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She should next demand a copy of all information Amazon has on her under the Data Protection Act (1998), since that's what the Act is for.

Excellent idea. Though I fear that this will be essentially ignored too (as the recent precedent with Facebook shows).

It is very unfortunate that apparently the only way to resolve such cases is to bring them to enough media spotlight, that the corporation involved has to do something to avoid damages to its image.

Since media shaming only solves the problem for one person, I think it makes things worse in the long term. For every customer who gets un-screwed by Amazon, how many screwed customers do we not know about?

I wouldn't say it makes things worse in the long term, but it certainly helps. I do not think that it is good that it has to be done this way, but it seems that at the moment this is often the only way to make something happen at all.

What Facebook precedent? I only know of the Facebook vs Ireland stuff and that works well.

Does it? They still haven't answered my request from at least a year ago (they do offer some partial data download that includes a bit more stuff than previously, but it's essentially just the stuff on your profile -- none of the interesting stuff they collect on you).

Agreed. When the first DVD burners came out HP had an exclusive period for sales of them. I really wanted one, so I ordered it online and got an email a few minutes later saying my order had been canceled. I called and ask why. The usual "we can't tell you, sorry" answer. I wouldn't let go. I asked for a manager and then spent a hour on the phone--I just wouldn't hang up--telling her I had made thousands of transactions online over the last 10 years with that credit card and this was the first problem. I hammered her for details and she never gave me one, but she did do something else: she decided to verify me via other means (I have no idea what those were) by asking me a series of questions. After which she took my order manually and I got the device I wanted.

Normally, I would have voted with my pocket book, but in this case they had the sole source of the item (for a time). I also wanted to cost them a huge amount of time for their error.

>in this case they had the sole source of the item (for a time)

And this my friends is why artificial monopolies (created by vendor lock-in, proprietary devices, patents, or other perversions of the legal system) are inherently detrimental. Adam Smith, in his foundational work on Capitalism: The Wealth of Nations, rails against the practices that make monopolies possible. This market is not a free market.

Oh, it's a free market for those small companies - if they fail, so what? But all of a sudden, you start doing $10+ million dollars in sales, you figure you need some backing by politicians...

People love the upside of capitalism. But when it comes to the self-correcting measures it brings... not so much.

As soon as you give people a reason, they will argue with the specifics. The only way to get people to accept "no" and go away is to refuse to provide any additional information that they could take issue with.

That might work until the class action gets filed.

You've waived your rights to a class action file suit by purchasing an Amazon product or using an Amazon service.

Which is a legal impossibility that sadly has not been fully tested yet.

Amazon et al. will be happy to spend quite a bit of money combating you, until you give up due to lack of funds.

That's the entire point of a class action.

Which is why I donate to the EFF.

That might work until a judge decides that the contract was unconscionable, or contrary to public policy, or that there was no true "meeting of the minds" because the purchaser did not understand the terms of the contract, or ...

This is very true. I used to work in a call centre for a large company which had all manor of silly policies.

Since we were on the "front line" we were usually the ones informing the customers of these policies. We were usually given very limited information about the hows/whys of these policies so when the customers started getting annoyed and asking questions all we could reply with was "I don't know, that is just our policy" and "I don't have the authority to do that".

Looking back on it I'm guessing we were kept in the dark on purpose since after a couple of minutes about 90% of the customers would just give up and accept it. Some asked to speak to a manager but of course we were instructed never to put a manager on the line and always to claim that the manager was unavailable or to just transfer the call to another agent who would give the same answer.

If they had given us more information about these policies then we would have ended up spending hours in discussion with the customer which is of course what the call centre managers specifically didn't want.

I've come to the conclusion that a big problem with todays extremely anonymized and impersonal customer service of large corporations is that there is nobody (or at least nobody with the competence to do anything), that you can shout at till things get fixed...

Essentially, as a customer one is often limited to submitting requests through web forms and receiving boilerplate answers (if at all) that lead nowhere if the case at hand is somewhat nonstandard, or to spend endless hours circulating through similarly scripted phone support hotlines, without ever reaching somebody that can actually fix the problem.

Kafka would be hard pressed to top some of those customer support experiences.

Conversely, the internet has made the plight of the screwed-over-little-guy much easier to publicise, making results more likely.

Companies have privacy obligations. If they inaccurately link you to a fraudulent user and then tell you all the activity of that fraudulent user, they've probably just broken the law.

That's a specific example where it might not be legal but I agree that this is widespread and there are lots of things in the real world where it would be fine to tell you, but they choose not to. In my experience this is to protect internal process (so you can't cite why they're idiots) or so that they can sell you another product (credit score improvement, etc).

But I do agree, the withholding of detail is widespread to a point where it suggests people just plain don't want to tell you anything.

A bit of catch 22 really. If they have inaccurately linked you with a fraudulent user and they accuse you of having committed fraud, they've just defamed your character.

If they were in the U.S. I'd be suggesting they lawyer up.

Defamy wouldn't apply as it's a private relationship.

They're not broadcasting to the world that they think you're a con, they're just telling you... Which is fine.

Where are you getting that definition from?

I have used Wikipedia for the definition of how one proves libel:

There are several ways a person must go about proving that libel has taken place. For example, in the United States, first, the person must prove that the statement was false. Second, the person must prove that the statement caused harm. Third, the person must prove that the statement was made without adequate research into the truthfulness of the statement. These steps are for an ordinary citizen.

