I'm scared, frustrated, don't know who to go to anymore

[Redcard]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Probably an uneducated opinion, but I really think the op should have access to items he has legitimately paid for or a refund. Just the way I expect thing to work in my world.

Also the concept of innocent until proven guilty in the free world although that seems to be changing in some countries.

Helen

Nobody accused him of a crime, just of violation of terms of service, which he agreed to. I suspect that the full story is a bit more justified than the OP is letting on here.

[speakingtohe]

Justified or not it does not correspond to the way justice work in the brick and mortar world.

If a person offends Sears by not paying their bill, Sears must get a court injunction to seize the property, or rely on collection agencies to recoup part of the payment. Same with a car dealer etc.

If a person steals an item from a store or individual they must go through the law if they want recourse. No law that I know of allows them to take other items legally purchased or not. Maybe the police can but the store cannot.

In no case have I heard of can a retailer just take back or block access to all of the items they have sold the person who doesn't pay or steals and perhaps those of others who may have used the offenders account to purchase.

I don't think the op is intentionally guilty, but it might be that the op may in some/all ways be to blame. I don't pretend to know and prefer to give the benefit of the doubt in this case.

I do think that Amazon (and overall I am an Amazon fan) is overstepping its bounds in this and other related instances. A disclaimer does not override laws that apply to brick and mortar businesses, or allow them to legally deny the buyer access to items they have purchased even if these items reside in the cloud.

Eventually their will be a big noise made and Amazon will back down. Probably too late for the op.

[Asawi]

I'm leaning towards the opinion that the OP probably have violated Amazon policies without realizing it. Some of the actions taken surely indicate somewhat "not really thinking things through".

Closing an account an opening a new one for the sole purpose of changing the e-mail address, using the Kindle trying to log in to a closed account, the need to have one account for selling and another for buying to avoid having to sort e-mail...

This isn't a person that think things through that extra time. In the process of doing not "really thought through things" it can easily happen that a policy gets violated. What makes perfect sense to this person isn't neccessarily what actually is perfect sense. For example, this double account thing makes no sense at all to me, and may even be a violation of Amazon policies (I don't know), but by saying that I'm not saying I'm right and OP is wrong.

I still think some sort of warning should have been issued before complete closedown.

[issybird]

Who's at fault, who bears the onus, I don't think it matters. The OP's hit a brick wall and I suspect has really poohed the scrooch by subsequent actions. He might consider a few more reasonably worded emails, but I question the potential efficacy.

Everything else that has been suggested--getting a lawyer, stalking Bezos, contacting the local news and/or the BBB--I think are all a further time sink at best, and in the case of the lawyer, prohibitively expensive. What is the dollar loss here? I can't imagine it would begin to cover the cost of a lawyer and that's with no assurance of ultimate satisfaction.

Sometimes you have to walk away. Chalk it up, learn from it, move on. In this case, buy a new reader with a new company, replace the important things, and make sure not to do anything that will raise flags. I know it might be difficult to be cut off from Amazon, but no point in spinning wheels, trying to circumvent their controls, and possibly setting yourself up for further retaliation once you're reinvested in them.

[jrw93]

Hello All --

Thank you for your tips on trying to get my account reinstated.

I took the advice on to e-mail Jeff Bezos at jeff@amazon.com and received this response:

Hello,

I'm Allissa Bratager of Amazon.com's Executive Customer Relations team. Jeff Bezos received your e-mail and asked me to respond on his behalf.

I've thoroughly reviewed your account and confirmed the information you received from our Account Specialist is correct. We've found your account is directly related to another account which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. While I know this is disappointing news, please know this decision is a final decision, and we won't be considering further requests to reinstate your account.

We appreciate your understanding on this matter.


Regards,

Allissa Bratager
Executive Customer Relations
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com

In my e-mail to Jeff, I asked him for the account name that was "closed due to abuse of policy." I also asked him to clarify on this "abuse of policy." I mentioned that I was a Amazon customer since 2009, and praised amazon on its great customer service.

However, as you can tell from the above e-mail, the response I got answered none of the questions. It simply regurgitated what regular Amazon specialists told me. Also -- It wasn't even Jeff himself that responded. My guess is he glanced at the title and forwarded it to the appropriate department.

Also, I wanted to add that selling items you purchased via Amazon.com is not a violation. I could understand if someone purchased many copies (When amazon states in product description 1 per account or something) with intent to resell, but buying something and then selling it months later due to it laying around and having no use for it is definitely not a policy violation.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Justified or not it does not correspond to the way justice work in the brick and mortar world.

Hate to point out the patently obvious, but this is not the brick and mortar world, and so there's no reason to think everything should work the same.

When comes down to it, all Amazon did is prevent him from continuing to use their services. That's all. The did not come confiscate his Kindle, the didn't sneak into his house and delete files off his computer. If he had backed his stuff up, and not been goofy with his Kindle, and rather just copied the files off via USB, he'd still have his stuff.

