Questions of Cash: I don't use Amazon Prime, but my credit card bill says I do

One reader was charged £79 for membership, despite having never subscribed to the service

Q. I was shocked when I looked at my American Express account statement to see a charge of £79 for membership of Amazon Prime. I have not bought anything from Amazon for a long time and I have certainly never subscribed to Prime (which offers film downloads and priority delivery of goods).

When I tried to find out what had happened on the Amazon website, I got nowhere as it informed me that I do not have an account. I eventually obtained a phone number, but when I called, I was told that data protection laws prevented the company from giving me any information about the Amazon Prime account as it was not linked to my address.

I tried to explain that the data protection rules did not apply as it was supposedly my own account and I was being charged for it, but I got nowhere. Instead the customer service representative suggested that my children might have used my American Express card. They deny this, and it makes no sense anyway as they have the same address as me.

I have logged this as a fraudulent transaction with American Express, which has credited my account as Amazon was apparently unable to provide any documentation supporting the supposed transaction. But I would really like to know how this happened. PG, Northern Ireland.

A. So would we. Amazon responded to our initial inquiries by providing further contact information. Since then, it has ignored our repeated communications. We know that many Amazon customers have signed up for Prime without being aware of it, but it seems your situation is different as you have not bought items from Amazon. As it has not answered our questions, we can offer no explanation.

Q. I bought my husband an England rugby world cup jersey from the Rugby World Cup 2015 shop (rwcshop.com) as a birthday present last November. He wore it to watch three of England's recent games and it was washed three times. But I have now seen a hole in the back of the jersey, which looks to me like a fault.

I have gone back to the shop, which said this was not a manufacturing fault and that I should get it repaired through a local tailor.

I was not satisfied with this, so I went back to the shop. It said: "Unfortunately, unless you can prove that the fault is a manufacturing fault, there is nothing we can do. You are welcome to send us a photo via email and we can send it to the head office."

I sent the photo by return, following it up with two more emails. I heard nothing more for three weeks. Eventually I was told that as no one else had reported a problem with the item, "we cannot offer you a refund or exchange".

It can't be right that something costing £65 would only be fit to be washed three times. MC, Somerset.

A. Matthew Buckland at the shop says: "The original purchase of two garments was placed by the customer in November 2014 ... The fault was then reported to us in February 2015. Now although this is outside our returns window, [the reader], like all our consumers, has rights on the quality of goods bought.

"Obviously we appreciate that a top which gains a hole on the back after three washes and wears may seem faulty. But when we saw the picture of the garment, it was our opinion that this could have been caused by a snag in a washing machine or another piece of clothing catching on the garment.

"We had reviewed our stock when the complaint first came to our attention, and could not find the fault replicated – nor could we find a complaint from another customer who had bought the same garment.

"All that being said, we are not in the business of delivering faulty goods…. As a gesture of goodwill, we would like to offer to replace the shirt with free delivery." You have accepted this offer.

Questions of Cash cannot give individual advice. But we'll do our best to help if you have a financial dilemma. Email us at: questionsofcash@independent.co.uk