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Amazon customer service corrupts their own review system and language bug
You'd think they couldn't possibly be that malicious, but here we are. While I didn't expect it to make any difference, I decided to follow those "Did I solve your problem?" links at the bottom if the mails from Amazon's customer service. When following the link for "no" from Johnny's mail, I was extremely surprised to see this:
I beg your pardon? I most definitely did not. So I followed the "no" links for the mails from Floris. The same message, but in Dutch: "Het lijkt erop dat je al op deze enquête hebt gereageerd." This means one of two things: a stupid bug on their side, or ECR just reviews themselves. I'll go with the latter.
Just some bonus bungling. Clearly my language is set to English, yet I see a mixture of English and Spanish on some product pages.
No s***, Sherlock
I think they essentially accepted the utility bill. Incredible. I did annotate it in Comic Sans, that probably helped.
Subject: Your Amazon.com account
Hello,
We have removed access to this Amazon.com account and canceled all open orders.
We took these actions because our records show that this account is related to another account that was closed by Amazon. You will not be able to access your account, or place any orders. We also advise you not to open more Amazon accounts, because they will be closed automatically.
Due to the proprietary nature of our business, we are unable to discuss other accounts with you.
Account Specialist
Amazon.com
No s*** Sherlock! Your customer service recommended I create another account. You are blaming me for your own mistakes? That's rich. The account "specialists" never mentioned this before. I'm guessing they perform this check only once they are satisfied with the documents before actually unlocking an account.
"The proprietary nature of our business"? What does that even mean? Do they consider their methods of irritating customers a trade secret? That's not a trade secret. That's just bungling. It's a templated answer, similar wording was used when this company was told their Amazon Web Services account was closed due to a related closed account existing. Which existed because Amazon's own verification team recommended creating a new account with a different mail address.
More faulty systems trolling customers.
As the account "specialists" have severe trouble reading the documents I upload, perhaps they need help? What if I combined a photo of the credit card and billing statement in one image and annotated it using Comic Sans, the most reviled font ever made? So I wrote "Name", "Address" and "Last four digits" in blue and drew lines from the words to the location of the information in the document. So you really, really, REALLY can't miss it. If this sounds childish to you, well, you've never dealt with an Amazon account "specialist".
Hello,
Thank you for your response. We reviewed the information you provided but we were unable to verify your identity from the document which you have provided as your account is still temporarily on hold.
You can resolve the issue by signing in to your Amazon account again and following the on-screen instructions to upload a copy of a government-issued ID (driver's license, passport, etc.) or a recent utility bill. Make sure the following information is visible:
-- Your name, address, and telephone number if available. If the documentation is under the name of another person, please indicate the relationship with the account.
-- Recent date. No more than 90 days.
Please share your information promptly so that we can verify your identity and restore full access to your account as soon as possible.
Account Specialist
Amazon.com
Unable to verify as my account is still on hold? There's an easy solution for that you know! Un-hold it!
So they are running out of excuses. They can't pretend they're unable to find the last four digits or transactions when you use huge annotations in Comic Sans MS to point everything out. So they claim they are "unable to verify my identity". Sigh. Why do they even bother asking for a billing statement if that's the case? The instructions given seem quite clear: upload a copy of a government-issued ID (you should NEVER do that!) or a utility bill. Utility bill it is.
And that's where the system fails once more. The upload form changes after (almost) every interaction. This time, the only available option was a government-issued ID. Well, I'm uploading the utility bill anyway because that's what the mail said.
Account specialists are just trolling you.
Another little insight into how streamlined their systems are. At 9:00 I receive another mail titled "Your Amazon account is still on hold":
We have reviewed the information you provided but we were unable to verify ownership of your VISA payment ending in (REDACTED) because the document provided did not prove card ownership.
It's not a VISA card. It's a Mastercard. This information isn't autofilled? Sigh. Six minutes later another mail arrived:
We have reviewed the information you provided but we were unable to verify ownership of your Mastercard payment ending in (REDACTED) because the document provided did not contain any transactions.
And that's the final nail in your coffin guys. The reason they state to decline any uploaded document is RANDOM. Because for the exact same documents, they first say it "did not prove card ownership". Even if that were true, if you order a brick at a restaurant you don't get to complain it's not edible. Then they change their mind and say it "did not contain any transactions".
Maybe they want to have a philosophical discussion about The Treachery of Images? It's a photo of a document that describes transactions, but the document doesn't contain any transactions, because it's a piece of paper. And a transaction is an action between two parties. As such, it cannot exist within an inanimate object like a sheet of paper.
...
Did something change?
I no longer seem to be triggering the CAPTCHA when I try to log in. This could be due to the passing of time, something to do with session cookies, perhaps my IP address changed.. Or I scared Amazon's legal department and they disabled the CAPTCHA. It wouldn't be the first time I scared a legal department, but there's no way to say for sure right now. And the document upload form now works in Firefox.
Also, for my.. fourth, I think, account I used a different card that a family member offered to use if I reimbursed them. Of course it got suspended, but it isn't locked yet and still allowed uploading a billing statement. So I adjusted the contrast of the billing statement I uploaded previously (so it couldn't easily register as the same file) and uploaded it again. "we were unable to verify ownership of your card payment ending in (REDACTED) because the document provided did not have the last 4 digits of the payment" The last 4 digits are only plastered 8 times over the document. I'd say the account specialists are blind, but I wouldn't want to offend blind people. A blind person with text-to-speech software could easily do better.
So I encircled the last four digits and uploaded the statement again. Then, I took a closer at the mail and noticed something was off. It instructed me to "Please include an image of the credit card used with name and only the last 4 digits visible or an image/screenshot of the supporting application in case of a virtual card."
These instructions are different from everything I've seen before! And the subject, "Your Amazon account is still on hold" is also unique! A Google search for "Your Amazon account is still on hold" yields no results either. And on top of that, it's at odds with the document upload form that now required a government-issued ID. (which didn't stop me from using the form to re-upload the billing statement. I don't color inside the lines!) So either this account specialist is doing something different, or Amazon is actually paying attention to my rants..? A photo of the card is much more reasonable than a billing statement as (for non-virtual cards) the customer must have the physical card. And forging a billing statement is much easier than forging a photo of a physical card.
But I had already re-uploaded the billing statement and can no longer access the document submission form as the document is under review. Let's.. call customer service! But what does the agent tell me when I explain the account specialist wants a photo of my card? "That's strange, they never ask for that." So something is definitely up. She says that instead of re-activating the document upload form, she'll just ask some questions and I won't have to upload anything - address, name on card, phone number. So I provided her with that. Okay, let's see what happens..?