Banned From Amazon, Possibly Losing All of My Books

[blesseda]

Hello all. I have been lurking for a while and would like to thank you for all your help. I have a few questions about my Amazon ban in case I am not able to get the account back.

I cannot login to my Amazon account. I have backed up my files from my Mac Amazon app. I have transferred all my downloaded books from my Kindle to my Mac via USB. There is an assortment of azw and kfx files.

I can no longer login to anything, and Amazon has logged me out of my Kindle apps. I have put my Kindle on airplane mode.

Has anyone ever successfully got their Kindle books back after losing them?

I know some people might wonder why I am banned. I do not know yet. Yesterday I got a login message saying my account was locked for misuse of Amazon's services. I can think of two things that happened recently. I changed my default Amazon card to my PayPal and Prime tried to charge that card and it declined (forgot to change it back). Also I switched to Safari as my browser and Mac has some new tools built in that can hide your IP address (it can be enabled and disabled), and I am not sure if it thinks I was using a VPN, hacked or whatever.

Perhaps if I do not get it back, I can "unlock" the files in the future. It is not working for now. I am heartbroken.

[rantanplan]

Depending on where you live, Amazon's part of the ToS where they revoke access to your digital purchaches is invalid and they cannot lock you out. Google for something like "country name amazon access to digital goods". All may not be lost.

[drofgnal]

It's not the fact you are using Safari. I didn't know you could 'hide IP addresses from trackers'. I checked my Safari preferences and it was on, probably by default whenever I got the version of Safari that started it. Amazon hasn't banned me. From what I can find it says it prevents known trackers from tracking you IP, I'm not sure about sites you intentionally visit to purchase things.

[Quoth]

Commonest reason for a ban is too many returns of physical goods.
While it's illegal most places for Amazon to block access to already purchased digital goods, you have to sue, so best solution in the future is when buying a digital item to download to PC(or Mac) and remove DRM. You can only easily remove DRM from downloads, not so called "whisper net" transfers to a Kindle, Fire or an App (App KFx files are a problem, but only old app versions use azw files).

I can't see why trying to use an invalid payment method (happens easily) or a VPN (sensible to home router if you are at a public place) would have you banned. VPNs are not just to hide location via geolocate, but are also for security.

If they are now proactively banning VPN users without warning that also is illegal in many countries and wrong. As well as using a cafe or hotel Wifi (A good reason to use a VPN), some folk may be using company VPNs for WFH.

[Pajamaman]

Possible reasons cited don't sound like justifications for a ban. If that's all you've done, then I think it must be a mistake, or some other reason, possibly you don't know about at all. Maybe you're account got hacked, or used by someone else?

[Sirtel]

The only reasons for a ban that I know of are already mentioned excessive returns of purchased goods and (on one occasion only I've heard of) buying Kindle books while lying about one's country of residence. Invalid payment method is certainly not a cause for banning, and using VPN in itself is not either.

As to unlocking your books, unfortunately that cannot be done if your account has already been closed. The best practice is to unlock your ebooks directly after purchasing them.

[jhowell]

The ability to unlock books copied from a Kindle depends heavily on the age of the device and the firmware version installed on it.

Books with a .azw or .azw3 extension can be handled using calibre along with the proper DRM removal plugin. However some of those are likely to be things like free dictionaries.

Books with a .kfx extension are problematic. They can only be handled if they were downloaded by a Kindle running firmware version 5.12.1 (released July 2019) or older. Anything newer than that uses DRM that cannot currently be removed. This situation is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

Your best hope is to try to get Amazon to restore your account, assuming that it was a mistake and you didn't violate any the the rules previously mentioned.


Added: Also I assume that by "Kindle" you mean an e-ink Kindle device and not a Kindle app or Fire tablet. There is no hope of recovery of DRM protected books from either of those.

