Amazon has a well-deserved reputation for good customer service, but sometimes they fall down on the job. It seems that whenever something unusual happens they don’t know how to respond and end up blowing you off.
Surprisingly, lost and stolen Kindles continues to be one of those areas where Amazon keeps dropping the ball. Not only will Amazon refuse to give info to an owner whose Kindle was stolen, they also won’t assist the police in recovering a stolen Kindle as one Polish blogger informs us today:
Recently, my Kindle Paperwhite was stolen (let’s not go into details on how that happen now). I did not have much of a hope that it’ll be recovered, but still, I went to the local police station in Wroclaw, Poland to report the theft.
Ausir goes on to note that he checked on the status of his Kindle Paperwhite while he was at the police station and it turned out to have already been registered. That is actually a silver lining, because as Kindle CS told the blogger they will assist the police in the investigation:
While we’re unable to tell you the location of your Kindle, we’ll respond to requests for information from law enforcement officials. To file a police report, please contact your local police department.
That sounds like a rational, reasonable policy, doesn’t it? Well, no. Amazon’s idea of responding to a request for info does not quite match what you or I would expect.
Ausir reports that the police sent all the necessary info, and they even sent it from an official email address. Unfortunately Amazon wasn’t going to release the info short of a court order:
Yesterday, I got a call from the police officer that was assigned to my case, and was told that Amazon refused to disclose any information on the user who registered my Kindle to his account, and despite all previous reassurances, they stated that they will only disclose it if ordered to do so by a court (I assume they mean a US court, at that).
I don’t know about you but that’s not exactly what I expected when Amazon said they’d “respond to requests for information from law enforcement officials”. Like Ausir, I kinda thought Amazon would actually help their customer.
Don’t get me wrong; I understand that Amazon CS can’t access account info by searching for a Kindle serial number. That’s not an issue. The problem here is that a part of Amazon’s legal/fraud/abuse departments, the folks that you would think could override the restrictions placed on the CS dept, instead refused to share the info they possessed.
That is far from reasonable. Furthermore, what is the point of having a contact point for law enforcement officials if they are simply going to be told NO?
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from their point of view not only do they now have a new customer but most likely will keep the old one since he already has so much “invested” – - – win/win for amazon
You took the words out of my mouth… even if a Kindle is stolen, Amazon will have another customer for books. I have too much invested in Amazon books to more somewhere else.
Can it be determined that Amazon always refuses to report to police on stolen Kindled? Are there known cases were they did? The devil may be in the details.
For example, let’s say I left my Kindle at a public lunch counter. Billy Bob finds it and keeps it, registering it his account. Has he stolen it? Or is it a case of finders keeper losers weepers? Even I report it to Amazon and the police as lost or stolen, I’m not sure if Amazon has the right to release information has unless a crime was committed by Billy Bob during the “transfer” of Kindle ownership. If Billy Bob mugged me by holding gun to my head, I think Amazon would be obliged to release the information.
If you pick up a Kindle left on the counter, take it home, and re-register it to yourself, then I would argue that you stole it. There is no finders-keepers on this.
Sucks for the person who had their Kindle stolen, but as far as I’m concerned this is a good thing. Amazon has purchase histories for millions of people, and any number of those things could be an embarrassing/incriminating/abusable item that those people don’t want known about. Better that Amazon has a firm policy of only releasing information on a court order than to have some half-assed policy like “We’ll do it if we think it’ll help the customer.”
That’s a good argument for not handing out info willy-nilly but IMO not enough of a reason to require a court order.
Well, here the police did not require purchase history or any such information, just the identity of a person who misappropriated a kindle owned by someone else.
Well, I think there are actually two sides to the story here. There is the client’s side and his reaction, which at first glance is totally understandable, BUT on the oter side there is Amazon being careful about customer data protection. You know, nowadays it is pretty difficult to verify legitimate contacts from law-enforcement from fraudulent ones, particularly if the contact happens via an Email. Particularly in a country that is most probably not the home coutnry of Amazon CS agents and which they don’t know much about. The CS agent has actually no way of assuring himself, and therefore Amazon, that the claim is real AND legit.
Don’t get me wrong I am not saying that was has been reported is not true, I am just playing devil’s advocate here, but what if…
The whole story were (conditional, mind you!!) made up and it all turned out to be a hoax and the Email sent by a police station was a fraud and Amazon CS had responded by giving out customer data. What do you thing you guys would say to that? I think that the response of CS was correct in view of the above, personally I would have not reacted differently unless the identity of the law enforcement agency had been established without the shadow os a doubt beforehand.
Are you telling me that my tough-guy123@polish-police-department.com doesn’t sound legit? WTH!!!
LOL
Kind of understand your point, but hey, AFAIK there’s no country where you can freely register .gov address.
It would be name.surname@.policja.gov.pl
Just as in United States, you cannot just get .gov domain just by asking nicely. It’s also trivial their Law Enforcement Liason to verify that policja.gov.pl is indeed official domain for Polish Police force (or, they could verify it by any other channels).
Point is, any electronic address can be faked… Sometimes it is easy, sometimes, as should be the case with official adresses, it is harder. But not impossible.
For Amazon to insist on a court order it only means that they do not just follow any lead that comes along but have set up a procedure to first protect all customer data unless there is a legitimate need for disclosure. What’s wrong with that. I certainly would not want amazon to disclose my data because someone accused me of having stolen their Kindle without a due diligence process initiated by Amazon BEFORE they hand out my data.
Please all think about this twice before accusing Amazon of not caring about customers or protecting thieves…
A good reason to keep track of the serial numbers of all devices a person owns.
So Amazon decide to protect the thief… it is complicity in crime or hiding thief from penalty, nice one Amazon. New branch of CS support, help in crime
I’m sorry, I have to disagree on this one. Amazon is not protecting a thief, they are insisting on due process. They, or any other company, should not give up personal info on any account without a court order. This isn’t to protect a thief, this is to protect EVERY Amazon customer.
Well, here they were contacted by the police AND by the actual owner of the device, so it’s a pretty obvious case of a theft.
Amazon should flash a warning. This kindle has been reported stolen.you can drop it off at your local postoffice so amazon can return to the rightful owner.