Here's what happened. Let's say I was home, and I really wanted to see a particular movie, and so I searched to see if the movie was available on Amazon's streaming service. Now let's say I checked the free-with-Prime movies and saw the movie I was looking for. Would you assume then that the movie you wanted was available free with Prime? Of course you would. But you might well be wrong.
It's pretty clear that Amazon was slapping an image of the movie I wanted on the free-with-Prime teaser page. But if you dig deep enough, you find out that the particular movie I wanted actually is not free with Prime. (It's free through Amazon if you have a subscription to a particular pay-movie cable channel, actually).
I don't care how the code works that puts movie posters on the page. Don't show me an image of any movie as a come-on to joining Prime if that movie is not going to be available on Prime once I join.
I do have to say, however, that I didn't get screen captures of the pages that I was searching, and I can't now reproduce exactly what I was seeing then. Maybe Amazon just confused me with images of one movie on a regular purchase page, not a free-with-Prime page — but that's what it seemed like at the time. And as I said, the movie (Maleficent) is free if you have a Starz! subscription and sign into that on the Amazon movies page.
Amazon has had some other complaints about their Prime marketing. Specifically, the UK Advertising Standards Authority charged Amazon with misleading direct mail advertising that touted a free Prime trial, because Amazon automatically bills you after 30 days if you don't cancel the service.
I like that the UK agency was enforcing the idea that "free" can't mean "not free unless you cancel a service you didn't know you had signed up to pay for."
Watchdog bans misleading Amazon Prime 'free trial' ad
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