Amazon's horrible customer support/service

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by Daithi

I'd be leary about returning it too many times. There is another thread here on Mobileread complaining about being banned by Amazon for a supposed abuse of their return policy. (Sorry, I'm too lazy to go look up the link to that thread.)

True, but that was a guy who was returning multiple different products first for return and then for refund. I don't think Amazon will care if you simply exchange Kindles over and over again, as long as ultimately you keep one and buy books with it.

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

True, but that was a guy who was returning multiple different products first for return and then for refund. I don't think Amazon will care if you simply exchange Kindles over and over again, as long as ultimately you keep one and buy books with it.

You may certainly be correct. I don't have a clue what triggers Amazon's blacklisting policy. For whatever it's worth, I'm just saying that I'd be cautious in returning too many items.

[InlawBiker]

Originally Posted by Daithi

You may certainly be correct. I don't have a clue what triggers Amazon's blacklisting policy. For whatever it's worth, I'm just saying that I'd be cautious in returning too many items.

Putting up with broken products for fear that your privilege to buy from them will be removed seems like a bad strategy to me.

Greg

[Daithi]

I didn't say he should put up with a broken product. I just pointed out that Amazon is known to ban customers that they feel are abusing the return policy. I'm simply trying to point out that repeatedly ordering and returning Kindles as sirbruce suggested may not be the best stategy either.

[sirbruce]

Well *personally* my K2 is fine, but if it developed fading in the sun I wouldn't mind as I never plan to read in the bright sunlight. But who knows, maybe someday I'll be stranded on a tropical island with a Kindle and would regret such a decision.

[andrys]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Unfortuate, jswinden. But all to common a complaint amonst K2 users.

My K1, on the other hand, works beautifully in the sunlight, I was just out yesterday in the Arizona sun, and there is NO fading. I have never heard of the K1 doing this.

You got an unknowledgeable rep the first time. Glad you got the problem taken care of the second time.

I've followed the Kindle boards since I bought the K1 in August and, believe me, there were plenty of K1s that had screen problems in sunlight, but Amazon customer reps normally received basic training in the fact that e-Ink and Amazon both advertise on their main pages that a 'feature' of the e-Ink screen is that it is just as readable in direct sunlight.

There does seem to be more of this happening with the K2 units though.

Luckily for me, my K1 and K2 don't have the problem.

That customer service person was WAY out of line and should be reported. Most of us have reached decent reps who, if they don't know something, are not resistant to handing the phone to someone who does.

- Andrys
http://kindleworld.blogspot.com

[fugazied]

Amazon has woeful customer service, that is for certain. If you return too many items they also close your account, it's insane.

[elmoglick]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

It's entirely possible that Amazon isn't checking for the sun fading issue on refurbs, but that says nothing about whether or not refurbs are better or worse than new ones. You can always keep sending Kindles back until you get one you like; there have been people who have returned 3 or 4 already.

I may hold the record. It took 8 (eight) replacements before I got one without sun-fade. I don't believe any of them are/were refurbs.

Amazon support was outstanding throughout the entire four week ordeal. They actually encouraged me to keep trying another until I got one that worked properly - I think I also ended up with $30 or $40 worth of book credits to assuage the inconvenience, which was a nice touch.

So, I've played with a total of 9 Kindles and spent quite a bit of time documenting and comparing screens, in all kinds of lighting conditions. I've found that the one with the darkest text also had the darkest background (and vice versa), so the ratio of screen darkness to text darkness appears to be pretty consistent in all units - the actual Vizplex screen manufacturing codes (Waveform Version) didn't correlate at all to screen or text darkness. My guess is that it's either a controller calibration or QC issue (perhaps both).

I'd be glad to provide further specifics if there's any interest in my observations.

El

[elmoglick]

Originally Posted by Daithi

I didn't say he should put up with a broken product. I just pointed out that Amazon is known to ban customers that they feel are abusing the return policy. I'm simply trying to point out that repeatedly ordering and returning Kindles as sirbruce suggested may not be the best stategy either.

I don't think sirbruce is suggesting ordering any more Kindles. Rather, he's suggesting that defective Kindles should be returned for replacement, as Amazon CS encourages. They happily sent me 9 units before I got one that actually didn't wash out in the sun. #7 was very close - it only faded about 50% and was still readable. I asked CS if this was normal; should I be happy with it? They convinced me that this was not normal and since it was defective, it should be replaced.

El

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by elmoglick

So, I've played with a total of 9 Kindles and spent quite a bit of time documenting and comparing screens, in all kinds of lighting conditions. I've found that the one with the darkest text also had the darkest background (and vice versa), so the ratio of screen darkness to text darkness appears to be pretty consistent in all units - the actual Vizplex screen manufacturing codes (Waveform Version) didn't correlate at all to screen or text darkness. My guess is that it's either a controller calibration or QC issue (perhaps both).

On the Sony Reader there's a variable resister (or capacitor - I forget which) which can be "tweaked" to adjust the screen brightness but, as you say, it alters both the text and the background together. I suspect it's a "calibration" setting on all eInk devices.

[elmoglick]

Originally Posted by HarryT

On the Sony Reader there's a variable resister (or capacitor - I forget which) which can be "tweaked" to adjust the screen brightness but, as you say, it alters both the text and the background together. I suspect it's a "calibration" setting on all eInk devices.

Aha. Well, that's very interesting. Guess my aged eyes aren't so bad after all...