Amazon behaving badly (again)

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

It’s certainly not a ‘politcial’ issue for me. It’s just a large company who sells a vast amount of digital products should not be allowed to withdraw access to them/and use of them, because a customer has breached an unspecified rule that they know nothing about. Not without at least access to appeal such removal.

Are we back here again? It is YOUR responsibility to download all digital material to your own secure location. If you neglect to do so, that is on you if they take it away.

As for returns, they cost companies money, and if there is a pattern of constant returns, they have every right to stop doing business with those people to protect themselves from abusive practices.

Just about every retailer has some form of protection against frequent returners, usually it is a very high restocking fee.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

My issues with Amazon over the years has been their policy of using the cheapest delivery method, causing them to miss the "guaranteed" delivery date and their customer service. In general, as long as you don't care when a package arrives, don't have to deal with their customer service and don't do something that triggers them playing hardball, Amazon works. Amazon is all about cost savings not quality or reliability.

I've had an Amazon Prime account since there have been Amazon Prime accounts and I do the bulk of my non-grocery shopping from Amazon. Everything from Kindles to computers to bed sheets to shoes. I typically place between 10 and 15 orders with them a month. The UPS guy and the Fedex guy are always joking about me being a great customer.

I get free two day shipping on 95% of my purchases. I think in all the years I've been doing this they've been late twice. A couple of other times I've received notice they'd be late and then they were on time after all.

I think their delivery service is great.

By the way, I live in a small town in rural Arkansas miles and miles from the nearest city. This town of 3500 is the county seat. If they were going to be late this seems like the place for it to happen.

Barry

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I wish digital purchasing/licensing was different. And if consumers band together and force people (the industry or gov't) to make it so--great! More power to them. But I don't think we're at the point where gov't needs to step in on their own. No one's being unjustly abused in my eyes.

I agree. I wish it was possible to keep backups without violating some agreement with the store. Since it isn't I only buy ebooks as long as I can download them and remove the DRM. If they want to cancel my account for that, fine, not a real big loss.

What gets me though, Amazon doesn't complain when I buy small orders and have them shipped with free 2 day shipping. Sometimes within a half hour there are 2 or 3 separate orders. They could easily combine them, but they don't even bother. So I guess they are not losing money on it either. Makes me feel a little less guilty over it.

[haertig]

I don't think shipping distance or living in the middle of nowhere is the only cause of late deliveries. I live about 20 miles from one of Amazon's gigantic distribution centers. And they are building a second distribution center about 7 miles from my house. This new one they are building is HUGE!

I still get late deliveries about 25% of the time. Only late by one day though. They deliver in the early morning sometimes. I've gone out at 6:00am and found their package sitting on my doorstep (it wasn't there the night before). Maybe they deliver 24 hours a day? So I haven't complained about 1/4 of my deliveries being late based on the historical standard for deliveries to occur between 8:00am and 8:00pm. They would probably just cancel my Prime account if I did complain - not an ethical thing for them to do, but it appears that is exactly what they are doing to some people. "Complain to us? Ha! We'll fix you!"

[haertig]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I wish it was possible to keep backups without violating some agreement with the store.

These agreements that are forced on customers are probably legal. "You buy it, but we can take it away from you at any time by cancelling your membership for any or no reason, at our sole discretion, not subject to review. Oh, and by the way, our agreement also says you can't remove DRM either, so you can't keep your own functional copy outside of our control."

That is probably legal (shouldn't be, but probably is). But it is also very unethical. So the sellers pushing these unethical restrictions are probably resigned to the fact that many of their customers will respond with reciprocal unethical behavior and remove the DRM and copy the files anyway. Especially since the sellers are collecting all kinds of data on customers and selling that to advertisers for their own monetary gain. They don't seem to care if customers give them permission to do that or not.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by haertig

These agreements that are forced on customers are probably legal. "You buy it, but we can take it away from you at any time by cancelling your membership for any or no reason, at our sole discretion, not subject to review. Oh, and by the way, our agreement also says you can't remove DRM either, so you can't keep your own functional copy outside of our control."

That is probably legal (shouldn't be, but probably is). But it is also very unethical. So the sellers pushing these unethical restrictions are probably resigned to the fact that many of their customers will respond with reciprocal unethical behavior and remove the DRM and copy the files anyway. Especially since the sellers are collecting all kinds of data on customers and selling that to advertisers for their own monetary gain. They don't seem to care if customers give them permission to do that or not.

Exactly. I liberate my digital purchases. If Amazon can revoke my access to them at their whim then I have the right to protect my purchases.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by barryem

...

By the way, I live in a small town in rural Arkansas miles and miles from the nearest city. This town of 3500 is the county seat. If they were going to be late this seems like the place for it to happen.

