Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Kindle 3 Cracked Screen

I have a 28 day old kindle with a cracked screen (casing still intact). Amazon will replace it for free (I pay shipping as I am outside the USA). If I was in the USA I could use a prepaid stamp I had to print out for the broken kindle.

The replacement was marked for shipping as soon as I called and said what happened. I have 30 days to return the broken one otherwise I get charged for the replacement. I can have it replaced multiple times during the one year standard warranty period (no matter where I purchased it from).

I hope my replacement never needs replacing...






Update: 7th June 2011
The replacement was sent out from Amazon with 2 day delivery all for free. I got it in Trinidad in under a week after it was shipped. The skybox fees were the minimal $33ttd (just like the first Kindle). The Kindle was in a sealed box with the same packaging except the 2 prong wall plug was not included this time, so now I have the first USB cable with 110 volt charger and now a second usb cable.

I connected the second kindle to my wifi and registered it to my Amazon account. Syncing the content from the old one was very easy by just choosing where to send the books/games in the Amazon Kindle management area online. Within seconds the content was on my Kindle. After I was done I de-registered the old Kindle but I think I could have done this at any time during the process.

I had to spend over 20 minutes on the phone with Amazon trying to get an address to send the broken Kindle to. There is a prepaid stamp I could print out and use if I was shipping from within the USA but it had serial numbers and no real address. The first CSR I spoke to did not sound American and I spent over 15 minutes of intermittent holding and actually talking to him, repeating myself that I just wanted an address to ship to, he thought I wanted a prepaid stamp to use from outside the USA (which Amazon does not supply). Eventually he transferred me to an American sounding person who put me on hold one more time and came back with what I wanted. Amazon does offer a service where they call customer for free but it was not available the couple times I put in my local cell phone so they offered a number I had to call. I spent a total of almost $50ttd with numerous retrying and waiting for an initial answer and then being put on hold.

Today I got an email from Amazon saying they "'received the return for my order" corresponding to the order for the broken kindle. I was expecting it to take at least another week to reach them since I chose standard shipping but I am definitely happy about the shipping choice now. I mailed it out on the 23rd May and it was delivered to Lexington Kentucky USA on the 6th June. Well done TTPOST! - for the delivery at least. I got a little stressed in the post office when I was sending the broken kindle back.

Firstly, I did not know I was supposed to leave the packaging open so that the employees could see the contents... not that it mattered, because these two older women did not have a clue what an e-reader is... I had an inner box (the original kindle box) and an outer box (the original Amazon box). I had no idea if there was a minimum needed to wrap the kindle, even though the screen was already broken. Eventually I was convinced to use just the kindle box wrapped in a sheet of brown paper and an envelope and registered (3 week) mail. The damaged kindle was in bubble wrap and shredded paper inside its box. I was told I had to wrap the box in a sheet of brown paper (which I had to buy)... so I thought it was some standard process for a box so I went along and used half a sheet of brown paper to wrap the box. I found out after that this was just so the corners of the box would not punch the regular brown envelope they wanted to put it in... for no good reason. I know now that it was a waste of an envelope. I could have just taped the paper on the box (tape was for sale, not on the counter), or not wrapped the box at all since the corners remained the same because I  wrapped the paper neatly. The TTPOST lady was convinced the box could fit in a small envelope and I told her if it rips I am not paying for it because I did not think it could fit. She tried it and the envelope ripped so she ended up using the bigger envelope. Now it was time to seal the envelope and the glue on it was very sparse and probably not able to hold even if the envelope was empty. I was lucky enough to have some white glue donated and 2 staples placed on the envelope to hold it while the glue dried. The staples had to be removed before shipping though. The tracking number sticker and US customs declaration sticker were placed on the seal to help keep it closed. I had printed out the sign from Amazon for the outside that warns that it has a lithium battery inside, but at this point I was too frustrated to buy tape for it.


I think the entire cost was a little under $50ttd, for postage, envelope, brown paper and registered mail. I spent about 25 minutes in the TTPOST branch to send this package to the USA and a small envelope to the UK.

To get confirmation of my delivery I had to go www.usps.com and type in my tracking number eg. RI1234567890TT. The report only showed info for the 5th and 6th June. I am keeping a copy of the info a sort of proof of delivery in case Amazon has any issues in the future, even though I got an email saying they received the return item.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Compromised Visa Credit Card

I tried to use my credit card over the weekend and it was strangely declined but I assumed it was a bank error as the card was well under its limit, or was supposed to be. My card was charged multiple times in the last two weeks in another country and eventually reached it's limit, which is why it was declined when I tried to use it. So far I'm waiting on forms to go from place to place in the process of investigation so I have no real feedback from the bank on it yet. The first step is filling out a Transaction Dispute Form at the Bank. This goes to the fraud department who investigates the complaint. Depending on how long the merchant takes to reply and what priority your case has, it could takes weeks to get a response and months for a refund. In the mean time I have to pay for what was fraudulently charged on my card so that it can be used again. The card is being replaced and that takes about 3 or 4 working days from the time it is cancelled to the time you can collect the new one. The new one has a new number.

I am not worrying about when and where the card was compromised because there are too many times in the last couple times it could have happened as I use my card allot. It could have been either a copy of the info from the card itself or from an infected PC that was reading my info at some point. I am confident I will get a refund for the charges and I do not regret choosing a credit card over a debit card. The convenience and cost/bonuses of the credit card make it more worthwhile. What I am displeased about is that I was not notified about the charges since the first one happened two weeks ago. Visa dropped that ball on this one and now I have to pay for it, literally.


Update: 1st June 2011
I have been refunded ALL the money from the disputed transactions and also the $6.75usd for a new credit card. The entire process took a little under a month.The new credit card was ready for pick up 3 days after I cancelled the old one.

The inconvenience I had to go through was dealing with the bank as the first transaction dispute form I submitted was a very bad photo copy and could not be written on. This meant the clerk who filled the form did not use the proper lines she should have because it would not be legible. After I left the bank thinking the form was submitted, one week later the fraud department from the bank called me and said I had to submit the form again because the proper section was not filled out. This time they emailed me the form and I signed it and faxed it back. In the mean time I had to go back to the bank to pick up my new (chip and pin) credit card and also pay towards the amount owed to be able to use the card again. Note: I also asked the fraud department if they could email a blank form to the branch of the bank with the bad form and they said they could not, who am I to argue?...


The fraudulent charges were placed online in French stores and occurred around the same time Sony reported it had security breaches relating to credit card data. I did buy a PS3 a couple years ago at the Sony HQ in New York and I would not be surprised if my info was stored there, but yes, it could be a coincidence.

I am still unhappy that I had to detect that the card was being used fraudulently and was not notified by Visa. Yes it was online purchases but it was on the other side of the world and very large amounts! I have the perception that other people who use my bank and Visa have the same positive outcome from getting refunds for things they did not buy so I hope they keep up the good work.