Amazon is giving students a free year of Amazon Prime, which gives you free two-day shipping and some other nice bonuses.
All you have to do is be a currently-enrolled student and sign up on the Amazon Student page using a .edu address. It’s that dead simple.
The greatest crisis facing American students is their inability to delay gratification so it’s heartening to see someone stepping up to the challenge.
[Amazon Student] (Thanks to Chris!)
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“Only students currently enrolled in a college or university who have a valid .edu e-mail address to confirm their status are eligible to participate in Amazon Student.”
It may work with any .edu address, but if you’re not a currently-enrolled student, you’re defrauding Amazon.
and in the T&C’s…if you aren’t a current student or otherwise eligible under the program guidelines – they can require that you pay them for the benefits:
“We may ask you to furnish documentation supporting your eligibility. If you do not provide documentation indicating that you meet the eligibility requirements above, you may be required to reimburse us for benefits you received as a result of your Amazon Student membership.”
it’s very unlikely that this would happen for a casual user…but nevertheless – it’s stated.
And now for the ethical dilemmas of those with .edu addresses who aren’t technically students. I’m sure I *could* sign up for it and get away with it, but I would feel guilty.
Maybe I’ll just wait till the next time I need to order something and decide then.
How is it an ethical dilemma? It’s unquestionably wrong to sign up if you’re not a student.
I suppose you’ve never sped, pirated media, drank underage…anything that is “unquestionable wrong”?…not all share your high level of cut-and-dry ethics.
If Amazon has absolutely no method in place to verify that everyone signing up is a “current student” (such as a dated ID, roster, etc), and they are simply relying on the word of the consumer, then I find it hard to feel sorry for them. I’m sure, however, that the company isn’t that completely dense and that they have accounted in some way for the large number of alumni and faculty members who will indeed sign up for this. I, myself, don’t really have a need for a 1-year trial of Amazon Prime (which is what this is), but I do use my year-old university ID to get discounts in stores and movie theaters when possible. I suppose I am a horribly unethical and immoral person.
You said it, not us.
I’ll stop using my student ID to get a discount at the theater when I finish paying off student loans!
Yes you are an unethical person. Like most unethical people, you seem to think it is Amazon’s fault if they don’t do enough to prevent you from acting in an unethical way. That’s a pretty clear sign that you’re an unethical person.
Definitely NOT an ethical dilema. You’ve acknowledged that you know it is wrong.
I agree with others. This is not a question of ethics. If you sign up and are not a current student, you are breaking their terms of service. In fact, not only would you be deceiving Amazon, but you run the risk of taking the benefit away from those who it applies to.
It’s a wink and a nod, though. They probably get some tax benefit, and I know that I will probably end up spending more due to this.
I am a student, but I think they fully expect anyone with an edu address to sign up.
No ethical dilemma …
I love you, Amazon.
No dilemma for me. Then again, I am a grad student.
Yeah I got mine and am also a grad student. I took two classes this spring and am taking one this fall. That qualifies as “currently enrolled”…right?
Ethical behavior vs. a corporation? Scratch that. Where is my alumni email address.
Well, my ethical dilemma has been averted. All my .edu addresses are dead.
Yeah, my .edu expired a couple years back. I had the option to keep it open at no charge, I just needed to call them and ask them to keep it open, but since I had stop using the address when I graduated I saw no reason to keep it open.
Nice, just got mine
. Thanks Consumerist!
If you’re already a Prime member and you sign up for this deal, they’ll cancel your existing membership and refund a prorated amount of the fee. Your free Prime membership will be for one year from the date you sign up for this new deal.
Where is that written? I’m having a hard time trying to find it, though it could be just due to the lack of delicious coffee.
I don’t know if it’s written anywhere, but it’s what happened to me yesterday when I signed up.
Ah, yep, just got the refund notice. Was a bit of a delay. Yay
If you have a .edu account and sign up they give you a prorated refund. It worked immediately for me. Here is the text from the 1st Amazon email. The 2nd email told how much I would get back.
“If you had a previous Amazon Prime membership, we’ve cancelled that membership with the start of your new Student plan. If you are eligible for a refund of your previous Amazon Prime plan, we’ve issued a refund to your account.”
This is also great for anyone that is related to a college student, because they can share their prime benefits with up to 4 other family members.
how how how! i’m the student but my family would LOVE to take advantage as well!
Manage your prime membership under your account and add people
It sends them an email to join under you. I have my mom and sister-in-law added.
this deal just keeps getting better and better! thanks!
Slight correction – four HOUSEHOLD members. Not all relatives are members of your household.
I have Amazon Prime with 4 other people. None of which live in the same state as me.
