Ian Member

Posts: 17 Karma: 34 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Kindle

Amazon has banned my account - my Kindle is now a (partial) brick. Hi all-



I have been a loyal Amazon.com customer for many years, but today, I received an email stating that I have been banned from the site and my account has been closed, because I apparently have an extraordinary rate of requesting refunds due to a variety of factors.



This is patently not true: I have only returned items that were defective, in complete accordance with their policies. I was not trying to game the system, I was not trying to get things for free - I just wanted products that worked properly, and if they didn't, they went back.



There was no warning; in fact, when I asked a question about the lightness of my Kindle's e-ink, a cs rep said "no problem, I'll send you a new one" -- and even after I told him "don't bother if it's going to be the same, mine is OK" -- he sent a new one anyway.



I have certainly kept thousands of dollars worth of items purchased from Amazon and planned to be a lifelong customer.



The ban from the main site is bad (and inexplicable) enough, but...



I have now discovered that I cannot manage my Kindle2 account (I can't log into Amazon) or purchase any new content.



In effect, I now have a $359 brick, not covered under any warranty, not able to be used the way it was meant to be, not able to be returned (not that I even want to, I just want to keep reading!)



I called customer service several times today; the supervisors there explained that I cannot use the Kindle store but "I can get content onto the machine different ways."



I have emailed the proper address, but I'm not hopeful of a positive solution.



I know you all don't know me from Adam, but I'm a good guy and didn't deserve this at all -- and no, I'm not going to bash Amazon here -- instead, I'm just going to tell y'all I'm going to make every call and write every (professional) email I can to get this situation resolved.



But please let this be a lesson to all of us - when you buy a Kindle, you are really buying a service-



-and that service can be turned off at a whim.



Not cool at all.



Amazon, do you have any people who monitor these forums? As I've stated, I'm a loyal customer and would like to believe this is an error or some inadvertent mistake.



Will you make it right? Please help.



-Ian