Amazon has banned my account - my Kindle is now a (partial) brick.

[sidders]

Wow, I hated amazon before hearing this and this just confirms some of my reasoning.

I am SO very glad that I decided to get a Sony Reader now instead of a Kindle. Even though I disliked amazon I was really considering the Kindle.

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern

Ian,

Sorry to hear about your case.

I don't have much to say but do have one thing to say:

I find it rather, well, odd that anyone should "plan to be a lifelong customer." Under what social obligation is there that any customer should be or ought to be a lifelong customer? If we believe that we should be a lifelong customer to a corporation, in which western ideology has made into the likes of a person with rights and values, then we are falling for a belief that is untenable.

As it seems to be in your case, you invest emotions and a relationship to a non-being entity but Amazon does not invest in you the same way. But, Amazon's corporate managers do want you to believe that Amazon is a being that will also investment in you. It is but falsity. Don't fall for it.

I, for one, expected to always be a lifelong Amazon customer. When it first began, the internet was young and I was thrilled to be able to order books in this new and fascinating method. Orders arrived in 2 days, always correct, and usually with some sort of promotional item or whatever. As they grew and added electronics, then jewelry, then everything else, I found that I could comparison price shop with Walmart for things like cameras and never beat Amazon's prices and/or Amazon offered added value with free promotional items. I finally stopped comparison shopping and just went straight to Amazon.

Until just last month, Amazon was my first choice go-to for any big ticket item (except TV's, those weigh too much for my elderly mailman). I don't understand your problem with being loyal to a company that has made my life so much easier? Or are you simply prejudiced against anything that you consider to be some deceitful "western ideology."

[JSWolf]

There is a perfectly good reason here to get pissed at Amazon. The reason is the terminating of an account without warning. It is one thing if Amazon was to issue a warning and the person ignored it and then the account was closed. That would be ok. If I was to receive a warning, I'd give Amazon a call to find out what I've been doing wrong so I could avoid doing it. But to just have the account closed for my doing things that I thought were correct is just wrong.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Harry, Amazon has been capriciously terminating accounts without warning or explanation. The number of people it happens to doesn't matter becuase what we are seeing is obviously Amazon's standard business practice. Amazon considers this to be normal behavior. Don't you see the problem in that?

Whether or not it's a problem, Nate, depends what the circumstances are in which it's done. I am sure that there ARE rules which trigger the ban, rather than it being "capricious" ("erratic", "done at a whim") as you claim. We don't know what those rules are, so we cannot really make an informed judgement on the issue.

I am prepared to accept that, given the stated circumstances in this particular case (refunds requested for two TVs and "several" DSLRs), Amazon might feel sufficiently suspicious of this person to "pull the plug", even though they did decide to reverse the decision.

We really don't have enough facts to be able to make a generalisation as to whether the practice is problematic or not - IMHO.

Let me ask you: are there no circumstances in which you would consider it acceptable to terminate someone's account for suspicious activity? Buying 10 expensive TV sets one after the other and returning each one? 20? 50? 100? Most reasonable people would accept, I think, that there is a "line" which can be crossed.

[Faenad]

Whether or not it's a problem, Nate, depends what the circumstances are in which it's done. I am sure that there ARE rules which trigger the ban, rather than it being "capricious" ("erratic", "done at a whim") as you claim. We don't know what those rules are, so we cannot really make an informed judgement on the issue.

I think most people here agree that Amazon is right to deny access to customer abusing their return system.

The problem is in the way they are doing it :

- No communication on the banning rules. So long as Amazon's customers remains uninformed, the rules indeed appears as being "capricious".
- No warning
- Denied access to previous digital purchases, and for Kindle owner to the main source of future no-public domain ebook purchases. (Especially since on the other hand they are making an extra effort to deny access to other stores).
- Also, the possibility of getting banned as a "related account". For example if an "abusing customer" added your own address to his own account to send you a gift. Again this may be not true, but since we are left in the dark about the rules we must guess the worst.

It should be rather easy for them to improve the way they ban abusing customers.
Not doing so show that they don't care about any individual customer, just about the big profitability picture.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is a perfectly good reason here to get pissed at Amazon. The reason is the terminating of an account without warning. It is one thing if Amazon was to issue a warning and the person ignored it and then the account was closed. That would be ok. If I was to receive a warning, I'd give Amazon a call to find out what I've been doing wrong so I could avoid doing it. But to just have the account closed for my doing things that I thought were correct is just wrong.

To me, the severity of that issue depends more on what it takes to get reinstated. My credit card company suspends my account on a regular basis when they think there may be a security issue. Pretty much every time I buy even moderately expensive electronics online, it gets flagged. I do this fairly regularly. They let me know. I explain. Account is back up. Until that point, I cannot charge anything. Ian received an email, responded and was reinstated. There are certainly plenty of stories that did not conclude that way, according to folks here who read more of the online complaints. If they flag your account, suspend it, and give you a chance to explain, that's not insupportable in my book. I didn't like the tone of the emails they sent but as long as they are reasonable about reinstating customers who are not abusing the system, that's not too bad an offense to me. I don't expect them to warn scammers they're going to cut them off. That gives them one last chance as well as an incentive to go big. I think a better way to word the email would be that they have suspended your account due to certain activity pending investigation and that you should contact support to discuss it. When my credit card company does it, they actually call me. I think this would be still a better way of handling it.

