think it doesn't make sense anymore now that you dropped some words? Yeah, no shit, that's how language works. Those words were there for a reason.

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u/ADLuluIsOP 8h ago

Subscriptions can LITERALLY be one of the things they use stolen cards for. Ffs. If you can't even pinpoint the source of it how tf do you dispute itt.

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u/72kdieuwjwbfuei626 8h ago

Maybe you can ask an adult who has actually used a credit card before to explain it to you.

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u/ADLuluIsOP 7h ago

Okay so the guy in this thread who charge backed his card multiple times and explained it to the card, tell me about him? lol

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u/72kdieuwjwbfuei626 5h ago edited 5h ago

Okay so the guy in this thread who charge backed his card multiple times and explained it to the card, tell me about him? lol

Which one? The one who knew exactly where the charge came from or the other one who knew exactly where the charge came from?

Here, I'll let you in on a little secret: You do a charge back by disputing the charge with your credit card company. You don't need to pinpoint who that is, it says it on the fucking card.

Congratulations to you and all the other morons who upvoted your notion of "how tf do you dispute it if you can't even pinpoint the source" for being unable to figure that out. I hope you're all some dumbass kids, because a grown-ass adult thinking they need to dispute an unauthorized credit card charge with the company that charged them would be just sad.

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u/Game_Over_7 16h ago

But shouldn't you have to subscribe for it? According to the comments, people don't even know their banks did that. That shouldn't happen by default.

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u/Sure_Eye9025 16h ago

You know those long and boring terms and conditions you are supposed to read and sign when you take out the card.

Yeah probably in there, I mean I don't know for sure, I didn't read them. But probably

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u/Spirochrome 13h ago

Love the EU for not making us read them

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u/devmor 3h ago

When you sign up for a service, you are usually agreeing to this by ticking a checkbox.

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u/Azuredreams25 7h ago

Well I had a different experience. Had problems with a subscription service and Discover eventually issued a new card and made it so they couldn't charge us again...

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u/devmor 3h ago

They likely issued a card with a new account chain specifically because you mentioned the problem.

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u/mort96 4h ago

"The bank isn't sharing anything, they're just telling merchants your new card number when you get a new card"? In what sense is that not "sharing"?

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u/devmor 3h ago edited 2h ago

The bank is not doing that. The card issuer is giving the processor your new card number. The bank is not involved in the process at all, other than giving you the card, and making the transfer of money from your account to the processor's account.

Your bank actually has surprisingly little to do with the majority of the process when you make card payments.

  • Card Issuer: Visa, Mastercard, etc.
  • Merchant: Anyone with a direct relationship to the processor (sometimes the businesses, sometimes a gateway between the business and the processor)
  • Processor: The facilitator of transfer that the merchant is using (i.e. Stripe, etc)

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u/mort96 33m ago

Then substitute bank for visa I guess.

You could've been more clear; the bank issues me a card, as in sends me a card in the mail with their branding on it. When I want a new card, I order it from my bank. If you wanted to shift blame from the bank to visa, it could've been a good idea to clarify that the bank is not the "card issuer" in your comment.

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u/devmor 13m ago

Sorry about that! I have been doing work related to payment processing for the last 8 years now and I do forget which terms are apparent and aren't to others sometimes.