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Comment by dstaley | Hacker News Reader

This is certainly one of those instances where I'd raise hell, but I actually avoid trying to file lost item claims with Amazon for smaller ticket items. I know they have automated systems in place to prevent fraud, and I'm terrified that reporting for smaller ticket items will get my Amazon account banned. I've had a friend have this happen with his Doordash account; the sushi place he orders from a lot was pretty bad at sending everything he ordered, and after reporting this to Doordash every time, they eventually disabled his account. To this day, the restaurant is still on Doordash.

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That's perverse. You shouldn't have to self-censor out of fear. The fact that Amazon (Doordash, Google, ...) can get away with just cancelling people's accounts willy nilly and they'd have no recourse is a gaping hole in regulations.

BTW, it's off-topic, but this right here is the among best arguments we can make for strong privacy, and against mass surveillance. If people are willing to swallow monetary damage out of fear to upset an algorithm that may cut back their privileges, imagine what happens to political free speech when you have to fear govt surveillance and black vans.

It's a cost of doing business, not really a fear. I can't recall this happening to me, but if Amazon did make an error or damage a minor thing or whatever I wouldn't object because I would object if it were a major thing and I want to maintain a good record to make it more likely I automatically win any major objections in future. The cost of this strategy is accepting any minor loss from Amazon and the benefit is an increased likelihood of good service for major items.

The only error I can recall from Amazon is they once included an exacto knife I didn't order in a package to me.

Why companies should not have right to cancel their relationship with person for non-discriminatory reasons? And constant complaints and errors on aggregate sounds entirely reasonable reason.

If same thing kept happening inside non-online business I think we would find it pretty okay...

So, say you live in a rural area but have one local supermarket (5-10 mins away), and the next supermarket is 30-45 minutes away.

You keep finding the food you're buying is mouldy so you complain/return it.

They ban you.

So, now you need to spend significantly more money and time on petrol and driving in order to do you weekly shop.

That's OK?

If you keep buying mouldy food maybe there is need to change your habits... Or stop buying from that store in first place.

On other side, let's say customer violently attacks other customers or staff. Or causes substantial property damage intentionally, maybe attempts arson. Would you still disagree with them banning such customer?

You don't have the right to expect company to do business with you. Shop elsewhere or start your own.

While I get the frustration, I also don't understand the logic of continuing to order from a restaurant when you have frequent bad experiences with them. Is it really surprising that after a while Doordash just doesn't want to be in the middle of that relationship?

Given that they banned the customer, not the restaurant, they obviously do want to be in the middle of that relationship, but only with the customers who won't rightly complain about it.

They could have also just blocked the user from ordering at specific restaurants.

I once got banned from a pizza place for this. I had some fussy eating friends and would order pizza, but they would frequently screw up orders like “no cheese”, sometimes even multiple times in succession, as in I’d order it, tell them they screwed up, they would send a replacement and it too would be screwed up… eventually I “wasn’t allowed to register any more complaints”.

I encourage everyone to publicly document companies like doordash punishing you for the crime of asserting your rights.

That doesn't sound like a good strategy. If they are bad at fulfilling their orders, why would you care if they are also stupid and cancel your account instead of fixing their problems? They are not the only merchant online.

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