I got burned several years ago, when a $150 textbook was stolen during delivery. It was sent via FedEx, and someone somewhere along the pipeline had 'signed' for it by writing my name in all upper-case letters.

I went through a lengthy process of submitting paperwork, at the end of which I was told that since the book had been signed for in my name, I must have received it and therefore I would not be compensated (so why did I have to spend time and money jumping through hoops?).

No doubt I should have pursued this further, but at that point I let it go. I just cancelled my account and haven't purchased anything from them since.

I guess its a tough situation when a customer claims they didn't receive an item, but I was a regular customer who spend hundreds of dollars per year with them, so they could've given me the benefit of the doubt at least once.

I agree that with shipping product, and making sure people can return faulty product for replacement, Amazon is fantastic.

And this stuff about auto-detection of supposedly bad accounts, and closing of those accounts with very little detail or ability to appeal is worrying, but not limited to Amazon. (That doesn't make it any more acceptable!)

Where Paypal (or their honest customers) are at risk of losing many thousands of dollars from fraud I can understand that some[1] people are going to be innocent victims of heavy handed policies.

[1] For some values of 'some' including 'too many'.

Amazon have a policy of doing the same to any customer that returns more than a tiny number of physical items, as I recall.

You'll have to define what a "tiny number" means in this context, but I've certainly returned a bunch of stuff to Amazon over the years that I've been a customer, and they haven't cut me -- or anyone I know personally -- off yet.

Their return policy is decent but not particularly generous or anything: if you return something that's not defective, you have to pay the freight back to them, and they have to receive it before they issue you the credit. I suspect their return rate is fairly low compared to retailers with more generous policies (e.g. Zappos, REI, LL Bean, etc.).

Thats different within the EU. If you return it within 14 days and its worth more than 40EUR Amazon has to pay for shipping. Its called "Distance Selling Act" (Fernabsatzgesetz in Germany). It applies to all non digital goods sold online except Software and Music.

Details?

Depends on where you are. It might be pretty good when dealing with Amazon in US, but I have been on the receiving end more than once when I order stuff to India. One of books I ordered, I never received and yet it was marked delivered in their history. I did not know what to do back then and case got closed just like that.

A while back I broke the screen of my kindle while traveling. Not only was I surprised that Amazon covered this under the warranty, but the service I received was really fantastic. The Kindle had originally been shipped to Ireland (where I live), but I was in India when it was broken. I phoned Amazon and they had a replacement shipped to Kathmandu (the next stop on my itinerary with dates certain enough that I was happy to have something shipped there). It was shipped fine and they reimbursed the cost of shipping back the broken unit (I sent a scan of the distinctly dodgy receipt issued by a Kathmandu shipping agent) and they also paid me back the import charge that Nepalese customs levied on the "new" Kindle. All told I was blown away by the quality of the service given the funniness of what I was asking them to do (shipping to random locations etc).

Allow me to counter your anecdote. My 18-month-old Kindle Keyboard screen broke last month, while I was travelling in Russia. It hadn't been impacted or scratched, it just started to become unresponsive on about 40% of the surface and failed. I got offered 10% off a new kindle basic or kindle touch once I got home, despite the customer service rep admitting that a kindle should last longer than only 18 months.

I'm so annoyed about this that I am seriously considering buying a competitor's replacement instead.

Well, it was out of warranty. It's unfortunate that 1-year warranties have become the norm, but that seems to be the key difference between your anecdote and the parent's. They'll do a fair bit to help you while a device is in-warranty, but as soon as it's out, you're basically on your own.

If you use a Kindle heavily, and it's starting to behave at all flakily as you get towards the end of the warranty period, it's worth calling up Customer Service and pushing them hard for a replacement before it runs out.

(I have a friend who writes the warranty-expiration dates in Sharpie on the back of his electronics when he buys them. I thought this was a fairly decent, if dorky, little lifehack. I don't bother but that's just because I buy most of my stuff used.)

In the UK, regardless of manufacturer's warranty, the manufacturer is bound to replace the device if it begins to fail within a reasonable time period due to manufacturing defects. For electronics, this is generally accepted as being 5 years. This clause is one of those cited by electronics firms for the 'treasure island' tax applied to things sold in the UK.

Of course, it requires that you spend a whole bunch of time writing letters and threatening legal action. Frankly, for the sake of £150, I'd rather just stop buying things from Amazon; it'll do me good to explore other ecosystems, I guess.

You hear a lot of stuff like this, though it makes sense - keep the happy user's Kindle working, they keep buying books.

Yes, they have really been responsive and responsible about the occasional lost package and other shipping problems. When I lived in Scandinavia, there was nothing comparable to Amazon Prime at all in terms of convenience and customer service.