Amazon-- revisited

[Kev Williams]

I've brought this up before: How can I shop for Xmas presents for the wife- or vice versa, when Amazon texts and emails endless 'got your order!', 'it's shipped!' info, tracking info, requests for reviews, and advertisements for similar items, to BOTH OF US? How do I fix this? Admittedly, I must be stupid because searching everywhere I can think of in the back pages of Amazon hell, all I can find is how to make this problem WORSE instead of better!

Is there ANY way to set up our separate-but-sharing-Prime accounts so that when we buy something, that NO EMAILS or TEXTS regarding the sale are sent EVER? --Without paying for 2 separate Prime accounts? I AM smart enough to know how to access any needed info directly from Amazon's site...

And while we're at it, this ridiculous 'policy'? of my wife's phone and the websites I visit immediately getting bombarded with advertisements after simply BROWSING Amazon? We can't even LOOK at stuff without the other one knowing what we were looking at!?

Right now there's a thing I want to buy the wife for Xmas, Amazon has it for $49, the cheapest anywhere else is $66. The only reason I know this is by accessing Amazon using an anonymous browser- but I can't buy from an anonymous browser. Well, I can, but as soon as I log in, the wife's phone will get an advertisement for it...
http://www.engraver1.com/gifs/nilly.gif http://www.engraver1.com/gifs/pullinghair.gifhttp://www.engraver1.com/gifs/banghead.gif.....

I'm pretty sure there's a way to fix this, but I can't find it....

[Frederick Skelly]

Sure seems like there oughta be a way. My only idea would be to go to their "contact us" screen - IIRC there's a way to initiate a chat or a phone call to customer service.

Good luck!
Fred

[Curt Harms]

Amazon probably sees it as not in their best interest to allow account sharing. why sell a family 1 account when they can sell 2? Would having a 2nd non-Prime account work? 2nd free email address etc. etc.

[Ole Anderson]

The prime account is in my wife's name, and that is where we do 95% of our shopping, I have a separate non-prime account for her surprise gifts. Separate item, if you have a favorite charity, sign up with smile.amazon.com. 0.5% of all your purchases are donated.

[Tom M King]

We have the same problem. I try to catch, and delete the emails. Actually, I think I buy so much stuff off of Amazon that she doesn't pay any attention anyway.

[Mark Blatter]

I hear you and the issue is a problem. Yet for me, I actively try to find ways to not buy things from Amazon. If I can buy an item for even close to the same price elsewhere, I do it. If I can find it direct from the manufacture, I will buy it from them, even if I have to pay for shipping. Amazon is just too big, too intrusive and I see no reason to support them 100%. Yes, I have a Prime account, but it doesn't mean I have to always buy from them. Having said that, I am cheap and if the price difference is significant, I will default to Amazon.

You best option is likely what others have suggested, namely set up a non-prime account. You will pay shipping so it may cost a bit more, or buy it elsewhere. Good Luck.

[Bob Turkovich]

Well, this is interesting...

My wife and I have a joint Prime account. We have been doing a ton of ordering this Xmas (due to a 5% cashback on our Discover Card on Amazon purchases for December). Neither one of us has received email notifications of what the other has ordered.

I'd love to tell you guys how we did it but don't have a clue :rolleyes:

[Nathan Johnson]

My fiance has a prime account.
Amazon allows another household member with a separate account/login to share the Prime features.
Since our emails and logins are separate, and we have separate credit cards associated to each, neither of us gets emails for the other, nor ads as far as I know.

Probably makes a difference for us that we have separate finances and funnel money to one joint checking for paying certain bills.

[Brian Elfert]

I share a Prime account with my parents. I am pretty sure they aren't getting notifications for anything I order or they would have said something. I am not getting any notifications for their orders.

It is not against Amazon rules to share a Prime account. What they did a few years ago to discourage friends from going in on a Prime account was to make every user's payment methods visible to everyone sharing the Prime account. Amazon also cut back the number of people who can share a Prime account. My parents trust me enough not to use their payment methods and I have never seen their payment options on my account.

