Amazon Customers Beware!

[† L4ugh]

So I was watching the latest episode of Tekzilla today, and then they mentioned this blogg post. Amazon apparently decided to delete some women's account, and all her purchased books along with it. To make matters worse, they never actually told her what she did wrong. They just fed her a bunch of BS and told her good luck finding someone else. While the blogg post isn't entirely accurate, it seems the kindle was already broken, they did delete her account. Tekzilla hinted at the reason being due to her bouncing her ip address. She was apparently trying to gain access to books she couldn't get in Norway. Even if that is the case, I still don't see justification in deleting her account. What do you guys think of this? It seems to be yet another example of how big business is ruining the internet. I would definitely back up your ebooks after buying them. It would've saved this women a lot of money.

You can find the Tekzilla video here. The part about Amazon starts around 3:30.

Also, sorry if this is in the wrong place. Thought that since it had to do with ebooks/readers and internet purchases, that this would be the better place.

[lolrawr]

Yeah a long time ago I heard there was some issue where an author wasn't getting paid properly for his book on Amazon. Some people already bought it, but Amazon took the book away anyway. It was like one day you had it, but the next you didn't and there wasn't any warning either I think.

That's the thing about digital... You can never be sure that you'll always have the products you buy. Like if Valve ever goes out of business I'm loosing a lot of games lol. That's why I buy physical 3DS games. Nintendo's starting to transition to digital, but I want the assurance that I can always have my gamecard. Plus I like the feeling of owning physical things compared to digital. :3

I guess the only way to not this problem is to get rid of DRM, but that's not happening anytime soon lol.

[The Welsh Paddy]

I can understand that from Amazon's point of view, someone bouncing their IP address to access certain things that they can't under normal circumstances would come across as highly suspicious. Well, fair enough, the lady was only doing that to try and purchase books that she couldn't get in Norway, but I bet that for everyone one person like her there would be a dozen more who would try and exploit that in someway or other to do god-knows-what.

In this case, I think the sollution would be to allow people to purchase whatever kindle book they want from anywhere in the world that has internet access.

But, it's because of this that I much prefer sticking to good ole' paperback books.

[RikuoAmero]

I've got a Kindle, love reading on it (although its useless when it comes to anything with graphics in it, like a comic book. I did read the Death Note manga, but it wasn't exactly easy). However, I will NEVER buy an e-book, especially since Amazon does the ability (if you connect your Kindle to an Amazon account that is) to remotely wipe your device. I never have. I download e-books and upload them to the device using Calibre. I don't use Amazon's proprietary software to do it.

This isn't the only thing horrible Amazon have done recently.
/>https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121017/16282620737/studio-to-amazon-instant-video-customer-thanks-enjoy-your-blank-screen.shtml

A customer of Amazon Instant Video was told she would indefinite access to the video. Only...she didn't. There were problems with the contract later on between publisher and Amazon, and Amazon yanked the video, all without a refund.