Less than stellar Kindle support from Amazon

[twowheels]

After all of the claims that I've seen online about how awesome Amazon's support was for the Kindle I was really surprised by my recent experience...

I e-mailed Amazon with a question about giving a child a Kindle and protecting the account from purchases via that Kindle (requiring a password for that Kindle to buy books). The response was rather terse and of course offered no solution. I also sent a suggestion for a feature that I'd really like to see, and the response was also terse... whatever, I didn't expect much from that.

Today, my gf bought a Kindle as a gift for her dad. Ignorant about the issues with the unlit cover, she purchased one. I called to ask if this was a re-released version that resolved the hanging/rebooting issues or some old stock that Best Buy still had. The first guy barely spoke English and didn't know anything about the problem. He then transferred me to another person who knew of the problem, but didn't seem very helpful. I wasn't asking for a replacement, I was merely asking if it was possible that it was a new version that we wouldn't have to worry about. She wouldn't answer my question about whether they'd completely stopped selling them [even through third parties] or not, it was very strange -- kept telling me that it was up to Best Buy to control their own stock (not if Amazon refuses to sell them the cover!). I finally got fed up and ended the call, deciding to return the cover just in case.

Apparently Amazon doesn't like me, even though I made $50 worth of purchases from them this week alone and had just told them that we'd bought three Kindles today as gifts!

[bhartman36]

Sorry you had a bad experience w/ Amazon customer service. For what it's worth (although I'm sure it's not worth too much to you at the moment) that's kind of rare, from everything I've seen.

As far as the problem with kids accidentally purchasing books, there are two lines of defense:

1) You can get a refund for any purchases you didn't mean to make. (I'm not sure what the process is for that, but I'm sure someone else here knows.)

2) You can go into your account on the Amazon homepage and disable one-click ordering. The downside to this (and you'll have to decide how big a deal this is for you) is that you'll have to download from the website on your computer, and transfer the files via USB.

As far as the cover question: I've had my unlighted cover since Christmas, with no problems, but that was bought from Amazon. I can understand your frustration, but I also understood the position that the customer service person took at Amazon: Amazon (as far as I know) can't police Best Buy's inventory. They can stop selling the defective covers, of course, but they can't stop Best Buy from selling them. All they could possibly do is to buy them back from Best Buy. I assume that the generous policy they have regarding replacing the covers (bought from Amazon) means they're less than eager to buy back covers from retailers they sold them to. The good news is, if the cover doesn't work for you, you can return it to Best Buy and get one from Amazon.

[karunaji]

I have similar experience with Amazon support. It is fantastic when it falls within their defined parameters including refunding for purchases. But it appears that they don't have a system in place to actually listen to reader's problems and suggestions for features. It is very troubling because I had a small issue when sending my documents to Kindle via WiFi and the customer support only bounced back standard replies that didn't help at all. I gave up and asked Mobileread community for help and it solved my problem very quickly Amazon apparently don't even keep a Knowledge base about bugs and issues of their own software.

As for having a Kindle with limited book purchasing rights, I guess you could make a separate Amazon account for your child and that account should not have a credit card on file. You can send books to this account as gifts bought from your own account. I recently gave a Kindle as a gift to a friend with some books preloaded. I registered this Kindle with a new account and it is possible to avoid leaving credit card for potential misuse in this new account while having Kindle fully registered and active.

[MichelRenaud]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

2) You can go into your account on the Amazon homepage and disable one-click ordering. The downside to this (and you'll have to decide how big a deal this is for you) is that you'll have to download from the website on your computer, and transfer the files via USB.

Actually you don't need to do that. I always do my ordering via the PC, without one-click ordering enabled. As long as I tell Amazon to deliver to my Kindle (which appears to be the default option), the Kindle will grab it using Whispernet. I've never had to transfer an eBook bought from Amazon using USB.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by MichelRenaud

Actually you don't need to do that. I always do my ordering via the PC, without one-click ordering enabled. As long as I tell Amazon to deliver to my Kindle (which appears to be the default option), the Kindle will grab it using Whispernet. I've never had to transfer an eBook bought from Amazon using USB.

Good to know. Thanks!

[kindlekitten]

the biggest problem you have in all of these situations is that you need to be contacting Kindle support, not Amazon support.

[patrickt]

Kindle support is usually, but not always, superior. Kindle users are also usually, but not always, superior. That's life.

My ex-wife complained, of course, that she always, always, always had bad experiences with customer service at stores especially stores where I had good experiences. She insisted it was because I was a man and she was a woman. I suggested it might be because I was pleasant and she wasn't. I was wrong again.

[pidgeon92]

I agree that calling Amazon Kindle customer service (1-866-321-8851) will likely get a better result than regular Amazon CS.

And no, Amazon has not updated the unlit cover, they just discontinued it. That said, I've had problems with my lit cover as well, but not often enough for me to stop using it.

[susan_cassidy]

Kindle book orders are always one-click, whether or not you have it enabled on other Amazon orders.

I agree that ordering via the PC is much preferable to trying to do it from the Kindle.

[JeremyR]

As I've said after every glowing report about how great Amazon's customer service is, it's only good if you call them.

If you email them, it's completely worthless and often infuriating.

How an online company can be so bad at online service is beyond me...

[MichelRenaud]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

As I've said after every glowing report about how great Amazon's customer service is, it's only good if you call them.

If you email them, it's completely worthless and often infuriating.

I've only had to use their customer service once, but that was my experience. I asked a few questions by e-mail, and while the e-mail was half-helpful, it seemed like the person did not understand a couple of questions. So I clicked on "this did not answer my question" (something like that), at which point some page showed up "give us another chance" and I could ask them to call me. The phone rang right away, I explained the issue to some lady who transferred me to Kindle support and I spent a good 15 minutes on the phone with the guy (that was before I bought my DXG - I had some questions about shipping to Canada as well as concerns with some of the feedback I had read in the reviews.) Bottom line, can't complain.

The funny thing is that, yes, they're an online company and you pretty much have to use the phone to get good support, while some "non online companies" won't even let you phone them and only offer e-mail support. Go figure.

[Charlie Dog]

Sorry

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

the biggest problem you have in all of these situations is that you need to be contacting Kindle support, not Amazon support.

I was... I should have been more specific.

[RainingLemur]

Sorry you had a crappy experience. As good as their support tends to be, they can't please all of the people all of the time.

[karunaji]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

As I've said after every glowing report about how great Amazon's customer service is, it's only good if you call them.

If you email them, it's completely worthless and often infuriating.

How an online company can be so bad at online service is beyond me...

Hey, that's my experience too. But it makes a lot of business sense as there will be customers complaining about everything and anything. Their trivial questions can be dealt by less qualified (and cheaper) staff. More difficult cases then can go to a more qualified second level support. You certainly can't give unrestricted access to them as everyone will want to use it for their trivial issues.

The problem is that the first line of support due to their incompetence are unable to identify important cases that should be forwarded to upper level immediately. More experienced customers have already learned the skill to navigate through script reading droids but it takes some time and sometimes frustration. This process also makes a lot of dissatisfied customers. An inventor who finds a way how to differentiate and provide the best support to everyone will surely get a Nobel prize in economics