Special Ingredients: Idiocies of Amazon

You know, I love it when people unwittingly prove my point about how moronic they are. Not long after I wrote an article about e-commerce websites and their shortcomings, I received an e-mail from Amazon informing me that they were taking all of my seller listings down because I used a statement that violated their listing policies.

This has happened before. When I listed my items, I would end the description with a blurb that said “Contact me for my sales policy, pictures, or questions. Thanks!” Amazon insists that sellers have a customer policy for returns and the like. They even have a form for this.

I know that the average customer has the attention span of a house cactus, so they wouldn’t bother to look up any such policies on their own. They just want to buy their item quickly and be done with it, as if they were shopping for adult novelties and think that every local clergy could converge on their location at any moment.

I used this line to make customers aware that there was some information that might affect them after they purchase their sinister goods. It also lets me point to the policy if a problem arises. The customer don’t read it, of course, but that’s their oversight. Every user agreement in the world isn’t void because the user doesn’t read it. Try wiggling your way out of one after you inadvertently agree to become Bill Gates’s personal left foot slipper next time you install a Microsoft product.

Of course, someone at Amazon got wind of my statement (and it only took them nine months after I started selling, too!), so they took it upon themselves to protect their customers from my malevolent sales policy (which they recommended having) and took down ALL of my items. I contacted them to point out that they were idiots and grudgingly re-listed everything. I thought everything was settled.

Ha, ha! What an idiot! Within three months of the last incident, I got ANOTHER e-mail informing me that I was in violation of their listing policies and they were going to take down my listings. Just read the e-mail and discover the “reason” for yourself:

We are writing to let you know that your Amazon Marketplace listings have been cancelled. We have taken this action because it has come to our attention that the comments field of your listings is being used to solicit a sale for the item through another sales process. Specifically, your comments field included the following text:

"Contact me for pictures or questions"

This is considered to be an attempt to divert Amazon.com buyers to another sales process and is a violation of our Community Rules.

As stated in our Community Rules:

"Any attempt to circumvent the established Amazon.com sales process or to divert Amazon Marketplace participants to another Web site or sales process is prohibited."

Please use the comments field of a listing only to describe your item. You may not include your website or any other contact information in the comments section. You are welcome to relist your items provided you refrain from using the comments field to solicit sales in any way other than through Amazon.com.

We appreciate your compliance with this matter and thank you for your
interest in Amazon.com.

Regards,

Item and Seller Quality
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com

Yes. Inviting potential customers to ask me for more information about my products is evil. Oooooooooooooooooo!

At this point, logic itself seemed to have hopped the first plane out of the country. All I could do was stare at Amazon’s reasoning, trying to figure out how those friendly words could have possibly been misconstrued into a violation. I mean, a customer has access to my e-mail address (which wasn’t in the listing), so how is letting them know I’ll actually answer their questions a violation?

Since logic couldn’t survive in this environment, I chose to use its heartier cousin, sarcasm. I began composing an honest and insulting letter that served no other purpose than to let Amazon know that they’re a bin of morons. Halfway through the letter, I decided I was angry enough to call them and complain.

The hurdle here is they don’t actually have a number. Instead, they have a system where you request them to call you. It doesn’t take a genius to see the potential sadism in this process, but surprisingly, they did call back the second I requested it. The problem was, I was at work, in the middle of my office, so I couldn’t really go off on the unfortunate fool on the other end of the phone. It was a good call, though.

I talked with a befuddled seller rep who had no idea why the department in charge of listing patrol, known ominously as the “Alliance,” cancelled my listing. She tried to make something up about prompting people to contact me and do business outside of Amazon, thus denying them their rightful extortionist fees. I wasn’t buying it.

I soon put this argument to rest, and decided to bring up Amazon’s extortion fee structure. I told her I didn’t find it reasonable to pay $2.59 in fees to sell a video tape for $2.49, that it’s basically $2.50 right out of the profits every time I sell something. She sternly denied this, but soon realized I was right. She was trapped.

Her final response to this was that the shipping fees that Amazon charges the buyer goes toward the seller’s profit. This is somewhat true, but I was shocked that the company admitted to gouging on shipping costs. Not that I’m complaining, especially since eBay eDiots will charge twenty times as much anyway.

I also learned that the Alliance apparently has no direct phoneline, since she didn’t offer to connect me to them to get me off her back. I also now have a permanent record. Really. She told me she was typing up this incident on my permanent record, but refused to tell me what she was putting down or allow me access to it. It probably said something to the effect of “This guy is a meanie poopy-head! Cancel any of his listings that contains text in the description!

The phone call basically settled nothing, but I got an e-mail shortly after telling me that, for some reason, the Alliance didn’t act on their threat and take down my listings(despite their solid case). I was told to take any issues up with them. I decided to drop it, since they really didn’t take anything down. I finished the e-mail, but didn’t send it, fearing the Alliance would find me and take me down instead of my listings. Here’s the full letter:

Okay, this is the most idiotic thing I've ever heard in my life. There isn't an argument on this one, Amazon is clearly in the wrong. Unless I'm completely missing Amazon's core values.

Let me see if I have this straight. It's perfectly all right to be vague about item descriptions and sell broken, incomplete, or potentially bootleg merchandise, but it's against the rules to invite users to ask questions and get information about their potential purchases? I also remember the time all my items were taken down because I made the folly of offering potential customers easy-access to my documented shipping and return methods, as recommended by Amazon itself.

I used to think that Amazon was about getting good deals and making money, but I guess it really only exists for the sole purpose of allowing its employees to extract obscene pleasure out of the misery of its users. I suspected this for a while, especially when one factors in Amazon's evil seller fees. This point was hit home hard when I sold a tape for $2.49 and was charged $2.59 in fees. Absolute genius. I really want to meet the person who cooked up that idea.

I talked to a customer service representative a short while ago, and her rationale for these fees is that the profit comes from the shipping fee. I, personally, find this logic to be flawed, but that's probably because I'm not well-versed in Amazon's corporate culture.

In this spirit, I'd like to know the department I would contact to send my bill for all of the time it will take me relist all of my items. I suspect it will take me about 2 hours, and my current salary is $12.95 an hour, so I will be charging Amazon $25.90. This is just the base fee, however. When we factor in auxiliary costs, such as electricity, equipment wear, tangible expenses (lunch), intangible expenses (mental stress, work hazard, suffering fools), shipping and handling, and any other fees dictated to me by the Dark Lord Ixpah, my fee is $164.29 dollars, but Amazon is eligible for Chrisco Prime discounts, which eliminates the shipping and handling cost, bringing your total down to $163.90 (as a courtesy, shipping and handling fees cover the cost of a sincere, computer-generated letter thanking you for your ignorance).

Or Amazon can simply forget the entire thing and order a clue. No, forget that. It sounds like I'm soliciting for Amazon to purchase outside of Amazon, and we all know it wouldn't want to miss out on those delicious seller’s fees!

Regards,

Idiot Defamation Department
Pocky Box
http://www.pockybox.com

By the way, I changed my courtesy line to “Thanks for looking!” I’m sure I’ll get an e-mail in three months stating that this is in violation of Amazon listing policies because I’m suggesting that looking at my item is good. Don’t think for a minute that that’s not within Amazon logic.