Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#271

Post by commandlinefan » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:16 PM UTC

rvba wrote: post #145

arthur_sav wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just Amazon. All big tech companies have this "trigger happy" approach to closing down accounts. Especially payment companies. I believe we need to pass down new consumer laws to protect the people. We pretty much rely on their services and they have no accountability.

The worst are banks and payment processors who sttaight out censor legal businesses. If porn/weed/crypto or other stuff is legal, then the bank should not be moral police and close their account. Banks are not police, or judicary system and one cannot run a company without a bank account. If they explain this with risk, then there should be some special state run bank that handles higher risk customers - and for exam…

> banks and payment processors

OTOH, I doubt the banks themselves are doing it for personal moral reasons, rather because of outside pressure. They're doing it out of fear of the power that picketers have over their actual livelihood.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#272

Post by MereInterest » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:25 PM UTC

danaris wrote: post #269

phpisthebest wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this problem all the time with the HSA card (or did until i changed providers) I would rarely use it, but then I would try to pay for something with it and it would be declined, when I called they always said it was "suspended due to inactivity"

That's particularly egregious—what percentage of people with an HSA or similar is likely to be spending money from it more than once every few months??

If you have a periodic prescription, then that may require the HSA every time you pick up the prescription.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#273

Post by NotTheDr01ds » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:26 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #212

jefftk wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> firing at least two people involved in the debacle The idea that after a mistake companies should fire people leads to company cultures that are overall worse for everyone, including customers/users. Demand that they apologize, even that they give compensation, but not firing.

During my tike there, Amazon's failure culture, as in yes, mistakes and failures happen, and as long as don't happen twice and lessons are learned nobody gets blame or the axe, was one of the things I liked best. This whole asking for punishment is what actually drives a culture in which these kinds of things do happen more frequently, because everyone involved just wants to cover their asses.

Okay, "firing" might be too strong, but that policy of "tolerating mistakes" (as long as it doesn't happen twice and lessons are learned) seems to have created a corporate culture where (if this story is true, and it seems to be confirmed):

- A customer can be mistakenly called a racist

- Their home automation systems they bought and paid for disabled

- Any digital content (Kindle books, Amazon Prime Video purchases, Audible books, etc.) they bought (sorry, "licensed") revoked.

- It takes more than a week to resolve after being provided with clear evidence of the company's mistake. I mean, good grief, at least the manager/executive should have reactivated the customer's account during the review process, but they opted for "guilty until we've taken our sweet time reviewing the evidence and make sure they're innocent".

- After all that, the customer isn't even offered an apology, much less compensation.

This isn't just a "mistakes and failures happen" situation. Failures and mistakes occurred at multiple points in this process and along the decision chain, and apparently no one involved had the common sense to break out of the resulting insanity-loop.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#274

Post by jasonlotito » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:29 PM UTC

comboy wrote: post #116

unreal37 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you attempt to use a credit card that you haven't used in years, the bank will similarly ask you to verify your identity. I don't think it's weird that unused valuable accounts need re-identification when you start to use them again. I don't mind anti-spam measures in cases which are common spam techniques. Hijacking unused accounts is common enough to warrant an approach like this.

But instagram is not a bank. I understand not wanting yet another company to have my photo (which nowadays is pretty much knowing who you are) + phone number. Plus it shouldn't require personal identification to post a photo online, especially given how easy it has became to filter out illegal content automatically.

[flagged]

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#275

Post by davely » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:30 PM UTC

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #177

Yeri wrote: post #28

Summary: The YouTuber had his Amazon affiliate account canceled after 7 years without warning or evidence of wrongdoing. The reason given was that purchases made through his links were for personal use or made by friends and family, which he denies. He finds the timing suspicious as it came a week after he made a video criticizing Amazon for canceling a customer's account for a racist doorbell claim. He argues that t…

> He believes Amazon is becoming less accountable as it grows in power and treats customers worse. He's right. I have recent first-hand experience of them deleting reviews of counterfeit products. The emails say: "We investigated your concerns about product authenticity, and the information we have indicates that the product you received was authentic." I've tried posting a review a further 4 times, each time only me…

Oof. That is hilarious and maddening.