I am concerned if Amazon takes these actions too capriciously, and without recourse, but this talk of them needing court injunctions and such is just out of place here.

ApK

[ApK]

Originally Posted by jrw93

It wasn't even Jeff himself that responded. My guess is he glanced at the title and forwarded it to the appropriate department.

Really? Do you honestly think that Jeff Bezos personally even saw the title?

[speakingtohe]

When comes down to it, all Amazon did is prevent him from continuing to use their services. That's all. The did not come confiscate his Kindle, the didn't sneak into his house and delete files off his computer. If he had backed his stuff up, and not been goofy with his Kindle, and rather just copied the files off via USB, he'd still have his stuff.

Guess so. Let the buyer beware. Hate to have to explain that to my 87 year old mother though. Even myself I think that the law should apply to all venders even those with a big advantage already.

Helen

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Redcard

Legit action by amazon. I know, small sample size and all, and all I've done is ask people I know at AMZN to possibly revisit things, and in every case I've heard about.. people I know and trust.. have come back and said "Fraud."

I should point out in the interest of fairness, that, at best, all that indicates is that Amazon BELIEVES there was fraud, not that there was, and not that the fraud, if real, was perpetrated by the person who lost access to their stuff rather than an identity thief, and if it wasn't that person, it doesn't indicate that Amazon communicated effectively with the customer to let them know what was happening and what they could do about it.

So it's nice to know your friend confirms that Amazon isn't randomly throwing thunderbolts at innocent people, for no reason, but it doesn't prove that some customers aren't getting wrongly seperated from theitr stuff and are being left in the dark about why.
(We have no solid proof any customers ARE, either, of course, I'm just sayin'...)

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by jrw93

I logged onto the Kindle to see if I could redownload all the content and save them on my computer, stripping the DRM via Calibre. Not the best idea, as I guess the logging in via the closed account on my kindle flagged amazon's system, therefore blacklisting the kindle and wiping EVERYTHING.

Are you saying that the removed the books that were actually on the Kindle, or just removed access to your archive?

[Binko]

The "blame the victim" mentality here astounds me. People harp on a supposed violation of the terms of service. People focus on supposed inconsistencies in the OP's story. People say the OP should "learn a lesson" and "be more careful".

In reality we should all be horrified that content which a user purchased can be yanked back at the sellers whim, with no recourse, no explanation and no warning. It doesn't matter that the OP screwed up in some way. The Terms Of Service of companies like Amazon basically just use multiple pages of dense legalese to say that they can do anything they want.

This issue is not limited to Amazon. There is an online business called Steam that sells games. The games are downloaded and linked to an account. There have been many cases where people purchased hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of games and then one transaction goes bad for some reason and Steam simply closes the account because it's the easiest thing for them to do.

At some point in the digital age we consumers need to start holding content providers to same small minimum level of fair dealings. The first step towards this would be to stop the endless blaming of the victim when things go bad. Even if somebody screws up they still have a basic right to items they have already purchased or licensed.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Binko

At some point in the digital age we consumers need to start holding content providers to same small minimum level of fair dealings. The first step towards this would be to stop the endless blaming of the victim when things go bad. Even if somebody screws up they still have a basic right to items they have already purchased or licensed.

Even if the person who's account has been closed is at fault, they have the right to know what the reasoning is for the account being closed.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Binko

The "blame the victim" mentality here astounds me.[...]The first step towards this would be to stop the endless blaming of the victim .

For all we know, the only victim here could very well be Amazon.

You call for not blaming the victim, I'll call for not thinking of everyone as a victim.

That being said, we all seem to be in agreement with you concerning the need for fairness, transparency and communication.

[Harmon]

Amazon has the right to be wrong. It also has the right to arbitrarily or erroneously decide not to sell its products to someone (putting aside civil rights violations). And it has no obligation to keep a copy of a digital item on its website so that customers can redownload it.

Basically, the OP is screwed. There's a dim possibility that a small claims court action might allow him/her to recover the cost of the Fire, since one might argue that Amazon makes an implied promise of access to the Amazon store when it sells you one. But truthfully, the small claims court route will cost more than could ever be recovered, in time or money. The only reason to do it would be if you were retired and wanted to fill the empty hours by trying to jerk the legal department around.

Basically, taking the OP at his/her word, what this shows is that Amazon has made a business decision that it is not going to invest its resources in arguing with its customers, even if the customer might be right, where it appears to Amazon that the customer is related to someone trying to rip Amazon off.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Even if the person who's account has been closed is at fault, they have the right to know what the reasoning is for the account being closed.

No unless there's a state law or regulation that says as much.

Certainly, it violates our sense of fair play that Amazon has decided not to disclose the reason, but the sad fact is that the customer has no right to know the reason. There doesn't even have to be a reason.