Barry

You might think so, but probably not. There is a lot more options for delivery in big cities. In my neck of the woods, Amazon has started using independents to deliver the last mile, i.e. some guy or lady in a car. For a long time, the local post office was doing the last leg delivery. They had a somewhat interesting take on delivery. They would mark a package as delivered (causing me to search the front yard and my neighbor's door steps) when they hadn't actually delivered it yet, but rather it had been put in the mail man's bin for delivery. It would then show up a day or two later. Fortunately, they have cleaned up their act quite a bit.

I've been using Prime since the beginning as well and get a lot of stuff delivered. Like a lot of people, I stick to filled by Amazon whenever possible. At one time, Amazon was very good about acting on delivery issues. Not any more.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Are we back here again? It is YOUR responsibility to download all digital material to your own secure location. If you neglect to do so, that is on you if they take it away.

I really can't agree with this more. Don't trust any corporation to provide access to your data.


(Which is ironic, considering some of my practices but I'm aware of the risk.)

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

(Which is ironic, considering some of my practices but I'm aware of the risk.)

THIS! I understand the risks but honestly I am just too lazy to bother downloading everything.

I did download all of my Google data a couple years ago but never did anything with it.

[Alohamora]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Exactly. I liberate my digital purchases. If Amazon can revoke my access to them at their whim then I have the right to protect my purchases.

It's one thing to loose access because a small publisher went out of business. It's quite another issue for Amazon to deny access "on a whim." While they have the right to to stop accepting orders from certain customers, they shouldn't have the right to selectivly deny those customers access to already purchased digital materials.

[cfrizz]

Look, this is no different from purchasing movies from Xfinity. You will have the movie so long as you have their service, switch providers and lose those store priced movies as well.

If you want to ensure that you keep what you have paid full price for but THEY say you are only renting it, then either buy the discs or download and back up all of your books to your own secure site.

This has ALWAYS been the case, they have ALWAYS told you that you should immediately download your purchases, that they could NOT guarantee that you would always have the ability to access your purchases.

I took them at their word, and was able to keep all of my ebooks when Sony, ARE, and countless others went belly up.

If you refuse to do so, then you have no cause to whine about lost books/money.

You can whine all you want, but it won't change the reality of how it is. Adapt or move on.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Look, this is no different from purchasing movies from Xfinity. You will have the movie so long as you have their service, switch providers and lose those store priced movies as well.

If you want to ensure that you keep what you have paid full price for but THEY say you are only renting it, then either buy the discs or download and back up all of your books to your own secure site.

This has ALWAYS been the case, they have ALWAYS told you that you should immediately download your purchases, that they could NOT guarantee that you would always have the ability to access your purchases.

I took them at their word, and was able to keep all of my ebooks when Sony, ARE, and countless others went belly up.

If you refuse to do so, then you have no cause to whine about lost books/money.

You can whine all you want, but it won't change the reality of how it is. Adapt or move on.

So, you're saying you don't have any strong feelings one way or the other. Check.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Look, this is no different from purchasing movies from Xfinity. You will have the movie so long as you have their service, switch providers and lose those store priced movies as well.

If you want to ensure that you keep what you have paid full price for but THEY say you are only renting it, then either buy the discs or download and back up all of your books to your own secure site.

This has ALWAYS been the case, they have ALWAYS told you that you should immediately download your purchases, that they could NOT guarantee that you would always have the ability to access your purchases.

I took them at their word, and was able to keep all of my ebooks when Sony, ARE, and countless others went belly up.

If you refuse to do so, then you have no cause to whine about lost books/money.

You can whine all you want, but it won't change the reality of how it is. Adapt or move on.

Except Amazon DO NOT tell you to download digital purchases, in fact the very opposite, they fill them with DRM and tell you they can store them for you!

The reality is that, as you said, we all have to do what we feel is necessary to protect our purchases. And sometimes this is solely because Amazon cannot be trusted to treat us all fairly.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

THIS! I understand the risks but honestly I am just too lazy to bother downloading everything.

This is me, too. At a minimum, I figure Amazon and Audible aren't going anywhere and I've got sloppy about Kobo, too. I assume there'd be a warning.

Originally Posted by Josieb1

And sometimes this is solely because Amazon cannot be trusted to treat us all fairly.

Fair is a loaded and subjective term. I don't think it gets a conversation anywhere.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by issybird

This is me, too. At a minimum, I figure Amazon and Audible aren't going anywhere and I've got sloppy about Kobo, too. At a minimum, I figure there'd be a warning.

Fair is a loaded and subjective term. I don't think it gets a conversation anywhere.

Well, I don't DL everything either, but I understand the risk I am taking. If a given book is something I want to keep forever, I do download it. Novels purchased for entertainment are less valued by me, and I am more willing to take a chance on losing them should Amazon and I have a falling out.

Besides, I can always DL an exceptional novel after I've read it.