
Amazon closed my account without providing recourse - colinmeinke
https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/881813937238495232
======
falcolas
Despite Amazon's efforts to ease the commonly escalated problems while
shopping, when there's an actual problem they're still remarkably opaque. I
would give up hope of communication until at least Wednesday; most of the
people who may be able to help you are probably on holiday.

Sadly, individual consumers are ultimately not valued by Amazon, especially
when they are determined to be more trouble than they are worth. You get some
of the best customer service in the industry until some algorithm calls your
login/purchase/return patterns abusive, at which point your account is closed
and questions are responded to with "this is the last contact you will receive
from us."

Know why you needed to make a new account with a new email address? To get
around the automated filters put in place to bit-bucket your messages. That
new account will probably be closed too (especially if you attempt a purchase
with it), when the algorithms determine it to be related to a closed account.

~~~
gargravarr
This is probably the greatest irony from Amazon - as long as you don't stand
out from the crowd, you can get amazing customer service from them - I've
returned defective products long after the normal periods and had very quick
resolutions from them for minor problems, but all it would take is someone
picking up on my account and trying to brute-force their way in for Amazon to
decide I am 'too much trouble' to deal with any further.

It's not just Amazon who do this, of course, but the boilerplate reply that
simply cites 'violation of T&Cs' with no option to query exactly what you have
done, if it was you at all, shows the dark side of private companies with all
this control. The rough equivalent of picking up the football and going home.
Notice it's all carefully worded to imply the problem is with you, not with
Amazon - their protection scheme kicked in because the OP's account may have
been compromised, so it was closed for his benefit.

Usually a Twitterstorm is enough to get the companies to acnowledge they were
wrong (cos heaven knows it's impossible to get a straight answer one-on-one,
without raising such a fuss). Hopefully Trial By Twitter will complete by the
end of the week.

------
colinmeinke
I thought I'd add a timeline of events in case it's of interest to anybody in
the same position.

30th June

\- Attempt to login to complete checkout of an Amazon order I am trying to
make, password invalid

\- Attempt a password reset, I get the same password invalid error when trying
to log in after the resetting my password

\- Raised the issue with @amazonhelp on twitter
[https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/880794726911356928](https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/880794726911356928)

\- Eventually received a link that got me to a support phone number

\- Called the support phone number, and was told that my account was ON HOLD,
and would receive an email within 24 hours

1st July

\- Within 24 hours I did receive an email stating my account had been CLOSED
because of an "indication that an unauthorised person has logged in" to my
account (see
[https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/881814337140248576](https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/881814337140248576))

2nd July

\- I opened a new Amazon account as per the instructions in the email

\- I tried to reply to the email with the new Amazon account's email address
that I just set up

\- The email bounces as the reply address could not be found (see
[https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/881443024580079616](https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/881443024580079616))

\- I log in to my new Amazon account and chat to customer support. They can't
really help and tell me they have spoken to another team and I will receive an
email within 24 hours

3rd July

\- I do not receive an email within 24 hours

\- I continue the conversation on twitter, and get varying responses from
different customer support agents, including a suggestion to contact AWS
support

\- I contact AWS support via a form on their website

\- AWS support says the root issue is with my retail account, however, it has
impacted my AWS Account as the login is the same, and that I need to email
cis@amazon.co.uk who will provide me with further information

\- I email cis@amazon.co.uk

------
mnm1
Yup. They do this often, sometimes citing non-existing policy, sometimes not.
I doubt the author will get access back, but you never know. As far as I can
tell, he has zero recourse against Amazon. The lesson should be not to use
Amazon's services for anything critical like running a business or sites with
users without being aware of this risk. The risk is not Amazon-specific at
all, although it is higher with Amazon than with most providers as they have
been closing accounts at will for well over a decade and don't seem to be on
any path to slow down or stop.

------
kennu
Tip for people using AWS: It's nowadays very easy to create and manage
multiple accounts using AWS Organizations. It helps you get into the habit of
grouping your services across different Amazon accounts. (I'm not sure what
happens if the master account is compromised, but probably the other accounts
can still be used if they have individual passwords set.)

Another good habit is to use CloudFormation (and Serverless Framework) to
deploy services, so they can be fairly easily re-deployed to any account. That
doesn't solve data migration though.

------
gargravarr
Ultimate account protection.

Force password reset? Disable login until a rep contacts you by phone? 2FA?

Nah. If it leaks (or we think it has), just nuke it and start over.

~~~
colinmeinke
Yeah - crazy extreme. I didn't even know until I tried to log in and my
password was "invalid", and reset didn't work.

