I thought it was interesting and amusing, but filed it away in my head and forgot about it.
Then, one day, I got an email something to the effect of "fax photocopies of your drivers license and credit card or we, Amazon, will shut down your Amazon account permanently. Do not send emails, only fax, to X number."
At first I naturally thought it was spam. However, I kept getting systematic emails of this sort, with a date attached to them. It seemed weird for spam to be so deliberate, and as phishing attempts go, also sort of weird. There also seemed something strange about the content of the emails that made me think it might be serious.
So I called Amazon customer support (totally independently of anything in the email), and they said "Yes, that's a real email. You need to respond to it or they will shut down your account." I was puzzled by this, because nothing unusual had happened from my end. So, after talking to someone who made it clear they knew nothing about it other than that it was real, I asked to speak to a supervisor.
This supervisor sort of chuckled and said that the email was from the security division, that customer support knows nothing about them, that they cannot access anything about why I was getting the email, and that this division only communicates via fax, including with customer support. So basically I was being threatened to have my Amazon account shut down for a reason Amazon couldn't explain, because they themselves can only communicate with the people who know via fax, and I can only communicate with them via fax.
So I figure, ok, fine. I search out an office supply store (because I can't use work fax for personal business, and don't have a fax machine). I send them photocopies of my drivers license and credit card. I make sure it's completely visible, and include information on the cards in the fax, in text.
A few days later I get an email saying "we received your fax, but the photocopy wasn't legible enough." I was like WTF??? because it could not have been more legible. Also, any info not legible (even though it strains credulity to be considered illegible) was in the fax. So I tried again.
Again I receive a similar email saying "we received another fax but again it's illegible." I called customer support again, and again they threw up their hands and said they can't communicate with that division either.
At this point I gave up because what was I going to do? Amazon's own customer service can't even communicate with this shadowy fax-only communicating security division, I know nothing about why my account is being shut down, there's no recourse or appeal, and when I try to comply, I capriciously am told it's not sufficient.
About a week later my account gets shut down.
About that time I remembered the article, which was eerily similar to my experience. So nothing had changed in those years.
I kept my materials (email printouts, including the faxes); I think I still have them, but am not sure as we moved in the interim.
The whole experience convinced me Amazon simply has zero incentive to care about customer service after an experience like that (which apparently is not the first time this has happened).
Wow! Relying on FAX sounds so ridiculous, especially coming from a company that was supposed to have designed API for every internal operation -even for some that didn't make sense, long before APIs where even a thing.
Once not too long ago I came across this article: https://consumerist.com/2013/06/18/amazon-cancels-my-6000-or...
I thought it was interesting and amusing, but filed it away in my head and forgot about it.
Then, one day, I got an email something to the effect of "fax photocopies of your drivers license and credit card or we, Amazon, will shut down your Amazon account permanently. Do not send emails, only fax, to X number."
At first I naturally thought it was spam. However, I kept getting systematic emails of this sort, with a date attached to them. It seemed weird for spam to be so deliberate, and as phishing attempts go, also sort of weird. There also seemed something strange about the content of the emails that made me think it might be serious.
So I called Amazon customer support (totally independently of anything in the email), and they said "Yes, that's a real email. You need to respond to it or they will shut down your account." I was puzzled by this, because nothing unusual had happened from my end. So, after talking to someone who made it clear they knew nothing about it other than that it was real, I asked to speak to a supervisor.
This supervisor sort of chuckled and said that the email was from the security division, that customer support knows nothing about them, that they cannot access anything about why I was getting the email, and that this division only communicates via fax, including with customer support. So basically I was being threatened to have my Amazon account shut down for a reason Amazon couldn't explain, because they themselves can only communicate with the people who know via fax, and I can only communicate with them via fax.
So I figure, ok, fine. I search out an office supply store (because I can't use work fax for personal business, and don't have a fax machine). I send them photocopies of my drivers license and credit card. I make sure it's completely visible, and include information on the cards in the fax, in text.
A few days later I get an email saying "we received your fax, but the photocopy wasn't legible enough." I was like WTF??? because it could not have been more legible. Also, any info not legible (even though it strains credulity to be considered illegible) was in the fax. So I tried again.
Again I receive a similar email saying "we received another fax but again it's illegible." I called customer support again, and again they threw up their hands and said they can't communicate with that division either.
At this point I gave up because what was I going to do? Amazon's own customer service can't even communicate with this shadowy fax-only communicating security division, I know nothing about why my account is being shut down, there's no recourse or appeal, and when I try to comply, I capriciously am told it's not sufficient.
About a week later my account gets shut down.
About that time I remembered the article, which was eerily similar to my experience. So nothing had changed in those years.
I kept my materials (email printouts, including the faxes); I think I still have them, but am not sure as we moved in the interim.
The whole experience convinced me Amazon simply has zero incentive to care about customer service after an experience like that (which apparently is not the first time this has happened).