It’s interesting to see what kind of people post here when the opportunity arises to rip off a corporation. If you’re not a student and would take advantage of this, you’re no better than Comcast and all of the other companies that are criticized here.
No better, but presumably much (much) poorer.
There might be a relevant difference there.
How is that relevant? GM is very, very poor. Most of the airlines are very poor.
Being a student is rather immaterial to Amazon, and Prime encourages you to buy a lot more from them. It would be a very weak and pathetic ripoff compared to the real ones thought up by corporations.
Being a student is not immaterial, or they would have given Prime to everyone for free.
Funny thing is that I’m a student, at an accredited school, but I have no .edu email address (our school is small, no e-mail for students, only staff)
I graduate in a week, it would have been nice to get in on this, but alas, I can’t.
It might be worth emailing them and explaining your situation; they might set it up for you anyway.
What if you’re staff at a university? I’m technically still a student (graduated, but planning on taking grad classes at some point), but I’m primarily staff.
No. It’s very clear about who’s eligible.
Just get it when you start taking classes. If Amazon asked you to provide proof of enrollment (they state that they have the right to do so), you wouldn’t be able to do so.
Thanks Consumerist! I’m going to share this with my coworkers! We’re all suffering while working on our bachelors!
Cool! I have one more year left for my degree so it’s perfect timing. I just signed up for the Amazon Prime.
Most importantly, there’s no auto-renewal trap to fall into.
Do you have a place where it says that? I keep looking for it but I can’t seem to find it. All that I find is that its is subject to the Amazon prime conditions and those conditions state that if there is a credit card on file, they will renew it for another year.
Just curious so that I can stop worrying about it renewing in a year.
I think there is a setting in your Prime account to turn off auto-renewal.
Actually this probably isn’t true, since you’d have a special Amazon Student Account
You don’t authorize them to use any of your CCs on file when you sign-up for this.
From the Amazon Student Terms and Conditions (https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000522721):
The automatic renewal provisions in the Amazon Prime Terms & Conditions (which would require you to pay for Amazon Prime) do not apply to this membership, even if we decide to extend the free Amazon Prime offer beyond one year.
Whee! I’m a grad student and just signed up. Thanks for the tip!
This. Rules.
I only have 3 weeks left of my very last class. Is it wrong of me to sign up now, since I’ll only be a student for 3 more weeks? What if they ask me for verification 6 months down the road, and I’m not a student at that point?
Since they only say you must “currently” be a student I don’t see a problem. If they wait 6 months to verify a good number of students will have dropped out…
Wow! Thank you consumerist, and even more so, Amazon! I am going to buy all my books soon
suhweeeeeeeeeeet!!
I’m a grad student who joined Prime last October and decided to see if they would tack a year onto my membership by filling this out. It turns out they only expanded my membership to one year from today, but they just put $20 in my bank account to make up for the three months of Prime membership that I had paid for.
I’m a 60 yr. old college freshman and can use any break I can get. Thanks Consumerist.
Now to go to http://www.australia.edu and get a free .edu email account…
This is perfect for us, my husband has had to have books rushed for school and this will save us a ton down the road.
I already passed this info on to my husband’s classmates.
I’m a staff member with an .edu and I have NO problem doing this. You should see what we get paid.
That sounds like an issue you should take up with the .edu, not with Amazon…
Sweet. I just got prime in January so I’ll get $40 back AND be good until next June.
Small point, but the Amazon Prime benefits are contingent on you agreeing to receive Amazon marketing emails directed at students. The FAQ states that you cannot opt-out of these emails. Opting-out of the emails means opting out of the program entirely and losing your Amazon Prime benefits. That wouldn’t remotely stop me, but its worth noting that you are giving Amazon marketing access to you in return for the Prime benefit.
This is seriously the best thing Amazon has done in a long time. Tread carefully, Amazon. If you play nicely with this, we just might love you for a long time. If you decide to screw it up in the near future…. you will become dead to us.
Hmm… of course, the hidden disadvantage to this program is you’re required to opt-in to their email marketing. If you opt-out, you lose the Prime membership.
That said, Prime membership is useful. Got a 3-month Prime membership when I bought my textbooks from Amazon (cheaper then the campus bookstore!) and it’s useful getting stuff needed for academic work quickly… like… well… textbooks. Won’t pay for Prime, but, hey, if they’re giving it for free, I’ll bite.
“The greatest crisis facing American students is their inability to delay gratification so it’s heartening to see someone stepping up to the challenge.”
Now, now… before you make sweeping generalizations about college students, Amazon saved my bacon this year when the school bookstore was out of stock on two course materials. I paid a premium to get the items shipped expedited from Amazon, even though the price was slightly cheaper for the items themselves.
I am so snagging this deal.