Of course, there is no citation. I just added the {{fact}} tag. But does anyone know if this is true or not?

Telling her privately that her account is associated with a fraudulent account has not caused her any harm, thus its not libeled her.

Only if they published it to the world, she could claim her reputation has been harmed.

Actually, it did because she lost all her books and she isn't able to get them back.

The loss of books has nothing to do with the speech act of libel.

"Second, the person must prove that the statement caused harm."

1:00 PM -- fraud system links her account to another banned account

1:00 PM -- her account is closed

2:00 PM -- she asks Amazon why her account is closed

3:00 PM -- Amazon makes the statement you claim is libelous

The loss occurred before the statement, so you cannot claim the statement caused that loss. The alleged libel did not result in the damages you're claiming.

Libel would be if Amazon falsely accused her of fraud in public, then her employer terminating her employment as a result of that statement. That is a harm resulting from the statement.

The last one seems a little odd "the person must prove that the statement was made without adequate research into the truthfulness of the statement".

What is to stop somebody extensively researching something but then just deciding to lie anyway?

Pretty sure the actual law clarifies that the speaker must have a reason to believe the claim even after engaging in some research. And that reason to disbelieve the claim is not a defense.

On the same page, "it is usually a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed".

If I tell you I think you're lazy, that's rude but it isn't defamy. If I write you a letter and you publish it, it's still not defamy.

If I talk to your boss and tell him I think you're lazy (without evidence) that may be defamy. If I publish a letter to you telling you you're lazy, that may be defamy.

And no, this has nothing to do with the rest of the issue.

Depends. In the EU, companies are legally required to store personal data accurately. It doesn't matter if they don't tell anyone (in fact often they cannot tell people, privacy and all that). If you tell them that personal data they have one you is incorrect, they are legally required to correct it. So yes, if the data is wrong, they might be breaking the law.

Not just in Europe - Australia has similar privacy legislation also. If a company is storing incorrect information about you, you can request to see your record and then have them correct that record. If they won't, the Privacy Commissioner can investigate and order them to do so.

I don't know... Even in records, Amazon are allowed to inaccurately call you a filthy good-for-nothing and these would not be subject to EU Privacy requests. They're not FOIA requests. You don't get to request a copy of your whole file like you can with the FBI. Amazon is not a public body.

Its privacy requirements are limited to giving you a copy of your personal information. Name. Address. Phone number.

Anything else (including the marker labelling you as a pillaging hobo) is their proprietary business intelligence and good luck convincing them otherwise.

I'm not sure privacy obligations are really at play here. I can think of two reasons they're taking the approach they're taking:

1) They don't want to get into a discussion which is likely to be time consuming. It's not just innocent people who appeal these things, often the most guilty are those who will most actively and vocally profess their innocence (in some cases up to and including going to court over it - c.f. the UK politician Jonathan Atkin).

The minute Amazon became willing to talk about this stuff they'd need a who bunch more people to start looking into each one in detail, review every claim and counter claim and so on, and they clearly don't think that that's a good use of their money.

2) The sorts of things they'd likely have to reveal are going to be the sorts of things people who are abusing the system want to know to get round it. Doing this would make their job harder.

Not saying that it's right that they take this approach, just I can see the reasons they do.

The minute Amazon became willing to talk about this stuff they'd need a who bunch more people to start looking into each one in detail, review every claim and counter claim and so on, and they clearly don't think that that's a good use of their money.

I for one would like them to start talking about this sort of thing, and review these cases more thoroughly. After all, people paid good money to them to read books. Books which they stole away from them. It seems unlikely that Amazon provided a refund to the lady in question.

I'm sure you would, but that's not much of a reason for Amazon to do so.

It's far easier and cheaper for them to ignore most cases and instead wait for the few that blow up like this one and then look into them at that point. In those cases if they think that they're even remotely in the wrong I suspect that they'll reinstate the account, send their apologies, send the person in question a gift voucher and get on with doing exactly what they were doing before.

It's very easy to think that the sort of outcry that happens on HN, or even on Twitter, reflects public opinion, but the reality is that this audience is both far more aware of these events, and far more considered in their reaction. The sad reality is that Amazon can get away with this sort of thing because most Kindle users won't ever learn about it and even if they do won't really understand what it means or change their behaviour.

Well there's a cynical view of how to deal with the general public.

Unfortunately one that works - mainly because the general public's behaviour is driven by attention to news stories rather than informed choice.

The market is optimised for efficiency not morality.

If they are not confident enough that they've accurately linked you to a fraudulent user to tell you the details of that account, they should not feel confident enough to CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT on that basis.

"While we are unable to provide detailed information on how we link related accounts" I don't think it means they don't know, I think it means they can't[1] "detail", i.e. tell you.

[1] Won't, of course.

That's exactly my point: They don't want to tell you.

If a company has such rigid internal processes that it can't come up with a way to reveal at least some information to allow a paying[0] customer to successfully defend an allegation of fraud, then that process is broken.

0 - I leave as an exercise to the reader the question of what should be done for free services.

Well, my credit card issuer (wells fargo) actually cant' tell me. They say its flagged, for a reason they don't know. (ofc, they do, they just wont tell).

Then they just unflag it after I answer 10 security questions and that's it.

Pisses me off every time.

Wow, wish my bank could tell me the reasoning for credit decisions !

Any time anyone makes a credit decision, you receive a notice in the mail informing you of this fact, and that you have the right to a free copy of the credit report they pulled on you.