[jhowell]

DRM for e-ink Kindles is based on the serial number of the device and not the customer account. So for any hope of recovery of those files you should make a note of the serial number of your Kindle while it is still functional. Be especially careful of look-alike characters such as "0" and "O".

One slight piece of good news is that your book backups will always be usable on that Kindle as long as it functions. Even if you register it to a different Amazon account at some point you will still be able to copy those books back via USB and have them be readable.

[vxf]

This is not quite a reply to OP. But I got banned from Amazon.it in a very surreal manner.

I got an email saying that I needed to verify my credit card info because some 'security team' had flagged a transaction as suspect. I was buying Christmas presents for parents in Italy. It gave me a link to do so. But when I clicked on the link, it would ask me to login. Which I could not do, because the account was already frozen. Dozens of phone calls later, I just gave up. I kept running into the wall of them wanting me to upload something proving my billing address was correct, while preventing me from doing so by freezing the account. Despite escalating the problem to various Amazon teams, no-one was willing, or able, to solve it. To date, I cannot access that account.

Did not have any Kindle items on it, it was just an account I used for presents. But still, a surreal experience.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by vxf

This is not quite a reply to OP. But I got banned from Amazon.it in a very surreal manner.

I got an email saying that I needed to verify my credit card info because some 'security team' had flagged a transaction as suspect. I was buying Christmas presents for parents in Italy. It gave me a link to do so. But when I clicked on the link, it would ask me to login. Which I could not do, because the account was already frozen. Dozens of phone calls later, I just gave up. I kept running into the wall of them wanting me to upload something proving my billing address was correct, while preventing me from doing so by freezing the account. Despite escalating the problem to various Amazon teams, no-one was willing, or able, to solve it. To date, I cannot access that account.

Did not have any Kindle items on it, it was just an account I used for presents. But still, a surreal experience.

Are you certain that the email was from Amazon? To me, it sounds quite possible that you responded to a phishing email and the credentials you entered on that site were used to attempt to make purchases using the recorded payment information which can easily trigger an account freeze.

As for sending your billing address information, what does that have to do with your account being frozen? Amazon's customer service can be accessed via email, etc. without access to your account so sending them an email with the image of a snail mail bill in it's envelope showing your address through the window would likely work (assuming that you are still getting some bills from utilities, the tax man, whatever via snail mail).

[blesseda]

Thank you guys for all the advice. Suddenly my account was unblocked tonight! I still have no clue what happened. When I called support a few days ago, she said they would email me. I kept trying to log in and it went through tonight. I have backed them up already.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by blesseda

Thank you guys for all the advice. Suddenly my account was unblocked tonight! I still have no clue what happened. When I called support a few days ago, she said they would email me. I kept trying to log in and it went through tonight. I have backed them up already.

I am delighted you had a happy outcome, and strongly encourage you to follow Sirtel's excellent advice above, to "unlock" your Kindle purchases by removing drm each time you purchase them.

[rantanplan]

Agree, you don't want to be this dependent on a quasi-monopolist that doesn't have any incentive to care about you.

[Quoth]

And to avoid mistypes, go to Content & Devices and Copy/paste your Kindle serial number into a text file. Make a backup of that as well as the ebooks

Then if your computer dies etc, you can copy/paste the serial number into the freshly installed plug in.


Glad you sorted.

I got an email saying that I needed to verify my credit card info because some 'security team' had flagged a transaction as suspect.

Always go direct to the website, never a link in an email.
Similarly if you get a phone call, hang up, ring a friend to make sure scammer isn't holding line and then ring official number.

Unsolicited email with a strange link (on Desktop hover to check REAL link, the text can be a lie) or unsolicited phone calls are usually scams.

[BookCat]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Always go direct to the website, never a link in an email.
Similarly if you get a phone call, hang up, ring a friend to make sure scammer isn't holding line and then ring official number.

Unsolicited email with a strange link (on Desktop hover to check REAL link, the text can be a lie) or unsolicited phone calls are usually scams.