Quote:
Originally Posted by BuddyBoy
You certainly seem to know an awful lot about the OP, including some facts that I don't recall seeing in the thread up to the point of your comment. Pretty impressive first-and-only post, would it stretch the imagination to think you have some ties with Amazon?
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Conspiracy theories are my favorite!
In fact we have both sides in this thread now: you pondering whether I'm an Amazon shill, and someone else accusing others of conveniently stirring up anti-Amazon/pro-B&N sentiment leading up to the new Nook tablet.
I hate to disappoint, but no: I have no connection to Amazon. At least not beyond having thrown countless hundreds of dollars at them over the last 10 years. I'll admit I'm a fan -- hence they get so much of my business -- though the whole eBook DRM/licensing thing leaves me cold, so the OP has my sympathies in that respect regardless of whether or not the rest of his story is entirely kosher.
My only reasons for leaving that absurdly long, bullet-pointed previous post were: (a) I'm a forum whore; (b) I've been around on the internet long enough to spot stories that don't add up; and (c) debunking trolls and fibbers on the web is a favorite hobby. I guarantee that everything I referenced in my post had been previously mentioned by the OP, hence I included several of his prior quotes. Which leads to reason (d) for me making said post: people tend to gloss over, misread, and forget entire sections posts, especially when the threads get long and convoluted and the OP has a tendency to explain things in a not-terribly-logical order. Since the original story had some glaring holes and smelled a little fishy, I wanted to summarize everything up to that point in one place so he had an opportunity to address the disparities. Which he kinda-sorta-maybe did, a bit... ish.
Good looking out on the "first-and-only" post, though.
I have lurked here on and off but haven't posted before. (In fact I though I had an account here already but apparently not, so I had to register anew to make the post.) The only reason I dropped by this thread is that I happened to spot the entertaining title, after Google brought me here while searching for an answer as to why my Kindle kept failing to come out of sleep when I was on the subway the previous few mornings (low ambient temperature, apparently -- whodathunkit?). And then, yeah, the troll-debunking area of my brain got triggered...
I have to admit, the OP has been taking a completely different approach from the one I'd have used. Amazon has stated that they found an account to be in violation of their TOS: as many people have stated, they rarely do that without reason. So let's assume that account (whoever's it is) is dead, gone, and never going to get resurrected. The weak link in the logic chain -- where the OP should be focusing his complaints IMO -- is the whole
"your account is directly related to another account" part.
- If it's directly related -- close enough to punish the OP by denying him accessed to his purchased digital content -- then there should be no "privacy concerns".
- If it's distant enough that "privacy concerns" are an issue -- i.e. Amazon thinks the that violating account belongs to somebody else, not the OP -- then the OP should be able to demand that Amazon prove that/how he is "linked" to the violating account.
IMO, Amazon can't have it both ways. Either the OP is innocent, in which case they have no grounds for shutting down his account; or he's guilty, in which case there are no privacy concerns.
But that's just my suggestion. Forget demanding that they review the case; forget demanding access to your digital content; forget asking them to reopen the account -- they'll just keep feeding you the same line. Instead, the flaw in their logic and justification is right there: the "privacy concerns" is the only element I'd focus all my emails/phone calls on, because that's the only point where they're remotely vulnerable. Regardless of the terms of the digital licenses, I'm fairly sure Amazon and other digital distributors would quickly find themselves in class action lawsuit hell if they thought they could begin revoking licenses
en masse at the drop of a hat, with no justification or explanation, thereby milking consumers by forcing them to repurchase the same content. Pretty sure the courts wouldn't look too kindly on that, whatever licenses or TOS you'd agreed to.
Oh and, with all due respect to the other posters, ignore the suggestions to contact the BBB. Overrated, ineffectual, thoroughly powerless, and a complete waste of time. It has no governmental affiliation or regulatory authority. Moreover, nobody pays any attention to complaints lodged there anyway. You'd do just as well to spend your time writing your letter of complaint, sealing it in a corked bottle, and lobbing it into the ocean.