Amazon account closed

[ApK]

Originally Posted by kacir

Argue that you clicked on a "buy" button and not on "rent" button when purchasing books.

....or don't, because arguing a meaningless, irrelevant semantic point may only show you're confused and don't understand what you're doing or what you agreed to.

OK, I guess you can deduct my one snide remark now.

ApK

[mccarrsw]

Originally Posted by ApK

Wow, that was brilliantly insightful and concise. You just saved me hours of checking back here.

And no, despite how it may sound, I do NOT mean that sarcastically.

I will be curious to hear what happens at the end, so I hope the OP will keep us posted.

(Oh, you can put me down for half a portion of disbelief, two something in-betweens, and two...no...make it one...snide remark.)

Having brought my problem to you folks, I will try to update it as things unfold. If they unfold. After everything I've read in the past day, I'm expecting this to become a long, drawn out process.

I don't feel that I should let the matter drop without fighting for my rights. At this point, part of me feels like I no longer want to spend money at Amazon. But at the same time, I've already spent lots of money there over the years, and there are still two Kindles in this household, so it's not a simple solution to just walk away.

(I am also now blocked from Javari, despite being a good customer there too.)

[JSWolf]

Even if you manage to get Amazon to replace the Kindle and your account is still closed, there is a good chance your Kindle will be blacklisted and thus, useless to buy Kindle eBooks from Amazon.

You have two choices, try to get your Kindle replaced & your account open or just give up on the Kindle and buy a different reader not tied into Amazon.

[mccarrsw]

Originally Posted by kacir

I firmly believe that even if your account is suspended forever [justly or otherwise] you still have your consumer rights and they have to honor your warranty even if they refuse to do further business with you. But, I am spoiled by being from EU where consumers enjoy much better protection.

You could go to your CreditCard issuer and demand your money back. But first document your attempts to resolve the issues with Amazon peacefully. Send an official letter to Amazon demanding an official answer.

Be persistent. Explain that you never had related account or a returned item. Escalate your communication - ask to speak to the supervisor of the person that is communicating with you. Write [registered paper] letter to their headquarters. In the meanwhile try contacting some consumer rights protection organization.

Demand access to your legally purchased e-books. Argue that you clicked on a "buy" button and not on "rent" button when purchasing books.

Do. Not. Give. Up.
They are trying to make impression that your case is hopeless, so you stop bothering them. Prepare for a long fight, or write of your Kindle.

Thanks. All of these things have crossed my mind. Especially credit card protection.

I will persist with email communications for now. I will scan receipts, send proof of ID or whatever else I can think of until they stop feeding me canned responses and provide me a human response. There is still a concern in my mind that if my account was somehow compromised and/or abused, then my private details could have been at risk. But this is purely speculative until someone actually clarifies what rules were broken and how.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by mccarrsw

I don't feel that I should let the matter drop without fighting for my rights. At this point, part of me feels like I no longer want to spend money at Amazon. But at the same time, I've already spent lots of money there over the years, and there are still two Kindles in this household, so it's not a simple solution to just walk away.

I hope you don't give up. If you're really in the right here, this becomes an important thread.

It occurs to me you might want to contact the dude from the last thread by PM and ask for the same email address and phone numbers he used.

If his experience makes your situation easier to resolve, that would be the real value of these kinds of threads here.

ApK

[DiapDealer]

The patience and thoroughness of this poster (and the urge to "update as things unfold") is very reminiscent of the originator of the previous thread.

I'm just sayin' that it seems a bit too much to believe that two extremely patient people (who never seem to get ruffled by doubting thomases) would come to MobileRead and calmly document their terribly frustrating experience of trying to get their Amazon account reinstated—in an almost identical manner.

If visibility is the goal, wouldn't the Kindle forums make more sense?

I guess I really don't get the motivation to "bring the show here."

...unless this is some new form of performance art/psychology project?

[ProfCrash]

Call Kindle Support and talk to them. Keep a detailed log (When did you call, who did you speak with, what manager did you speak with, what was said). Email Amazon so that you have a paper trail that you can reference.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The patience and thoroughness of this poster (and the urge to "update as things unfold") is very reminiscent of the originator of the previous thread.

I'm just sayin' that it seems a bit too much to believe that two extremely patient people (who never seem to get ruffled by doubting thomases) would come to MobileRead and calmly document their terribly frustrating experience of trying to get their Amazon account reinstated—in an almost identical manner.

If visibility is the goal, wouldn't the Kindle forums make more sense?

I guess I really don't get the motivation to "bring the show here."

