Amazon still charges credit cards after account is closed.

Like most of the US, I was enamored when amazon became the convenient portal to all of your online purchases. I quickly signed up and linked my credit card to enable those asap 1-click purchases.

However, years later I noticed that I don't really shop and that its probably a bad idea to have my credit card linked to online accounts that I don't use. And so I decided to close most of my online accounts. At first, I only removed my billing info from my amazon account. A few months later, I noticed I was still getting those pesky $1 pending charges on card that had been previously used to purchases off amazon. Confused, I went back online to check my account and affirmed that it didn't, in fact, have any billing information. So, even though I had removed my credit card number from amazon, it still had my card info and was still checking it to see if it was valid.

So, I took it one step further and emailed customer service, asking them to close my account. It took about a week but they were able to successfully do that and I received an email in August 2019 that I no longer had an amazon account. I tried to login and was unable to, so that seemed to be the case. But the next month, I again received another $1 pending charge from amazon.

I called my credit card and they suggested contacting amazon first. I called amazon and they were unable to look up my old account, even with my old phone numbers and past orders. It was like my past orders didn't exist at all. That part I was pleased with but obviously Amazon still has my card number on file somewhere. This is where I became worried.

So a bit of advice on using credit cards.

#1 - Get a card just for online and restaurants use because once your number is on the internet, it stays on the internet, as Amazon just taught me. If you have a dedicated card that you can give your server at a restaurant, you won't have to worry as much about keeping an eye on it once they disappear with your card. I use a cash back Discover card with a fairly low limit for this.

#2 - If you have a debit/credit card, always use the credit option whenever possible. If there is a fraudulent charge, it is a lot easier for VISA to take care of it than your bank/union. I once had my pin and number stolen during a trip to Hawaii. I later found out that when thieves use your pin to make transactions as a debit charge instead of a credit card, that your bank/union is now in charge of investigating and it takes a lot longer and is more costly filling out affidavits compared to VISA.

For most purchases, using a credit card acts as another barrier between you and your actual money in your bank. If a thieve gets your cc #, they can only charge up to your cc limit. however, a debit card # and pin gives someone access to all of your checking and savings. Use your debit card as a credit card whenever possible to prevent what happened to me happen to you.

#3 - If amazon continues to charge my credit card, I can get a different card from my bank. Since this was a dedicated card to retail, there were no recurring charges set up on it, so its not a hassle for me to simply get a different card. That's actually kinda nice.

#4 - years before I actually made any money, I used to have a reloadable credit card from AMEX that I would use as my beer and eating out budget. every month, it would automatically reload and as soon as it ran out or was declined at a bar, I knew I had reached my booze pool for that month. It actually worked pretty well and not only served the purpose of a separate retail card as mentioned earlier, but also as a method of budgeting beer money. For those who are experimenting with budgeting, this could be a good method to use. If you want to build your credit, then I would suggest using a secure credit card instead.

I'll update this later if amazon can hopefully fix this but I thought id share my experience. I also wonder how many more people have had this experience with either amazon or another service.