Lose Your Amazon Account and Your Kindle Dies 419
Mike writes "If you buy a Kindle and some Kindle ebooks from Amazon, be careful of returning items. Amazon decided that one person had returned too many things, so they suspended his Amazon account, which meant that he could no longer buy any Kindle books, and any Kindle subscriptions he's paid for stop working. After some phone calls, Amazon granted him a one-time exception and reactivated his account again." Take this with as much salt as you'd like.
Read through his posts... (Score:5, Interesting)
He clearly states that he regularly returns big ticket items because they're 'defective'. I know a number of people that utilize this same exploit on a regular basis. They only shop at places with excellent return policies. They order big ticket items and when they realize they maxxed their CC or decide the novelty has worn off, they return them because suddenly they notice a defect. Most of the time this defect was either imaginary or simply the result of several days/weeks of playtime.
As this becomes a hit to company profits, they will have to be much more careful on returns....making it much harder on those of us with valid returns. Too bad they reinstated his account.
Re:Just another reason to not support DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just another reason why DRM is not a benefit to the consumer and why consumers should *not* support DRM.
Which reminds me, anybody know the status on TechCrunch's open source tablet? [techcrunch.com]
Re:I bet the guy is a bad customer (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe they suspended his Amazon account because he had returned several purchases made on Amazon.com, not because he wanted to return eBooks. Since his Amazon account also serves as his Kindle account, he was then locked out of purchasing books for his Kindle.
Poor policy on their part but if you are really worried about this you could always just set up a separate account for your Kindle. If you never use it to make regular purchases I don't think you would ever have to touch it except to update your payment information when necessary.
Re:A right to do what? (Score:2, Interesting)
That isn't the case here. The DRM scheme Amazon uses ties the ebook to a specific device, but without expiration or cancellation ability. They aren't selling subscriptions after all. I have a Kindle and have 'experimented' with the DRM quite a bit.
A fair and just political response would be (Score:1, Interesting)
Ban the use of the word "purchase" when permanent ownership is not transferred.
Leasers or renters can then advertise with "License a copy of XX, only $19.99!" or "Lease e-books with the Kindle!". If you wish to hold a "sale, 50%", just ensure that no products are included which is really "50% off license fee" instead. The term "one-click purchasing" would naturally be banned, and Amazon would have to change this to "one-click licensing".
Banning false descriptions is neither anti-business nor unfair.
Re:Just another reason to not support DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder what the Office of Fair Trading or Trading Standards would have to say about Amazon UK banning people's accounts for returning defective goods.
I know companies are free to serve people or not at their own discretion, but that right is not absolute (racial discrimination etc.).
If a company were explicitly banning a person because they were a victim of that company's repeated shipping of defective goods, I'd like to think that would be unlawful. Perhaps I'm being too idealistic.
Re:A right to do what? (Score:5, Interesting)
However note that they COULD deactivate books he had previously purchased. That means that in the future they could do it intentionally for whatever reason suited them at the time.
In the past week they have demonstrated the ability to censor a large swath of publications and now to deactivate the right to read already purchased works. I.e., they have intentionally built the capabilities to do such things.
You can think whatever you want about the particular events that caused these capabilities to become evident, but they WERE revealed. Publicly.
Perhaps these two times were accidents. Next time it might not be. Next time it might be removing the ability to either read or purchase politically inconvenient items. Or religiously inconvenient. Or commercially. Or any other reason that suited them.
Decide for yourself if you want to trust a company that has intentionally implemented such capabilities. It's up to you. But if they've built the capability don't be surprised if they use it.
Re:Dont be a dumbass (Score:3, Interesting)
So you clearly never shop at Fry's. I have roughly a 50% failure rate for things I buy there -- and there has been more than one case where I had to exchange something several times before giving up and asking for my money back.
I don't shop at Fry's if I have a choice anymore, but my returns didn't make _me_ a bad person.
