How To Delete Your Amazon Account Permanently [February 2021]

For whatever reason, you’ve decided that you want to permanently delete your Amazon account from existence.  People might have a variety of different reasons for doing so, from moving to a country where Amazon doesn’t support shipping to issues with Amazon’s business practices, or even to its controversial HR policies.

With all of the sensitive information that your account contains, it’s probably a good idea to remove it if you no longer plan to use it. You don’t want anyone accessing your account and stealing sensitive information. Just make sure that you understand exactly what complete deletion entails and that you’re 100% certain it’s what you want to do moving forward.

Once you’ve decided that you want to cancel your Amazon account, follow the instructions below to do so as quickly and easily as possible.

What Happens When You Close Your Amazon Account?

If you properly close your account, it will no longer be accessible by you or anyone else. This includes the employees and support staff at Amazon. So if you close your account and then feel you made a mistake, you’re simply going to have to make a new one.

This also doesn’t stop at just your basic account where you purchase a few products during those awesome Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. It means everything. A shortlist of the things you’ll no longer be able to access once your account is lost:

• Other sites that used or required an Amazon account such as Amazon Mechanical Turks, Amazon Associates, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Author Central, Kindle Direct Publishing, or Amazon Pay accounts.
• Digital content related to Amazon Music, Amazon Drive, and/or Prime Photos, or your Amazon Appstore purchases. This includes Prime videos and Kindle purchases. All content will be deleted and unrecoverable.
• All reviews, discussion posts, and customer images that you received or are responsible for.
• Your account history, which includes your credit card information, order history, etc.
• Unprocessed returns or refunds.
• Any remaining Amazon.com Gift Cards or promotional credit balance that currently resides on your account.
• Amazon devices such as Alexa-enabled, Echo, or Firestick TV will not work without an Amazon account.

If you can live without everything stated above, then you’re ready to start the process of having your Amazon account closed.

How Do I Permanently Delete My Amazon Account?

Having your Amazon account closed isn’t as cut and dry as most other website accounts. It’s not quite as simple as going to your account settings and clicking a button.

You’re not necessarily jumping through hoops, but closing out an Amazon account does take a few more steps before being removed and providing peace of mind.

Step 1: Cancel Your Open Orders

If you recently placed any orders through your Amazon account, you’re going to want to cancel them before you delete your account.

To do this, you’re going to have to be on the Amazon.com website itself, of course. Once there, make sure you log in to the account you want to delete. You can do this by hovering over the Account & Lists with your cursor and selecting Sign in. Enter the information for your account and click Sign In.

Once signed in to your current account, ensure there are no outstanding orders currently active on your account. If you wish, you can cancel any and all purchases that have not yet shipped. You will not be able to close out your account until this has been completed.

To cancel any orders you may have, click on Orders at the top-right of the home page. Select Open Orders and once the orders are pulled up, click Request cancellation to the right of each order.

Step 2: Delete Your Amazon Account

You won’t find “Cancel/Deactivate Account” anywhere you look on the site. In order to finally get the process underway, you’ll need to scroll to the bottom of the page to the footer and click on Help in the “Let Us Help You” section.

Scroll down the page to “Browse Help Topics” and select Need More Help? at the bottom of the left-hand column. This will display new options in the right side box. Click Contact Us.

On the next page, Amazon will ask you if you want to speak with its Chatbot. Unfortunately, in 2019, Amazon moved the majority of its help requests to its Chatbot, which means you’ll need to cancel it by speaking to the bot.

Note: If you click the ‘We can call you’ link below the Start Chatting link, a Live person will call you as soon as one becomes available.

From there, tell the bot you would like to close your account. It will then ask you to pick one of three options. From those options, choose the one related to ‘Login and security’. After that, it will ask you if you want to speak to a representative since the bot can’t help you with issues related to that.

Once you’re speaking to a representative, you can let them know you want to delete your Amazon account and they’ll get the process started for you. The end result will still be an email providing you an ETA for account deletion.

The timeframe will usually land between 12 and 48 hours, although some lucky folks have had their accounts deleted almost immediately.

Canceling from the ‘Contact Us’ Link

Using the ‘Contact Us’ webpage looks a little different for cancellation because you don’t get the option to chat. You will have to send an email going through this option.

Toggle the options to cancel your account and an email template will appear.

Users have reported that the process is incredibly simple and efficient. If you’re concerned about your account remaining active after you’ve requested cancellation, you will receive a confirmation email within a couple of days.

Alternatives to Cancelling Your Account

If you’ve invested in Amazon’s books, music, and photo storage you may not want to permanently delete your account. There are a few things you can do to keep your former Amazon account safe while canceling the Prime membership.

