Amazon India organised the Amazon Prime Day last week, just like the rest of the markets where Amazon is present. On this occasion, Amazon also decided to push their recently launched flights booking portal, which they launched with Cleartrip in the backend. To promote the Amazon Prime Travel Deals, Amazon decided to give up to INR 2,500 in Amazon Pay Cashback to those who booked tickets on July 15 or 16.
I went ahead and booked some pending travel on this promotion, given Shipra and I had to travel in the coming days. The net cost of our tickets was INR 13,900 and some change, and we promptly got the INR 2,500 in my Amazon Pay account.
Amazon Prime members are supposed to get 5% Amazon Pay money in their Amazon account when they pay with their ICICI Bank Amazon co-branded credit card. I made the payment accordingly with the ICICI Bank Amazon co-branded card.
My statement got generated two days later, so imagine my shock when I had an EMI of some sort running on this account. Which I never signed up for. As you can see on the screenshot above as well, nowhere did it say I signed up for an EMI. And that too an 18 Month EMI no less! And as for the reward points, instead of about INR 700 as Amazon Pay money.
I figured this happened to just me, but I wanted to know if anyone else was affected by this. It turns out that this happened to many more people.
They have been screwing up big time off late! I booked a flight with them via @amazonIN and they converted it to an 18 month EMI without consent! Then they said it was a technical issue. Imagine an 18 month 18 EMI on a ticket worth 5k already fully paid off on an @ICICIBank CC
— Poornith Ninan (@pnj777) July 22, 2019
It seems many people have had their transactions converted to an EMI automatically by Amazon. Of Course, Amazon is not willing to take the blame, and is pushing it back on ICICI Bank.
Sorry to know about the issue with the transaction. As the EMI is approved by the respective bank, request you to contact the ICICI customer support for better assistance at this point of time. ^JJ
— Amazon Help (@AmazonHelp) July 22, 2019
It seems the only way to get this fixed is to call the Amazon Pay ICICI Bank helpline and ask them to reverse this transaction. Although given this is an entry level card, I tried calling the Wealth Management helpline and they still sent me back to the general queue for this card.
Have you checked your ICICI Bank Amazon Pay Credit Card account? Have you gone through this issue? Or has this happened to you with any other credit card on Prime Day?
Further to my earlier comment, transaction has been posted in my a/c and converted to 18 month EMI. Has it been resolved for anyone ?
@Ajay, Amazon Pay ICICI Bank helpline was absolutely helpless when I spoke to them about the EMI issue. They said that the conversion was initiated by the merchant and that they are unable to reverse it. I was asked to talk to the merchant which is Cleartrip. Cleartrip for Amazon customer care acknowledged that it was technical issue wherein multiple customers have be affected. They promised a revert Monday evening and no revert yet. Is there anything else we can do to resolve this issue?
Hardly any surprises there. Totally clueless ICICI bank and their customer service chuplas. Have had terrible experiences with the same bank earlier and no longer bank with them.
With each one blaming the other, the saga continues.
I believe flight tickets will fall under either of the 2% categories and not as 5/3% Amazon purchases
1.) digital categories on Amazon.in such as bill payments, recharges, wallet load etc.
2.) Amazon Pay merchants (e.g., Swiggy, Bookmyshow, Yatra, and many more)
This is scary. I booked a flight ticket with them just yesterday for the first time for 6410 and have received 600 cash back in Amazon pay balance. Need to wait till 18 August to know if they will play anything of that sort on me