Has anyone had payment troubles?

[3pointers]

I added a gift certificate to my account right after Christmas.  I've made a few purchases of Kindle books and have had not problem with it being deducted from my gift certificate balance.  However, this week, when I was paying the credit card associated with my 1-Click settings, I noticed that the most recent purchase of $1.74 had been charged to my credit card, even though I still had $18.07 on my gift certificate balance.

I contacted customer service and they replied stating that they had actually deducted the amount from both my cc and gc, so they were refunding $1.74 on my last non-Kindle credit card purchase.  They said they were doing it this way because if they refunded the amount on the book, I would not be able to read the book.  Okay, whatever, they fixed the problem, so all's good.

Until this morning when I receive this email:

Hello from Amazon.com.

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding--but gift cards are not automatically used first, especially using one click ordering.

On the web site it states:
If you click the Buy now with 1-Click button on any product page, your order will be automatically charged to the default payment method on your account and shipped to the default address--you skip the shopping cart.

Please use this url to find more information about 1-click ordering.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_navbox_lnor_one?nodeId=468480

I hope this information is helpful/

Well, you all know we don't have options when we click the 1-click button to buy a Kindle book.  We can't turn 1-Click off.

So I'm just wondering if any of you have run into this problem?

Also, be sure you check your cc statements if you are using gift certificates to make sure you're not being double charged.

Terri

[crebel]

That is wierd!  I have purchased more-than-usual kbooks in the past week, and just went back and checked my e-mail confirmations.  They all indicate they were deducted from the gift card balance and my remaining gift card balance agrees with all the purchases.

DH says when he was purchasing non-book items from Amazon it prompted him with some message about the default method of payment where he actually had to tell them whether to use the default or could choose one-click. 

I always double-check the cc statement when it comes in, so I will know if we are double-charged, but the confirmation e-mails seem to indicate only one charge for each against the gift card balance.

If Amazon has changed their policy about gift cards always first they sure haven't notified anybody.  Hopefully yours was just a glitch that has been fixed.

[Anju No. 469]

That is strange Terri - if I buy something that I want to charge to the credit card, and not my gift card, I have to go in and be sure I don't one-click to get it.  One click always takes from the GC first in my account, but we always check our credit card frequently since we are out of country to be sure it is as it should be.  As Chris said, I hope it is just a glitch and is fixed now.

[earthlydelites]

wow that is a bit strange.... I haven't used gift cards but I received an email similar to yours at some point, saying they had technical difficulties and hadn't processed my request.... which they had, and I had already downloaded the book!!

[marianneg]

Are you sure that the $1.74 was for a book?  Subscriptions and conversions are always charged to the credit card, even if you have a gift card balance.

[Leslie]

Are you sure that the $1.74 was for a book?  Subscriptions and conversions are always charged to the credit card, even if you have a gift card balance.

That's what I am thinking -- about subscriptions. Those are charged to the credit card, not the GC. However, when you email the file to yourself (conversion), they deduct that amount from the gift card. That started back in July, which was a change from the way they used to do it which was to charge to the credit card on the account. I noticed that they batch the charges, too, and deduct a bunch at once, so you don't have a bunch of 15c charges on the GC. And they don't send you an email about this. You need to look in the digital orders section of your account at Amazon to see the charges.

L

[3pointers]

The charge was for a book, as I don't have any subscriptions.

I did receive another email from them later in response to my reply, and they apologized for giving me incorrect information. 

They did go on to say to add a valid email address to 1-Click and not put in any cc information.

I still don't think that's necessary though, as it should just take from the gc first for Kindle books.

I do appreciate the fact that they respond so quickly, even on the weekends.

So looks like it was just an error on their part and they did correct it.