The first thing you can do to keep your account safe is to delete all your credit card information or PayPal account. You can do this by:

1. Accessing your Amazon account and going to the ‘My Account’ option
2. On the left-hand side of this page click on ‘Payment Methods’
3. Tap on the down arrows next to each payment option and click ‘Remove’
4. Tap ‘Confirm’

Doing this will bring a pop-up asking which card you’d like to designate as the default. Click ‘Cancel’ and it will allow you to continue deleting payment methods.

You can also delete any addresses associated with your account.

1. Go to the ‘My Account’ page
2. Click on ‘Your Address’
3. Click ‘Remove’ next to each address
4. Click ‘Yes’ in the box that appears.

If you’d like to leave your Amazon account active for the content you’ve purchased this is an alternative to keeping anyone from accessing your personal information or ordering items without your consent.

Doing this leaves your account active without any payment or shipping information attached to it.

Securing Your Amazon Account

Lastly, you’ll want to make sure your email and phone number are up-to-date and two-factor authentication is on. If you’re concerned about leaving your account active for security reasons, you can take precautions to help with this.

1. Access the ‘My Account’ Page
2. Click on ‘Login & Security’
3. Put in your current password
4. Click ‘Edit’ next to each option and input the up-to-date information

Enabling 2FA (two-factor authentication) means others won’t be able to log into your account without a text or email verification. If someone does try to log in, you’ll get a notification to your email about account access.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will Amazon delete my purchase history?

No. Amazon keeps all purchase history much like most brick and mortar stores. The company cites that it is for tax purposes etc. and not used for anything that could be a privacy violation.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eEven if you completely delete your Amazon account that purchase history is still saved with the company.

If I delete my account, can I still use my Firestick?

Unfortunately, not unless you create a new (possibly bogus) Amazon account. Your Firestick is part of Amazon’s product-line so it was built and designed to work with your Amazon account. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eFor more information on how to use a Firestick without your Prime account, check this u003ca href=u0022https://www.techjunkie.com/how-to-use-an-amazon-fire-tv-stick-without-registration-of-amazon-account/u0022u003earticleu003c/au003e out. We’ll help you to stream your favorite content without the worry of having to pay for Amazon.

What can I do if I’m locked out of my Amazon account?

Amazon is happy to help those who are locked out of their account, but it will take some legwork to get it done. If you’re thinking about creating a new account because you’re locked out of your old one go to this u003ca href=u0022https://www.amazon.com/ap/signin?clientContext=135-1234997-9572124u0026amp;openid.return_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fa%2Fap-post-redirect%3FsiteState%3DclientContext%253D131-3221787-7671604%252CsourceUrl%253Dhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.amazon.com%25252Fa%25252Frecover%25252Fupload%25253F%252Csignature%253D1LAwabtz6j2BfKrahqjy8rtzBmVKkj3Du0026amp;openid.identity=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fauth%2F2.0%2Fidentifier_selectu0026amp;openid.assoc_handle=usflexu0026amp;openid.mode=checkid_setupu0026amp;marketPlaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DERu0026amp;openid.claimed_id=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fauth%2F2.0%2Fidentifier_selectu0026amp;pageId=usflexu0026amp;openid.ns=http%3A%2F%2Fspecs.openid.net%2Fauth%2F2.0u0026amp;openid.pape.preferred_auth_policies=SecondFactorRecoveryu0022u003ewebsiteu003c/au003e first and click the u0022Need Helpu0022 option.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eAmazon does have protocols for verifying your identity and getting you back into your account. Although you may have to submit some key pieces of information (this is to stop hackers from taking over your account) it would definitely be worth it to keep all of your purchases.

Does Amazon have a customer service number to call?

Yes, if you need more help canceling your account call 888-280-4331. You will have to follow some prompts and enter personal information before getting to a live person. The reason for this is not to aggravate you, it is actually to route your call to a department that is trained to help your specific needs.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eIf you’d rather chat with Amazon you can do that too. Head over to the u003ca href=u0022https://www.amazon.com/hz/contact-us/csp?from=gpu0026amp;source=contact-usu0026amp;*entries*=0u0026amp;_encoding=UTF8u0026amp;*Version*=1u0026amp;u0022u003eAmazon Contact Usu003c/au003e page, and begin chatting.

Will Amazon give me a refund on Prime?

Signing up for Amazon Prime is easy. A little too easy. It is entirely possible that you signed up for the service by mistake and if you did, you may wonder if there is any way to get that money back. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eUsing the link above, contact Amazon to see if they’ll give you a refund. If the account has not been used it seems Amazon is very fair in this regard. Although it can take several days to appear in your bank account.