[Steve Demuth]

You need two separate accounts, linked through the "household" functions on your Amazon profile. One account has to be Prime, and that one defines the payment methods available. The other account is linked to the Prime account, and is functionally separate for nearly all purposes (including notification preferences) other than the Prime benefits and the payment information.

[glenn bradley]

To fix your current notifications issue you can call them.1-888-280-4331 They also have a decent chat solution.

[Edwin Santos]

Yet for me, I actively try to find ways to not buy things from Amazon. If I can buy an item for even close to the same price elsewhere, I do it. If I can find it direct from the manufacture, I will buy it from them, even if I have to pay for shipping. Amazon is just too big, too intrusive and I see no reason to support them 100%.

I respect your preference. However here's the challenge - if you live in a major city, and certainly one of the many with an Amazon distribution center, they have simply made it more inconvenient and usually more expensive to go elsewhere. There's a reason the man is the richest person in the world. He's made it so you would have to pay more in money, time and inconvenience to not use him.

Imagine how the stakes will go up once they have implemented two hour delivery.

In my case I'm hopelessly addicted to Amazon. I just hate getting in my car and going places to buy things. Traffic, parking and time are all factors for me.

[Edwin Santos]

I think there are two painless things you can do. One is to sign out of your amazon account if you are browsing for something that you don't want them to remember. If you use Google Chrome, you can browse in incognito mode and I think it will prevent or at least reduce the trail that leads to getting bombarded by ads for the thing you were researching. Try it and see if it works.

[Lee DeRaud]

Well, this is interesting...

My wife and I have a joint Prime account. We have been doing a ton of ordering this Xmas (due to a 5% cashback on our Discover Card on Amazon purchases for December). Neither one of us has received email notifications of what the other has ordered.

I'd love to tell you guys how we did it but don't have a clue :rolleyes:Ditto at my house. Situation here is, we both already had Amazon accounts and GF added me to her existing Prime add-on when she moved in. Functionally it acts like two separate Prime accounts, but only hers gets charged the annual fee. (I put her on my Costco Executive account, so it's not like it's all one-way. :) )

[Kev Williams]

Thanks everyone, it helps! As much as I hate phones, I'm probably going to have to make a phone call, thanks Glenn for the phone number :)
(Why I hate phones- loud music in my youth and loud machines my whole life has left me with loud tinnitus, add that to the kloinkyshtixlyshwishpwang racket inherent in nearly all digital phone calls, and what I hear just isn't intelligible! -and can someone answer me this: Why is it Apple can make a smart phone capable of shooting better movies than Hollywood and programming a Mars landing, but they can't seem to make a decent TELEPHONE out of it? They're the WORST sounding phones, both directions!)

[John Goodin]

Google “amazon set up surprise spoiler settings.” That should show an amazon web page with instructions. You can also go through and delete items from the search history but be sure to leave the references to all the cool tools you want for Christmas.

[Kev Williams]

Thanks John, but that was a no-go. According to my lists everything seemingly pertinent is already 'private', and the 'don't spoil my surprises' box IS checked.
And while looking around, guess what I run into? Something the wife got me. :mad:

So I DID just find where to have them NOT save my browsing history, and was able to remove all previous history, BUT, only on THIS computer, I'll have to do this to the wife's phone too...

Now if I can just find how to keep purchase history, shipping details and ad's from showing up when logging on, and to NOT have all that info E-mailed to us...

edit-- just found out how to ARCHIVE orders, so they'll only come up on amazon when specifically searched-- but will that keep them from being emailed? Probably not, as the archiving can only happen after the sale, and by then the emails have gone out...

[Jim Becker]

We share prime and have independent accounts. Professor Dr. SWMBO doesn't see my activities and I don't see her's. And I get the 5% rebate on my personal Amazon credit card the same as she gets the 5% rebate on her personal Amazon credit card. Prime Household is how it's done.

[Tom Stenzel]

I have the same problem with Amazon. My solution is to buy things using my brother's account. It has the added advantage that the gifts go to his house and stay out of the wife's sight. Because of issues beyond his and my control I haven't been able to do that this year.

