I’d advise anyone buying e-books on Amazon to think it through carefully. My account was banned recently because, years ago, I ordered two paper books that Amazon said would be split into two shipments. Both books arrived without any issues, but later Amazon refunded me for one of them, claiming that one package never arrived. This happened 4–5 years ago.

Apparently, during a recent review, they decided this counted as fraud and banned my account. As a result, I can no longer log in and lost access to all my Kindle e-books. They also remotely wiped my Kindle, so my entire library is gone. I appealed the decision, but I’ve been waiting for over six months with no resolution.

A friend of mine received a double shipment for a $300 order. Being honest, he contacted customer service to arrange a return. Everything seemed fine until a few days later when he noticed they had also refunded his original payment. He reached out again to let them know, and they said they’d just recharge his card. Apparently, that transaction failed (no clear reason why), and without any warning, they banned his account, wiping out his entire Kindle library in the process. Amazon works wonderfully right up until it fails spectacularly.

That's the point of DRM-free ebooks though, isn't it? You download them and keep them safe so if the provider decides to cut access to your account, you remain in possession of the goods.

So the correct advice would be to avoid anyone buying DRM-encumbered digital property - the same as RMS has been making for who knows how long!

Banning long-time customers in otherwise good-standing for a mistake they made years ago, which would already be settled financially and such a minor cost is wild.

I can imagine something like this has happened to almost everyone.

So much for being the world’s most customer-centric company. That mission is dead.

They failed to deliver a Pixel phone to me - they never even tried to deliver it and the status said "permanent delivery failure" so I assumed they'd automatically refund me.

Fast forward a few months, I never received a refund and they claim they have no record any more. I could chargeback my credit card but I imagine I'd also be permanently banned from Amazon - so instead I accept they've just stolen $1000 from me with no recourse...

(if anyone from Amazon is reading this, my email is in my bio!)

What is that you say? Stallman was right again?

https://stallman.org/amazon.html

I'm also particularly skeptical of Amazon because our Kindle Direct Publishing account was banned also for no reason. They said something about me having had a previous account before, but I'm not sure that was true and I think it was a very extreme measure. We were actually selling books at the time until we got banned. They obviously also "forgot" to pay out the most recent month.

Damn that is scary. I’ve been reading on Kindle since 2017, I have about 200 books on there.

I doubt I would re-read many of them, but my partner is still going through some of them (with the family library thing).

I’d be pissed if it got wiped.

I saw the writing on the wall when they recently removed the facility to download your own books. I downloaded all of them, removed the DRM with Calibre, and now obtain e-books through other sources.

Unfortunately bad press is likely going to be the only thing to give you your account back. You should write a blog post and let the internet and the media do its magic

The only reason for a recent review (like with all the recently banned Facebook accounts from 2009) is firing up AI tools that didn't exist 5 years ago.

Amazon used to be really customer centric 5-10 years ago, I remember once I ordered a physical book which was late in delivery and I urgently needed that book, so they gave me a free kindle edition till the book got delivered.

About Kindle, if you're in Europe, you could try Nextory or BookBeat. They don't have as much content, but are good services nevertheless.

That is truly insane - sorry that you’re unable to access the books that you rightly purchased.

Though I highly doubt this alone was the reason for an account ban. Is it possible your credentials were stolen/misused without your knowledge?

File suit.

> As a result, I can no longer log in and lost access to all my Kindle e-books.

Can't you file a suit in a small claims court?