Amazon suspends Kindle account after too many product returns
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted April 16th 2009 4:11PM
posted April 16th 2009 4:11PM
The Kindle should be a pretty straight forward proposition, but this just goes to show you how sometimes folks can stir up controversy even with something as innocuous as an e-book reader. First there was the hassle with the Writers Guild over text-to-speech, and then Amazon threatened MobileRead with legal action for merely linking to software they didn't take kindly too. And now we're hearing alarming tales of Kindle owners who have had their accounts turned off when inadvertently running afoul of company policy. Case in point, a user on the MobileRead forums reports being locked out of his account for what was termed an "extraordinary" rate of returns (that is, he returned electronics that arrived damaged or defective). Because of this, our man was unable to purchase new books for his device, or even check out magazine / newspaper / blog subscriptions he had already paid for. Luckily, this gentleman was able to plead his case and get his account reactivated -- but other users haven't been quite so fortunate. We'll be keeping an eye on you, Amazon -- so let's try and play nice for now on.
[Via Channel Web]
[Via Channel Web]
What the hell are you talking about? They didn't take anything away from him, they closed his account. Your Kindle is linked to your Amazon account. No Amazon account? No Kindle Store. He can still read anything he's already purchased since those are stored on the Kindle itself.
If you own a Kindle, don't close your Amazon account and don't do anything to get it closed like try to scam Amazon with tons of bogus returns. If the returns were legit, contact customer service and plead your case. That's what this guy did, and they re-opened his account.
@schtum: I think that's his point. The legal side of these things needs to be cleared up and fast because in this day and age services ARE products. It's really amazon's own fault that this happens too since they lock it down so hard that there's no other way to use it except with a kindle account.
@schtum
Perhaps a better analogy would be that, if you pester Microsoft with Vista complaints too often, they could turn off your ability to save new MS Word documents. "Hey, no problem: you can still read all your old docs! What are you complaining about?"
If you're really worried about this happening to you, the thing to do would be to open up a separate account just for your Kindle. You might need a different email address to open a new account, but each Kindle has its own email address so that's easy enough. It's a small pain in the ass, but it should keep your Kindle working if your regular account is shut down for any reason.
I'm not actually worried, I was just trying to understand the principle. If I were actually worried, I'd just use Stanza on my iPhone to read ebooks that I torrented for free.
Actually, you can store a thousand books on the Kindle itself, but you can also archive items which are then stored under your account on Amazon. If your account is closed you lose access to those archived items.
Believe you me if you ever worked in a store you come to know that weirdos exist (and the thought that some of you nutters will read this gives me the shivers!). I wouldn't be surprise if this guy ordered the stuff only to have a play around and then return it. I have seen much much worse.
Man, am I glad I read this site's feed.
I was this close to buying one.
This is why smart people buy a Sony Reader or some other comparable e-ink reader if they're in the market. Believe it or not the Sony is the most un-locked down unit out there.
Er. . . The Kindle can do everything the Sony PRS505 can do, plus it has free wireless syncing, a web browser, and a direct G3 connection to the Kindle book store. The Sony can't read e-books purchased from Amazon, who-- by the way-- is the largest book retailer in the world at this point. The Sony eBook store is clunky, requires a computer running Windows, and proprietary software.
(And yes, the Kindle can view any format you can view on the Sony (aside from Sony DRM'd files), as long as you either use Calibre, Amazon's service, or Savory to convert. Once converted, PDF files refresh and format faster on the Kindle than they do in native format on the Sony.)
Zerocorpse,
But, if you read the original article, the Sony Reader isn't going to shut you down where you can't buy books or magazines and ask you to beg for forgiveness in order to reactivate your account.
IMO hardcover novels, books, etc. have their own charm! An electronic gadget won't take their place in my home. :)
I can buy a novel, read it and resell it on eBay, donate it to a Goodwill store or simply keep it...
FYI: It was the Authors Guild (books), not the Writers Guild (screenwriters), that had issues with the text-to-speech feature.
I love my Kindle (and my Sony Reader) but this policy of Amazon's needs to be changed pronto. The DRM issue, in general, needs to move forward (as in to extinction) instead of the current constant ranting nonsense that changes nothing.
This fellow should have at least been able to back up his books onto his computer and read them there. I'm talking legally here. No one should have to worry about prosecution over books that they've paid for.
(Yeah, I know - more ranting nonsense...)
You know, Amazon, you only recently started turning a profit. Maybe you ought to think twice about treating your customers like crap (especially the gay ones), because it won't take much more of this disrespect before you slip back to "fifty shares for a penny" status.
AMAZON Sucks! I have been ripped off one to many times from buying and
selling on that site. You have been warned!
I used to work at amazon, and while far from a perfect company I can tell you they don't shut down accounts randomly or for small infractions. I'm not familiar enough with the way the Kindle works to know what he lost when they turned off his account, but I can say that in my experience, it took quite a bit of abuse just to raise a customer up to the level of scrutiny, much less actually having their account shut down. Obviously I'm not sure what this guys specific circumstances are, but I'm inclined to give amazon the benefit of the doubt on this one because, at least when I worked there, shutting down accounts what not something that was done lightly.
We in the Kindle community have known about this for a while now. This guy has pestered the Amazon forums and other communities with his tale of woe, and from what anyone can figure out he has a pretty substantial record of buying expensive electronics, opening them, using them for a couple days, and then returning them as "defective" or "unsatisfactory." He admits as much in at least one review.
Well, here's a news flash: ANY retailer will cut you off if you cost them more than they make off of you. If he's buying widescreen HDTVs, computers, and other electronics and returning them opened because he *believes* they're defective or not up to his standards, then he's costing Amazon the ability to re-sell these items as new. They lose out, as do the sellers who fulfill orders through Amazon. Eventually, if the amount he returns balances against the amount he keeps, he's going to get kicked to the curb.
More than a few of us think he's full of sh!t when he says he "only returned defective items". I've been ordering from Amazon for many years now, and I've only had to return one item. Amazon has great customer service if you don't abuse their return policies.
He should have thought of his Kindle account before he abused Amazon's return policy. It has been mentioned by those close to this situation that he WAS warned, and continued to return opened items at an alarming rate. That's HIS screw-up, not Amazon's.
Guys like that drive prices up for the rest of us. To hell with him.