...unless this is some new form of performance art/psychology project?

This is just about the best Kindle forum out there, and it shows up very high on google searches of the various topics. The actual amazon Kindle forums are awful, and are heavily populated by folks not at all so nice and knowledgeable as...well...us.

And while there certainly may be sock-puppets trolling the waters about Amazon account lock outs, my wife occasionally tells me about long-time participants on her various girly-stuff forums who have similar stories.
So if it's all orchestrated bunk, it's extremely well executed.

ApK

[ProfCrash]

Accounts get closed, sometimes for real reasons some types by mistake. There was a woman on Kindle boards who lost her 3G connectivity, Amazon had turned it off for some reason. She called, they did some research, and a few days later it was back on. Amazonis not perfect and does make mistakes.

It sounds like Amazon made am istake here some how. Which is why I would call Kindle Support and keep a log of all conversations. I would also email Kindle support and keep a log of all conversations with them.

I think that these things can be resolved.

Hopefully the OP is not blowing smoke up our butts. His initial explination, while a bit different then some of the reasons I have heard for accidental closure, sounds legit. (shrugs)

[deannah]

Is there an echo in here?

[vxf]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The patience and thoroughness of this poster (and the urge to "update as things unfold") is very reminiscent of the originator of the previous thread.

I'm just sayin' that it seems a bit too much to believe that two extremely patient people (who never seem to get ruffled by doubting thomases) would come to MobileRead and calmly document their terribly frustrating experience of trying to get their Amazon account reinstated—in an almost identical manner.

If visibility is the goal, wouldn't the Kindle forums make more sense?

I guess I really don't get the motivation to "bring the show here."

...unless this is some new form of performance art/psychology project?

You know... the thought you express crossed my mind as well.
But there is some value in the benefit of the doubt.
From all I hear, something is fishy about Amazon's actions. They clearly are pretty heavy-handed and, well, I don't find it hard to believe that, occasionally, they make mistakes. Everybody does. The problem is that, when dealing with an impersonal, huge entity like Amazon, the occasional mistake can get lost in bureaucracy and never get fixed.

In other words... could the poster be a troll? Yes. Do we have proof of that? No. So accusations are, in my view, unwarranted.

At the cost of being naive, I wish the OP the best of luck with their situation.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

If visibility is the goal, wouldn't the Kindle forums make more sense?

Given that commenting on the Amazon discussion forums requires having an Amazon account, creating a new one after having one's original shutdown in order to comment upon the shutdown would probably not have happy consequences.

[Polyphemus]

This feels like deja vu all over again.

[DiapDealer]

From all I hear, something is fishy about Amazon's actions. They clearly are pretty heavy-handed and, well, I don't find it hard to believe that, occasionally, they make mistakes. Everybody does. The problem is that, when dealing with an impersonal, huge entity like Amazon, the occasional mistake can get lost in bureaucracy and never get fixed.

I don't disagree with any of that. In fact I agree completely. I only question the desire to convert that ordeal into a MobileRead mini-docudrama. Sorry... I just can't ignore my internal troll-alarm. If I'm wrong I apologize. I will step aside and let the thread run its natural course, though.

[mccarrsw]

In reply to some of the recent posts: actually, I thought patience may be a good thing. As I'm new here, my first experience of this forum was watching the other thread turn into off-topic mush and arguments while I quickly searched around for information. Fair enough if you're cynical, but I've no intention of being drawn into other arguments. My issue is with the invisible folks at Amazon, not the invisible folks here.

Anyway, not a great deal to add today.

Two brief quotes from the latest email exchange:

“Considering the nature of the problems occurred, your account was closed. Closure was after careful review; we wont reinstate it.”

“Since you purchased the device from Best Buy, they will be able to help you.”

For the former, I'm still reluctant to budge. If any rules have been broken, then I may have been the victim of fraud. It seems unlikely as I only usually access Amazon from home and not mobile. But it's still a concern, seeing as they stored all my personal details and credit card data.

Latterly, Best Buy to me is not an acceptable solution. Not only is there no Best Buy in the Netherlands, it's also moved out of the UK. And their remaining terms of service state that any faulty goods that are older than 30 days should be returned to the manufacturer.

And now I wait till tomorrow for a response...

Oh, one last thought on my behalf. I tried googling this, but I only really find information about sellers. Is it fine that both myself and my partner had separate Amazon accounts but share a household? It's the only thing I have to go on, but as I stated originally, we've both had accounts for approx 9/10 years and it was never a problem. His account is still active as normal, but he's getting worried about being shut down because he shares the same IP that I last used before the lockdown.