Back then I recently updated my email, but still used my old card (that I paid with before) to buy some books for my Kindle.
After I bought them, I got a message saying that suspicious activity has been detected on my account and that they will block it.
They requested me to send them documents proving that I own the card within the next 24 hours, threatening with the account being deleted.
If I recall correctly, they also specifically requested to not include more information into the documents than needed.
I was able to generate a bank statement through my bank app.
Not much I could do in terms of configuring what was shown there.
The bank agreed to help to make a custom document if such need occurs.
However, the thing is... after I sent the email to Amazon with the document, they kept replying that there is something wrong with the documents, but not saying what they didn't like.
All replies were the same with little difference in them, and my subsequent attempts were not very successful. And they kept sending threatening emails with "we'll delete everything if you don't reply within 24 hours".
In the end I gave up and started sending them the same bunch of documents over and over again, and finally when they stopped sending their threatening emails, some time passed and they unblocked the account, "reverting the malicious email change and purchases".
What I hate the most in this story is that I have never been able to speak to a single person in Amazon.
In fact, I was blocked from accessing their "famous" human support entirely -- the moment I tried to log in with my account, it would display the request for documents.
Subsequently I still needed an account there, but I decided to delete the old one and create a new one with the email I needed instead, because I didn't want the story repeating.
Thinking about this makes me really nervous for all the things that are tied to my google account and I am considering leaving it, but also thinking how much of an overwhelming hassle it will be.
Back then I recently updated my email, but still used my old card (that I paid with before) to buy some books for my Kindle. After I bought them, I got a message saying that suspicious activity has been detected on my account and that they will block it.
They requested me to send them documents proving that I own the card within the next 24 hours, threatening with the account being deleted. If I recall correctly, they also specifically requested to not include more information into the documents than needed. I was able to generate a bank statement through my bank app. Not much I could do in terms of configuring what was shown there. The bank agreed to help to make a custom document if such need occurs.
However, the thing is... after I sent the email to Amazon with the document, they kept replying that there is something wrong with the documents, but not saying what they didn't like. All replies were the same with little difference in them, and my subsequent attempts were not very successful. And they kept sending threatening emails with "we'll delete everything if you don't reply within 24 hours".
In the end I gave up and started sending them the same bunch of documents over and over again, and finally when they stopped sending their threatening emails, some time passed and they unblocked the account, "reverting the malicious email change and purchases".
What I hate the most in this story is that I have never been able to speak to a single person in Amazon. In fact, I was blocked from accessing their "famous" human support entirely -- the moment I tried to log in with my account, it would display the request for documents.
Subsequently I still needed an account there, but I decided to delete the old one and create a new one with the email I needed instead, because I didn't want the story repeating.
Thinking about this makes me really nervous for all the things that are tied to my google account and I am considering leaving it, but also thinking how much of an overwhelming hassle it will be.