Just Sent this to Amazon's "Prove Your Address is What You Say It Is" Department.

As a bit of a pop-culture fanatic, I love movies, TV shows and books. I've been known to link to many over the years and I've used Amazon's affiliate program to try and make a couple of bucks off of said links. So when Amazon's affiliate program banned all California residents, I was disappointed but not worried, since I haven't been a California resident since 2008. Of course, because Amazon keeps affiliate accounts separate from regular Amazon accounts, I didn't realize that my affiliate address hadn't synced with my Amazon shipping and billing addresses. So, they shut down my account. I complained and they said "Well, we'll reinstate your account but we may need you to verify your address" and I just blew off the request when it came a few weeks later. Then I get an email saying my affiliate account has been shutdown because I never proved that I lived where I said I lived.

I then sent them a 5 megapixel photo of my New York State drivers license. They replied pretty quickly saying my account had been reinstated. But I was already too annoyed to keep my digital mouth shut. Here's the email I sent them just now:

When I initially signed up for my Amazon affiliate account I don't remember having to prove that I wasn't lying to you regarding my address. While I understand that you need to make sure I don't live in California, you can assume I'm not lying to you for two reasons: 1) I haven't given you any reason to not trust me and 2) because I've ordered and paid for items to be delivered to my current address in New York and have received them *every one of them* (including a Kindle!). This is true with various products I've bought through the Amazon.com website and via CreateSpace.com where I am self-publishing a novel and have order four different proofs of my book.

The fact that one Amazon hand doesn't know what the other Amazon hand is doing doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence in Amazon as a company. The fact that you think I'm lying to you (why else would I need to prove my address is what I say it is?) makes me question your intelligence as well, since, to date, I am not aware of making a *single penny* on my affiliate account. So, *why* would I lie to you about my address? It makes no sense.

I encourage you to implement a single-account model, like Google has. This way, when I need to change information on my account I don't have to do it three or more times. Also, you shouldn't need me to send you a photo of my drivers license in order to believe that I live where I say I live. If I have ordered multiple items from multiple services over the span of many months and UPS has said they've been delivered to me, you shouldn't even need me to change my address. Your site should notice the difference and ask me if this is my new residence and then that new address should reflect across all of my accounts (or my one account).

The amount of hoops I have to jump through just to make no money at all, is absurd. I know, you, the person reading this, probably has no say over policy, so I hope you'll forward this to your boss and that they will forward it up to their boss, as well. I'm sure many people just *look* at these hoops and don't bother to jump through them. I'm sure many people consider the number of logins and passwords they have to keep track of and just throw up their hands at using Amazon at all. I know you guys are huge and probably feel like you don't need to worry about "the little guy" but think of it this way: you're missing out on a lot of revenue because people are frustrated with the complexities of using Amazon.

I know I'm frustrated.

Thanks for reading.

So there ya go. I think that covers things.  I know Amazon doesn't give a shit about me because they don't have to.  But I had to say something.  I'm just getting tired of crappy customer service from companies that make money and traffic off of me.  I know I'm not Chris Brogan or Seth Goden or whomever, but give me a break here.  They shouldn't need me to update three different accounts.

 

OK, venting done.  I feel (somewhat) better.