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Lose Your Amazon Account and Your Kindle Dies
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.
This is just another reason why DRM is not a benefit to the consumer and why consumers should *not* support DRM.
So you are saying if I buy a lawn mower from Home Depot and then I go in the next day and streak the place and get banned, they should also have the right to re-possess the lawn mower I legally purchased?
How is this any different? He bought a kindle, he bought books for it, then did something totally unrelated Amazon did not like, and they essentially remotely deactivated his device.
This makes me wonder what would happen with my G1 if for some reason I lost access to my Google account. (You basically can't do anything on the phone without being signed in, though you can create a new account from the phone itself.)
I suspect I could just link it to another account and re-sync contacts, calendar, etc. But then there's the question of purchased apps. Are they linked to the phone, to the cellular plan, or to the Google account? It's something I hadn't thought about before.
register your Kindle's PID
How do you find your Kindle's PID when Amazon makes sites delete information about KindlePID?
If your account is flagged for returning shit, you're just dumb. Don't buy crap and then return it and expect to stay in a company's good graces for long. I think I speak for all people who ever retail when I say this to people who return more than 1 item every 6 months: Eat Shit And Die. You wouldn't abuse your friends and family like that, so why harrass stores and their employees, even if they're owned/employed by a soulless corperation. Something like 15% of items are returned (dollar amount perhaps), which significantly cuts into profits and drives up prices for everyone else. Fuck You.
/rant off.
i would kill myself before working retail again.
moox. for a new generation.
He returned items to Amazon.
Amazon banned his Amazon account.
The Kindle is tied to an Amazon account. If the Amazon account to which the Kindle is tied is banned, then you lose all download access to Amazon, including the ability to download the books you have already purchased.
Basically, the guy claims to have returned only defective items - none related to the Kindle - to Amazon. They banned his Amazon account, which also happened to cripple his Kindle.
It's one thing to tell someone that they're no longer welcome to order anymore, but it's quite another to retroactively disable anything that they've previously purchased. That's the distinction.
Many people abuse the flexible Costco return policy. Some of these people get their memberships revoked. At no time does Costco come in and say that they can no longer use items they've already bought.
Titus Barik
Saying the relationship is voluntary is meaningless. I buy a lot of stuff from Target. If the manager follows me out into the parking lot, claims that I've been returning too much, then snatches my purchases out of my hands and runs back into the store, it's not enough to say "Oh well, if they do it to enough people, people just won't shop there anymore.". No, in this case a customer's rights are clearly being violated and action beyond market forces needs to be taken.
I can completely understand cutting him off and not selling to him anymore. Disabling his previous purchases crosses the line though.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
If there was any one still believing that any media that includes DRM is anything but a rental, take note. This should be even more fear inducing as this isn't an issue over a 3 or 4 year old game, this is just a customer that the seller decided they didn't like anymore.
And Amazon has every right to refuse to sell him anything further, including additional books for his Kindle. However, they have to support his ability to use books he has legally purchased. (Yes, purchased. Not rented or licensed.)
I suspect their web R&D team is hard at work today on a way to "suspend" an account that prevents future purchases but continues to support authorization for past purchases.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
BOOKS ARE CHEAP and they do not NEED an electronic delivery mechanism! I don't quite understand why on earth a product like the Kindle needs to exist.
Whats worst is that not only are books already cheap, but they're often CHEAPER in physical form than on the kindle. I was in the supermarket the other day and saw that they had Twilight as a mass market paperback. IIRC the price was $6.99 (cover - no store discount). The same darned book in eBook form, which is just a collection of bits costing many times less to reproduce than the book, is priced at $9.99. There is just something wrong with that. Plus, as a failsafe, books don't need a device that can break, or needs power, etc. Call me paranoid but with the current economic climate the world of "Mad Max" is looking like a possible eventuality, and the regular books will be useful far longer into that period than an ebook.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Like takedown notices have ever stopped information from getting out, before..
But Amazon's attempt to cover up KindlePID does signal Amazon's intent that owners of Kindle devices not buy DRM works from other providers.
I'm using Amazon EC2 and S3, and I've specifically separated the amazon 'buy-books' account from the 'do-web-stuff' account. It's annoying, but worth the possible issues when something happens with one or the other service so that it doesn't bleed over. I can see Amazon using leverage from one side on the other. Same with Gmail and Google AppEngine, since I use my Gmail account to store stuff.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
Plus, as a failsafe, books don't need a device that can break, or needs power, etc. Call me paranoid but with the current economic climate the world of "Mad Max" is looking like a possible eventuality, and the regular books will be useful far longer into that period than an ebook.
If we ever hit the 'Mad Max' stage, regular books like Twilight will be especially useful...as toilet paper and for starting fires.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
If you're talking about periodicals or school textbooks then e-book readers make sense to me, but if you're purchasing a piece of literature that you're going to keep beyond next week, then I think e-books are more trouble than they're worth, especially if someone can arbitrarily decide that you shouldn't be allowed access to something you've already paid for, regardless of whether the person mentioned "should have made backup copies". I'd feel less strongly about this if there was no DRM involved, but as is, I say "no way".
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I think having the ad for the device on a page that generates negative press for the item would almost certainly generate more click-through traffic than a random ad would on the same page.
Even if it didn't result in a sale of the advertised item, it is still traffic to the seller where the result might be sale of a different item.
e.g. Kindle sucks, but I go to read Amazon's kindle spiel, since I see the ad right there, but then decide to buy the latest Star Wars/Harry Potter/whatever book since I was going to anyway and now I just happen to be on Amazon. Win for Amazon (as seller), win for Google (as referer).
My desire for a Kindle just dropped from "It's really cool and I am going to eventually have one!" to zero.
The main reason I have not cared for e-books is that I want ownership - I want to keep my books. Until now, I assumed I would with a Kindle, obviously not.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Guess what? You can do exactly the same with the Kindle.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I'm unclear how the existence of non-existence of DRM on the Kindle makes any difference in this case. He can't buy from the Amazon store. Okay. If Amazon only sold un-DRMed ebooks, then he still wouldn't be able to buy from the store. Further, the Kindle doesn't just display books purchased from Amazon. Any non-DRM ebook can be read on the Kindle. Further, he says that he can still read his purchased books on his Kindle. The main thing I dislike about the situation is the fact that he can't move his DRMed books off of the Kindle (say, in a few years when he wants a new ebook reader).
From the slashdot summary: "and any Kindle subscriptions he's paid for stop working." Where does it say that in the article? (Or is the Slashdot submitter's dislike of DRM causing him to interpret this as another "bad DRM" story?)
sure, it kills tress, but it's MINE ALL MINE BABEEE!!!
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
No, you're wrong. I own a Kindle 2, and I copy books to it via USB with the wireless totally disabled.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
So this is like Home Depot sells you a faulty lawnmower, and replaces it with a string of other faulty lawnmowers, then bans you from the entire store because you bothered them too much with returns.