Re:Just another reason to not support DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
What does DRM have to do with this? The previous books he had bought would still be accessible. I have wireless turned off all the time on mine, sometimes months at a time, only when I buy something from the kindle store do I turn it on. Never has a file been unavailable.
The problem he had was the account was disabled. IE: There were no files being delivered. At all. He wouldn't have gotten books, mails sent to his @kindle account or subscription. The account was disabled, ergo it couldn't be accessed.
Or in other words: DRM is not the root of his woes.
Re:A right to do what? (Score:5, Interesting)
It also means that if the company you purchased a DRM-infected product from goes out of business, you will have a problem using the products you purchased. Ask the people who once used the "Urge" music system to buy what they thought was music they'd always be able to play. Yes, there may have been some little-known and difficult way to get your "licenses" renewed, but the people who bought those mp3s did not think they would someday have to work so hard just to keep playing them.
Buying a product with DRM is as dumb as buying a car from a company that's about to declare bankruptcy. Sure, you might be able to get it fixed in the future, but do you really want to go through all that?
Re:A right to do what? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, a company has the right to refuse service to anybody.
False. This is an act of civil disobedience. You can charge people with being a nuisance or loitering, but places open to the public must be open to the public with very little exception. All those signs that say "We reserve the right to refuse service..." are popular, but not only are they not legally enforceable, but they are actually illegal. It is just that enough businesses disagree with the law that it would be a major hassle for the police to go around arresting people for it, and of course there is very likely the free speech issue. You must be breaking the law for a business open to the general public to refuse to serve you. Of course, as mentioned above, breaking the law can include public nuisance, and loitering.
I'll bet there are further complication that would fall under the Clayton Anti-trust Act, but in defense, I am sure they use one of those special legal things in their TOS where it says that you are not purchasing anything accept access to their database, but you do not actually own anything, like Windows, that way they can do anything they want and claim you have no right to say what they do to THEIR operating system.
I would bet in this case, as with many TOS's of its kind, it would not hold up in court. And just to pick on Amazon a little more, why would Amazon ALLOW a customer to conduct lawful business in such a way that it would cause the customer to break some agreement they had with Amazon? There wasn't any coercion or hacking involved. He didn't trick anyone into giving him a refund all those times. This is just Amazon bullying a customer into making fewer returns that are within his legal right to do so.
If they want to call all information "Intellectual Property", then here is what you get: Consumer protection for purchases of intellectual property equal to that of any other good. It is great that Amazon wants to be on the bleeding edge of new things, but that doesn't mean that hypothetically grey areas of the law suddenly don't apply.
Not to mention, I want to see this three armed scale you speak of.
Re:A fair and just political response would be (Score:3, Interesting)
Banning false descriptions is neither anti-business nor unfair.
In fact, there is precedence for this. The FDA is constantly regulating what words can be used where - as a result, Kraft Singles are referred to as "Cheese Product", not "Cheese". Cocoa Puffs are not "Chocolate", they are "Chocolate flavored". Pop Tarts are "Made with Smucker's RealFruit (TM)". Of course, the terms are close enough to still be deceptive, but they enough to make people who look carefully think twice.
Re:Businesse serving the public must serve the pub (Score:3, Interesting)
Open to the public is not the proper definition. This would put most businesses in the category and that is not the case. Case law on this mainly surrounds private shopping centers. There is a narrow standard that SCOTUS defined. Each state may widen that standard based on their own constitution. A business in a center is still free to restrict access for any reason unless state laws provide protected classes or specific prohibitions.
...but those same businesses must not advertise or serve to the public, they loose rights to limited liability, and many tax breaks / incentives.
That statement is incorrect. Stop playing an armchair lawyer, you are bad at it.
Re:A right to do what? (Score:3, Interesting)
For the record, all he did was contact them via email for the account related appeals, post on Mobilereader, and allegedly post on the official Kindle forums. (The last I was alleged by a poster in the thread, but no link or other information was given. That poster sounded confused about his ability to post in the official kindle forums with a suspended amazon account.) Only the email could have been relevant, as the other postings did not give enough details to identify the account in question.