What I find inexcusable is cutting people off from previously purchased content like their books and videos as well as not honoring gift certificates. I can understand not wanting to do business with customers that cost you more money than they make. Excessive returns and excessive CS contacts do this quickly, but it is completely unfair to take away their purchased products without any compensation.

[thibaulthalpern]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Until just last month, Amazon was my first choice go-to for any big ticket item (except TV's, those weigh too much for my elderly mailman). I don't understand your problem with being loyal to a company that has made my life so much easier? Or are you simply prejudiced against anything that you consider to be some deceitful "western ideology."

Are you going to Amazon as a first choice out of loyalty or because they offer the lowest price? The word choice here makes a big difference.

Loyalty suggests obligation and faithfulness to a company, and this would occur even if another company offers lower price.

If I buy things online, I buy from a store that has the following combination and I'm ranking them in order: lowest total price, reputable business, return policy. In many cases, Amazon.com is the one I buy from. But, it's not because I feel loyal to them but it's because they generally offer the best combination of the features I mentioned above. But, I also buy from abebooks.com when they have lower price books.

In that case, I would not call myself a loyal customer. I am not loyal to Amazon. I'm not beholden to them. I have no obligation to purchase from them.

Do you feel obligated to purchase from Amazon when you need to buy something, because you "have" a relationship to the company?

[grisjuan]

Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern

I am not loyal to Amazon. I'm not beholden to them. I have no obligation to purchase from them. Do you feel obligated to purchase from Amazon when you need to buy something, because you "have" a relationship to the company?

Would you agree this becomes less clear as soon as you own a Kindle?

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I'm glad it was resolved, but I'm still concerned.

Amazon definitely has the right to ban people from further purchases if they have a demonstrated history of abusing their return policy. However, I am concerned about the lack of transparency in the process and the way it essentially has the effect of holding your ability to use the Kindle hostage.

I'm late getting to this thread, and I must say I am appalled. I was considering getting a used Kindle 1 or an iPod touch to access the Kindle store, but now...NO. Amazon has lost a customer with this, I will not be doing any sort of business with them. I'm very glad for Ian that his problem was resolved, but this type of behavior is inexcusable. I'm totally in agreement with you here.

[thibaulthalpern]

Originally Posted by grisjuan

Would you agree this becomes less clear as soon as you own a Kindle?

Then that is not a matter of loyalty but rather a matter of consequence. The consequence of buying a Kindle is that you "have"* to buy from Kindle store to read digital books. Loyalty is defined by one being willing to choose. When it's a matter of consequence, you basically have no choice but to buy from Amazon. That's not loyalty. That's locking yourself into a structure.

Of course, you could buy a Kindle out of loyalty because you so love Amazon and what have to offer you want to give them more money. In that case, that would be loyalty.

But, mere fact of buying a Kindle does not blur the line between loyalty and merely purchasing from Amazon because for a particular product they have the lowest price.


----------------------------------
* I put "have" in quotes because the Kindle locks out the unknowledgeable reader from other digital book formats but someone with a little bit of knowledge couple potentially find ways to convert one digital book format to another but this is not entirely trivial.

[grisjuan]

Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern

Of course, you could buy a Kindle out of loyalty because you so love Amazon and what have to offer you want to give them more money. In that case, that would be loyalty.

I think you might be misunderstanding what people here mean by 'loyal' or just parsing the word very narrowly.

My interpretation is that Amazon is convenient, has good prices, a good return policy, etc. which causes us to be 'loyal' (i.e. 'steady') in our purchasing behavior.

[thibaulthalpern]

Originally Posted by grisjuan

I think you might be misunderstanding what people here mean by 'loyal' or just parsing the word very narrowly.

My interpretation is that Amazon is convenient, has good prices, a good return policy, etc. which causes us to be 'loyal' (i.e. 'steady') in our purchasing behavior.

Then it's better to use the phrase "regular customer" not "loyal customer".

[Tattncat]

Another reason to be glad I've now bought two Sony readers. I think I will avoid Amazon in the future.

[grisjuan]

Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern

Then it's better to use the phrase "regular customer" not "loyal customer".

The phrase "loyal customer" is in common use. I don't think you will succeed in getting the world to change their terminology. In a google fight between "loyal customer" and "regular customer", loyal wins by a wide margin (672K hits to 90K).

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Whether or not it's a problem, Nate, depends what the circumstances are in which it's done. I am sure that there ARE rules which trigger the ban, rather than it being "capricious" ("erratic", "done at a whim") as you claim. We don't know what those rules are, so we cannot really make an informed judgement on the issue.

[...]

We really don't have enough facts to be able to make a generalisation as to whether the practice is problematic or not - IMHO.

I think this is the real problem, not the fact that Amazon has been banning accounts, or whether they had the reason to do so or not. They don't inform customers of the real rules of business, they don't warn that such or such behaviour may lead to banning of account.

As many other companies they have in the "terms of service" legal document restrictions that they can cancel Whispernet, or ban account at any time. It's normal business practice, and for a customer it's easy to assume than if you behave, it won't matter because they'll never do a bad thing to you. However, when you learn that you can walk into such a landmine without warning when doing business with Amazon, I understand why many people here declare they will close an account with Amazon. For the peace of mind, if nothing else.