It’s a disturbing trend on any site we rely on or use for services. There is no recourse, once a decision has been made. Last week, I was banned from Facebook Marketplace because… I don’t actually know.

I’m cleaning out an old shed and want to sell a bunch of stuff. So, I logged into Facebook for the first time in 2 years, posted a Shop Vac for sale for $50 USD, and an hour later was locked out of Marketplace.

There is an option to “request a review”, which I did. An automated reply a few days later said they would not restore my account at this time. And that’s it.

No warning, no communication, no justification.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#276

Post by giancarlostoro » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:30 PM UTC

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #177

Yeri wrote: post #28

Summary: The YouTuber had his Amazon affiliate account canceled after 7 years without warning or evidence of wrongdoing. The reason given was that purchases made through his links were for personal use or made by friends and family, which he denies. He finds the timing suspicious as it came a week after he made a video criticizing Amazon for canceling a customer's account for a racist doorbell claim. He argues that t…

> He believes Amazon is becoming less accountable as it grows in power and treats customers worse. He's right. I have recent first-hand experience of them deleting reviews of counterfeit products. The emails say: "We investigated your concerns about product authenticity, and the information we have indicates that the product you received was authentic." I've tried posting a review a further 4 times, each time only me…

My guess is that's just the shell to make people more likely to buy the product.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#277

Post by wahnfrieden » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:32 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #248

wahnfrieden wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologizing is useless when the power remains

Amazon is a large entity with complex processes. Firing one of the people involved in implementing those processes does not make things better for users or affect how much power Amazon has in the situation.

Yeah that's already obvious

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#278

Post by mihaaly » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:32 PM UTC

Eisenstein wrote: post #240

mihaaly wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sense that some of this trigger happy approach is coming from other consumer protection laws triggered by the society (through popularity hungry polititians) demanding action from someone and anyone when one or some adverse parties use technology and services with harmful intent. Not all of course, companies with too much power act hostile just for the sake of it (means random management bullshit from power obsesse…

Ah yes, the old 'companies are screwing us but it is regulation that is the real problem' argument that seems to disregard everything that reality and history presents. Hint: if you have no evidence of something but believe it because of an underlying philosophy, you should figure out how true it is before arguing its case.

Probably should not diregard the history of harmful regulations while doing so?...

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#279

Post by chinathrow » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:37 PM UTC

huijzer wrote: post #214

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He believes Amazon is becoming less accountable as it grows in power and treats customers worse. He's right. I have recent first-hand experience of them deleting reviews of counterfeit products. The emails say: "We investigated your concerns about product authenticity, and the information we have indicates that the product you received was authentic." I've tried posting a review a further 4 times, each time only me…

I also agreed. Our Kindle Direct Publishing account was banned at a random point for a questionable reason. They didn’t pay out the last month.

Time for small claims court?

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#280

Post by AdamJacobMuller » Fri, Jun 23, 2023, 1:38 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #107

Yeri wrote: post #28

Summary: The YouTuber had his Amazon affiliate account canceled after 7 years without warning or evidence of wrongdoing. The reason given was that purchases made through his links were for personal use or made by friends and family, which he denies. He finds the timing suspicious as it came a week after he made a video criticizing Amazon for canceling a customer's account for a racist doorbell claim. He argues that t…

> The reason given was that purchases made through his links were for personal use or made by friends and family, which he denies He has 1.8 million subscribers and talks about gear. There's no way his affiliate purchases were done by "friends and family" in any significant number above 0.1% to even matter. It's just Amazon payback BS.

Sure but the T&Cs are written such that even the .1% makes him subject to termination and that's kind of the point.

If you write the rules (or laws) such that everyone is breaking them but then chose when and how to enforce those laws you can selectively enforce them against specific people or specific kinds of people. You're terminating him for a totally legitimate not-at-all-dystopian reason when obviously the real motivation is something else entirely. You just weren't looking to see if anyone else committed the crime.