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Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

consumerist.com

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Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#71

Post by noonespecial »

Note to google, amazon, paypal, anyone with a feature that can freeze, ban, hold, or otherwise disable accounts containing things that are valuable and especially paid for by customers:

You need a department that can take responsibility for account lockouts and resolve them! STAT! It is not acceptable for no one in the company to know why an account was disabled or how to go about reinstating it!

If piracy can be called "stealing" and no one bats an eye, I'm going to go ahead and call account lockouts with resolution refusal stealing as well. $1000 is well within the bounds of small claims courts in most jurisdictions.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#72

Post by rmc »

jordan0day wrote: post #28
rmc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure many of these same concerns apply to the Kindle Not really. I have a Kindle 3, and have loads of non-DRM-ed, 3rd party books on it.

I meant Kindle books, from Amazon.

Books sold on the Kindle Store don't require DRM. You can sell creative commons licenced works using "Kindle Direct Publishing" on the Kindle Store with no DRM at all.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#73

Post by rmc »

jordan0day wrote: post #28
rmc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure many of these same concerns apply to the Kindle Not really. I have a Kindle 3, and have loads of non-DRM-ed, 3rd party books on it.

I meant Kindle books, from Amazon.

Books sold on the Kindle Store don't require DRM. You can sell creative commons licenced works using "Kindle Direct Publishing" on the Kindle Store with no DRM at all.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#74

Post by timwiseman »

felipemnoa wrote: post #59
timwiseman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is possible and also my hope. Unfortunately, I think there are a number of differences that will make that harder with ebooks than regular books. Most significantly, people consume the media different. Excluding a few reference books and the Bible, I tend to read a book once and then I am done with it, and I think most people are like that. Even people who reread books only do it a few times with some spacing in…

>>I tend to read a book once and then I am done with it This may be true for novels, but science, engineering and math books are usually used for a long, long time. I still have all of mine for reference and every once in a while I do come back to many of them.

I used to do that a lot with my math books and computer science books (I have a degree in math and work as a programmer), but I eventually found that while I prefer to use a book to learn new material, I virtually always use the Internet for a quick reference and only rarely refer back to them.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#75

Post by azov »

ajross wrote: post #55
azov wrote: post #48

What happened to the books on his device? $1000 worth of books should easily fit on one Kindle, even if he can't login to his account - how did he get locked out of his content? Did Amazon remotely wipe out his purchases? Did he buy books on site and never synced them? Does he have access to them from some other app or device, but can't sync a new one? Is he using a device at all? Is he using Kindle for the Web? Or,…

It's that an irrelevant technicality though? Say he reads only on his phone, and lost it. Does that make the case more or less important? What if some nice person buys him physical copies to replace the DRM'd ones? Does that get Amazon off the hook? There's a principle here. The specifics aren't really the point.

In principle I doubt anybody thinks that "trick you into paying for books, close your account, and run away with your money" is Amazon's new business model. Obviously it is some sort of mistake/miscommunication and they will eventially sort it out.

It's the details that make the story interesting.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#77

Post by aw3c2 »

Symmetry wrote: post #39

This is why I back up all my Kindle purchases to my hard drive with Calibre. They're DRMed still, but I know I can crack the files if something like this happens to me.

This is why I do not buy DRM-ed things and rather become a criminal who has control over the things he "owns".

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#78

Post by JonLim »

jordan0day wrote: post #25
JonLim wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be 100% honest, I've bene nothing but very very happy with my Kindle. Purchased a book by accident? Refund instantly or done within 5 minutes. Switching devices? No problemo, pages are synced up to the last page you read. Wiping your device? All your books are online and available for download. This seems like a fringe case that I'm not too worried about. I have a full purchase history on Amazon.com and if anythin…

I don't doubt I'd probably have a very similar experience to yours with my device. It's entirely possible that I could use it as intended for the next ten years and never experience a single hiccup with the service. I guess worrying about those edge cases just kind of comes naturally, perhaps a little too much personal experience with Murphy's Law? Perhaps really my chief complaint boils down to the stereotypical iss…

Actually, as a device purchaser, I personally don't care about edge cases. (It can happen to anyone.)

However, as a service provider, edge cases are what keep me up at night but are fantastic opportunities for providing even better service. I'm not saying Amazon shouldn't care, but I personally wouldn't care too much about an edge case as long as Amazon does that person good.

As for DRM: if it isn't invasive or affect my experience with the book (Kindle and Steam are good examples here.) then I am okay by it. If it is used in some weird way to censor things? That's uncool.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#79

Post by JonLim »

cjdavis wrote: post #54
JonLim wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm inclined to agree. My own anecdotal experiences with Amazon customer service aside, something feels amiss about this whole situation. Why did they not call/email Amazon after a full 24 hours had gone by? Why are they disputing Amazon charges to their credit cards? I just feel like something is wrong here.

The letter clearly states he has contacted every Amazon support option he knows of: I have filed a complaint with the BBB, emailed everyone I could at Amazon, called the Customer Service Line, the Kindle "Executive" support line, and Corporate. I have been apologized to by everyone I have spoken to and been told that they have never seen this situation before. None of them can tell me if I will ever receive the conte…

Fair enough, didn't read carefully enough. Hope it gets resolved soon.

Re: Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs

#80

Post by bdrocco »

Simple solution. File a small claims court case for the cost the replace your library. The less offensive option that I've used in the past is finding the corporate contact from the Better Business Bureau and going directly to them. It works fairly often and fairly well because most companies value those reputations.

I agree with some of the comments here, simply because your company is an 'internet company' doesn't mean a 'Help' webpage is all you need for support. Actual personal support handling is virtually non-existent from large scale web companies and it's a disappointment.

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