Amazon Fail

[colinian]

It seems like they've established a system. If you ask about the problem or mention it once you get the shorter email Colin and I posted and if you mention it twice/don't drop it, you evidently get the one above.

 

I'm fascinated to see how all of this plays out!

 

Take care all,

Kevin

 

LOL! I got the exact same message back from Amazon.com:

 

Hello,

 

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

 

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

 

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

 

Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.

 

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

 

...

 

Best regards,

 

Anupama

Amazon.com

We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company

 

I wonder what kind of reply I'd get if I replied that this email did not resolve my question. :wacko:

 

I checked my purchases from Amazon.com to calculate the use tax I owed on my 2008 California income tax. The total was $980.60. About 1/3 was electronics, the rest was mostly books (including textbooks) and some music. I know that this is small potatoes compared to all of Amazon.com's sales for 2008, but if 1,000 people with sales at this level stopped buying from them, that's almost one million dollars. That's something they would notice. The biggest thing that will hurt Amazon.com is the negative publicity.

 

I wrote a letter to Jeff Bazos and mailed it Monday morning 4/13.

 

I'll be watching to see just how "Customer-Centric" Amazon.com and Jeff Bazos turn out to be.

 

Colin

[Myr]

They definitely seemed to have fixed things because the recommendations of other gay things is working again. (rather nicely)

[Libby Drew]

Quick update: The most relevant and interesting links from the past few days. (I'm trying not to bombard you.)

 

Amazon's excuse

 

Excerpt: It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles

[Cynical Romantic]

Seems fairly obvious that this was an ongoing and widespread policy at Amazon. Their inability to come clean and be transparent about it after days is as good as an admission, and all the evidence points to that as well. The "glitch" excuse was a useless deflection. Amazon will get no more business from me until they explain to my satisfaction.

[AFriendlyFace]

Amazon Lies: Amazon's "glitch" myth debunked

 

Excerpt: I am the author of the LAMBDA Notable Book, The Secret Keeping, as well as The Secret Trilogy, Girl Trouble and several other popular LGBT paperbacks sold on Amazon.com.

 

All of my novels have been aggressively censored by Amazon since (at least) January of 2008, when they were first released as Kindle editions and promptly rigged in the Kindle store so as not to register any sales ranks and bestselling categories, or to show up properly in Amazon search results. I have also experienced mysterious "sourcing fees" applied by Amazon to the list prices of my LGBT paperbacks, as well as the deletion of five-star customer reviews of them, the removal of their "in stock" status, and a host of other handicapping techniques which are still in effect today.

 

The last one is quite lengthy, but also detailed. Scary, if it's validated. Wow.

 

Thanks, and please let me know if I'm stepping out of bounds with these posts.

Wow! I had sort of "forgotten" about this scandal until I decided to check this thread for more updates. How terrible! Thank you so much for keeping us up to date on this, Libby!

 

Seems fairly obvious that this was an ongoing and widespread policy at Amazon. Their inability to come clean and be transparent about it after days is as good as an admission, and all the evidence points to that as well. The "glitch" excuse was a useless deflection. Amazon will get no more business from me until they explain to my satisfaction.

I completely agree! I was basically ready to "forgive and forget," but after reading that last post above I'm going to rethink that. I don't intend to patronize Amazon for the foreseeable future.

 

 

 

-Kevin

[Drewbie]

Yes me too, I might rethink of using amazon..

[Tarin]

I always use Amazon, I always will. I love it.

You whine about all of these things I've never seen evidence for. Amazon has a great selection of everything. From sci-fi to romance to pederasty.

Amazon is a huge site, with millions of customers, and they have to please everyone. If they feature GBLT stuff, they piss off the right wing and lose customers. Why not lose customers that are already angry and will stop at nothing to find a way in which they are being persecuted? I mean, they apologized already, and how do you know that this didn't affect all kinds of books? Did you search for every book in existence? Why is everyone always out to get you?

I'm willing to take Amazon's apology as the truth. Stuff happens, things go wrong.