I bought something online for my wife and purposely avoided Amazon so the wife wouldn't know. And as you could have guessed with the transaction being out of town the credit card company sent a fraud alert email.

To my wife.

:mad:

-Tom

[Anuj Prateek]

I've brought this up before: How can I shop for Xmas presents for the wife- or vice versa, when Amazon texts and emails endless 'got your order!', 'it's shipped!' info, tracking info, requests for reviews, and advertisements for similar items, to BOTH OF US? How do I fix this? Admittedly, I must be stupid because searching everywhere I can think of in the back pages of Amazon hell, all I can find is how to make this problem WORSE instead of better!

Is there ANY way to set up our separate-but-sharing-Prime accounts so that when we buy something, that NO EMAILS or TEXTS regarding the sale are sent EVER? --Without paying for 2 separate Prime accounts? I AM smart enough to know how to access any needed info directly from Amazon's site...

And while we're at it, this ridiculous 'policy'? of my wife's phone and the websites I visit immediately getting bombarded with advertisements after simply BROWSING Amazon? We can't even LOOK at stuff without the other one knowing what we were looking at!?

Right now there's a thing I want to buy the wife for Xmas, Amazon has it for $49, the cheapest anywhere else is $66. The only reason I know this is by accessing Amazon using an anonymous browser- but I can't buy from an anonymous browser. Well, I can, but as soon as I log in, the wife's phone will get an advertisement for it...
http://www.engraver1.com/gifs/nilly.gif http://www.engraver1.com/gifs/pullinghair.gifhttp://www.engraver1.com/gifs/banghead.gif.....

I'm pretty sure there's a way to fix this, but I can't find it....

Me and my wife use our own account and share the prime membership. We don't get cross notifications and advertisements. Call customer care or ask them to call you, and they can help you setup separate account on same prime membership.

Another thing: While browsing (not app) see if you can turn off tracking cookies. FB, Google, and many more do so for advertisements. Google "
block tracking cookies chrome" and similarly for Firefox to get to find a tutorial.

[Jim Becker]

Consistent with my previous comment and Anuz's comment...having your shared Prime membership setup correctly "fixes" the problem. If you can't find the right buttons to push on the site (it's sometimes pretty obtuse), get ahold of customer service for assistance with this. There's a call back system that actually allows you to speak with a real human being for dealing with issues.

[Al Launier]

Would setting up a different, i.e. secret email account for yourself, purchase using that email address, while setting up the family account as the default email account work? Just a thought, haven't tried it. If that works, you could then have them contact you through your secret email address which only you could use, unless your wife discovers it.

[Jim Becker]

Prime only allows each individual to have a single email address, Al. But if the Prime household is setup correctly, each individual's purchasing shouldn't be visible to the other individual unless they share the same credit card that gets used and even then, it would be just an amount with no transaction details. Multiple payment options are permitted which gets around that.

[Kev Williams]

Well, I've done everything I can to shield each other from what the other is doing, and to give Amazon credit, using their search to ask how to do this works pretty good! However, even after figuring out archiving sales, and turning off all browsing history, and everything seeming to work well lately, I just logged onto Amazon, and amongst all the other stuff on the page is this:

http://www.engraver1.com/rvd.jpg

This is something the wife looked at, wouldn't be for me, probably for one of the neighbors or kids, but if it WAS for me, SURPRISE! -- NOT!

Seems I'm doomed to creating 2 specific accounts...

[Anuj Prateek]

Well, I've done everything I can to shield each other from what the other is doing, and to give Amazon credit, using their search to ask how to do this works pretty good! However, even after figuring out archiving sales, and turning off all browsing history, and everything seeming to work well lately, I just logged onto Amazon, and amongst all the other stuff on the page is this:

http://www.engraver1.com/rvd.jpg

This is something the wife looked at, wouldn't be for me, probably for one of the neighbors or kids, but if it WAS for me, SURPRISE! -- NOT!

Seems I'm doomed to creating 2 specific accounts...

(Missed reading thr last line when I previously posted)

If you are using same account (username and password) then this is expected. There is no way for Amazon to know if it's you or wife.

You will need to create a separate account with shared prime membership.