Amazon Post-Order Price Guarantee going way :( (1 Viewer)

[TonyD]

how did the acount get shut down if it is a hoax.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Does anyone know someone who actually had their account canceled?

 

[TonyD]

john ross and joseph j.d revecived the email and they didnt say if their account was shut down or not shut down, so you could be right about the hoax.

 

[Chris S]

I imagine they would have tried (as I would have tried) to access their account to verify that it isn't a hoax.

 

[Michael Reuben]

If you read the continuation of the discussion at SlickDeals (link above), it certainly doesn't appear to be a hoax.

M.

 

[John H Ross]

My account was shut down. It certainly isn't a hoax :-(

 

[Michael Reuben]

From reading the thread at SlickDeals, it appears to be not just a matter of returned orders, but a combination of that and other factors, such as repeated invocation of the post-order price guarantee. If invoking the POPG is indeed a factor, it seems particularly unfair, since the POPG was simply an official Amazon policy. I know I've used it numerous times in the last year, especially on HD media, where for a while the prices were changing almost weekly (and sometimes still do).

M.

 

[DavidJ]

No way to read through that entire thread, but some of the stories are disturbing. It seems that some abuses of Amazon's shipping and Prime membership lead to some of the cancellations, but many more seem to be innocents caught in a random net. I'm pretty much an ideal customer-- one return this year out of 30+ items and it was an item purchased from another seller that was defective. I would've just exchanged it, but Amazon's own policy prevents it.

The interesting thing is I just read the Prime terms and conditions and it puts no limits on the addresses you ship to, but this is one of the suspected reasons for some of the bans. 95% of what I order goes to my home, but I'll occasionally ship to work or gifts to family members.

This whole thing is just a stinking mess and could turn out to be a PR nightmare for Amazon. I've been one of their biggest fans and I probably spend more with them than any other retailer, but this upsets me.

 

[DavidJ]

Yeah, one the general themes at SlickDeals seems to be that people were taking advantage of (should be read as using) Amazon's own policies. If it is presenting you with business challenges, change the policies (as they have), but don't punish people for doing business according to your rules.

 

[CraigF]

I would be VERY surprised if this is just about disc returns. Being in Canada, there's no such thing as amazon.com returns, at least in the sense of physically returning items, and I have had my share of problems with DVDs over the years, but most were not amazon's fault (i.e. not from shipping). It would be very easy to abuse this system from Canada. I am very reluctant to "return" things because of this, so I keep the odd item that I would have returned if bought at a local B&M. Usually it's a battered package I wouldn't have picked up in the first place. I guess I have been reasonable enough since no letter (yet)...and the account works. Getting that letter from amazon would be devastating for me. I buy the vast majority of my discs there, whether U.S./U.K./Canada, they're all linked.

They may have set some "profit margin" for each account, accounted by some means we don't know, and whatever account the computer saw not meeting that level got the letter. I can say from my position you would have to have had a hell of a lot of returns, because I have a whole shelf full of amazon "returns", and that's after I have given many away (usually one disc in a set is screwed, and the set may have had each title separately cased). But then again, I do buy a LOT from them, books and CDs too.

I should say I have never used the POPG, so you guys may be right about that.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I notice that John and Joseph are in England and Canada. Did anyone here who lives in the US get an account cancelled?

Maybe that has something to do with it.

 

[CraigF]

^ Could be, in their specific cases. One might think if it was "foreign" purchasers targeted, they might just limit them to their "local" amazon so they could do physical returns.

OTOH, I have numerous items from the "Canadian" amazon from the last year or so that they didn't ask me to return (mostly severely dented Disney tins IIRC), so I'm speculating that the way all the different amazons have their accounts linked these days doesn't allow the flexibility of selective "banning", it's all or nothing.

 

[Chris S]

The Consumerist finally picked up on the story. Given that national media tends to follow this site maybe it will begin to see wider attention.

Link

 

[DavidJ]

Good. I want this to get more attention.

 

[Brian^K]

Huh? Without leaving out any of the necessary disclosures ("necessary" being determined by them, not you), how else would you have worded it? Keep in mind that this is not a customer, but a former customer, and one that the company doesn't want back. It is a customer that the company suspects of behavior that the company finds objectionable, so figure also that the company thereby has some reason to suspect any other people that that customer might recommend to the company.

Let's keep things in their proper perspective.

 

[Brian^K]

Uh, anything more private than a personal email wouldn't get the message to the intended. Maybe I'm missing the point you're trying to make?

 

[Brian^K]

I can imagine that can be annoying.

 

[Radioman970]

Wow. That is unreal. But reading that thread is like reading one on UFO sitings.

Amazon can be strange. They once sent me a free copy of Ladder 29. Or whatever the number was. Very good film...like Backdraft. They requested I write a review. I carefully wrote a spoilerfree positive review but they never published it (a FIRST!) So I reworked it and submitted it again. No dice. One more time...charm? Nope! WTF?! Gave up. I'm a Top 5000 reviewer with them....so I certainly mean something to that site!!

 

[pitchman]

 

[Brian^K]

It shouldn't matter -- not one little bit.