Amazon and I Kiss and Make Up

My last post was about my Easter nightmare, when some brain surgeon over on Amazon removed over 700 comments I had made on my book pages and book forums.  I just wanted to follow up and give Amazon its due (do??).  The folks over at Executive Customer Relations really took care of the problem for me and were so professional about it, I just had to let you know.  I’m very happy with them.

After getting nowhere with the lower level customer service, I threw all caution to the wind and emailed Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.  Now, of course he didn’t read my email.  He’s way too important and busy for that.  But someone important read it and forwarded it to Phoebe at Executive Customer Relations, and she took it from there.  She reviewed the situation, found out that none of my comments (NONE of them, people.  NONE.) violated Amazon’s guidelines and worked at putting them all back.  And when she didn’t get them all on the first try and and I pointed this out, she fixed them all and sent me a $50 gift card!  -  Which I will be giving to my readers in some upcoming promotions, of course. 

It was explained to me that there was no personal vendetta against me.  Just an overzealous customer service rep who needed some training that he or she would be getting very shortly.  Apologies were forthcoming and assurances were made.  The five pimples that had sprouted up all over my face slowly began to heal.

The funny part is, when it was all over and solved, I finally received a response back from the lower level customer service, explaining to me how all my comments were removed correctly because I had violated their guidelines.  Grrrrr.  Can you picture my expression?  The words that came flowing out of my mouth?  I forwarded this email to Phoebe suggesting that perhaps more than one person on their team needs some training.  She promised to get right on it.  I also responded to this dimwit who emailed me (many days after the pimples started) and explained that she might want to talk to Phoebe in ECR about that.  I just hope she bothered to do that.

So all’s well that ends well.  It was horrible for me, but I think Phoebe at Amazon understood that.  She was very gracious and helpful, and I’m super pleased with how she handled everything.

And now I’m off to do battle with customer service again over the categories my books are in.  But that’s a story for another day…