It’s been over two decades since Jeff Bezos launched Amazon from his garage. With buyers and sellers with active Amazon accounts, the once online bookstore has become one of the largest online retailers and is undeniably popular.
Chances are, you’ve bought something through Amazon in the past, but you may be willing to leave because you disagree with the company’s practices or policies. Or perhaps you just want to control your spending or switch from Amazon to another online store.
Whatever the reason, you can permanently delete your Amazon account and remove your sensitive information from the Internet. In my case, Amazon knows so much about me because of my purchases that I wanted to delete my current account and create a new one so they don’t have that much personal information about me.
What you need to know before deleting your Amazon account
Few things can be more frustrating than trying to delete an account from an online platform, which makes deleting an account extremely difficult. The Amazon account deletion process is not easy to understand, but we’re going to show you how to delete your Amazon account.
Before you completely distance yourself from Amazon, there are a few things you need to know about deleting your Amazon account.
Once you delete your account, you won’t be able to cancel or restore things like gift card balances and digital purchases. Any balance on your Amazon account disappears the moment you delete it because the balances are linked to the account. You also cannot ask for a gift certificate.
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Likewise, any digital purchases like games or software libraries that you bought through your Amazon account will also disappear when you delete the account. You will not be able to re-download e-books, videos, digital software, music, games, or other digital content that you own.
If you are listening to Audible, reading a Kindle, or using Amazon Pay on other sites, these options will not be available when you delete your account.
All open orders will be canceled. All of your customer data such as customer reviews, any photos you uploaded to Amazon, and discussion posts will also be deleted. You will also lose your Amazon Prime account because once you delete your primary Amazon account, you cannot order through Prime.
If you have problems with Prime, you don’t need to delete your entire Amazon account. Simply change your Prime billing information in your account settings or cancel your subscription entirely.
You might want to stop at this point and consider if you really want to lose everything associated with your account. If you are still ready to leave Amazon, you can completely remove your account from the platform.
Note. If you would like to delete your purchase history, you can close the old account and create a new one. This way, you can start from scratch and create a new purchase history
How to delete an Amazon account
Closing your Amazon account used to be a straightforward process and you didn’t need to contact support to help you.
Amazon has since removed this old way of closing accounts from its website. Going forward, you will need to contact Amazon customer support if you wish to permanently close or delete your account. Here are the steps you need to take to get started:
- Sign in to the Amazon account you want to delete.
- Click Help at the bottom of the page.
- Scroll down and click Browse Help Topics> Need more help?
- Click Contact Us.
- At the top of the customer support page, click Prime or something else.
- Select “Login & Security” under “Tell Us More”.
- Select “Close my account” in the new field.
- You will see options for communicating with the Amazon team by phone, email, or chat.
- If you selected Email, enter the reason for closing your Amazon account and submit your message. After 12 hours, you will receive an email warning of what you will lose if you delete your account and instructions on how to close it.
- If you chose the Phone option, enter your phone number on the new page. Wait for an Amazon customer representative to call you with instructions.
Note. For quick assistance, Amazon recommends using the Call Me Now feature and you will receive immediate assistance based on the information you provide. You can also call the toll-free general helpline at 1 (888) 280-4331 and answer a series of questions to verify your identity.
- The Chat option also opens a new window where you can specify the reason why you want to talk to an Amazon partner. A member of staff will email you detailed instructions on how to close your account. After receiving the email and reading it carefully, click the link to confirm the deletion of your account.
Note. When you contact an Amazon customer service representative or acquaintance via email, phone, or live chat, they ask you if you have problems and offer some solutions. If you are sure you want to delete your Amazon account, an Amazon customer service representative or representative will not hesitate to help you.
Leave Amazon For Good
Amazon doesn’t make deleting an account an obvious process: you need to go to your account settings and select that option. You need to go through support to start and complete the process. Obviously, Amazon doesn’t want you to leave or close your account, so the complication of the process serves as a deterrent to people closing their accounts.
If you’d like to learn how to delete accounts on other platforms, check out our guides on deleting Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat accounts.
Did you manage to delete your Amazon account following the steps above? Mute comments.
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