Tuesday, April 8, 2008

kindle dwindles



Three weeks ago I was in love with my Kindle, all smug that I'd copped one before later adapters slid to the bottom of a loooooong waiting list. But this newest object of my obsession is, alas, proving fickle. At first its screen ghosted so that the page I'd just "turned" wouldn't make way for the next, and words I'd just read bled through words that I hadn't. Still, I could make them out. Until this morning. The top third of the "page" simply disappeared, disintigrating in a way reminiscent of dying Etch-a-Sketch screens. (Anybody remember?)

I logged onto Amazon to look up their CS number, meaning to call and give them a piece of my mind. The bloody thing's not a month old and cost $400! If it died on me now, I'd have spent $100 per book! To my further annoyance, Amazon's CS number wasn't listed. Instead, a bolded copy line urged me to key in my number and "a dedicated Kindle representative will call you. Right now. Really." Uh huh. Naturally as soon as I keyed in my last number, the phone rang so Kindle--if they did actually call-- wouldn't be able to get through. But the call was from Kindle! A pleasant (English-his-first-language speaking) man asked what was wrong and walked me through a reset and when that didn't fix things, promised to send me a new one. No questions asked. To my surprise, he told me I can keep the old one so I can download books from one to the other, then send it back in packaging they'll be providing. He apologized that the shipment might take up to 5 days. (I hope not appropriating the machine meant for a friend who's been awaiting a delivery from Amazon for weeks.)

I hung up, giddy with wonder and gratitude and good will towards a company for which moments before, I'd been seething with hatred. Good call, Amazon. Now, let's see if you can deliver.

1 comment:

Irene Done said...

I do remember Etch-a-Sketch so that description is perfect! You have to figure that the price is $400 in part to cover free replacement of any glitchy units. I always thought that was one reason the iPhone's initial price was set as high as it was -- so Apple could instantly replace faulty iPhones for free.

I had a similar experience with Amazon. They called me back and got my problem solved pretty quickly. It really was impressive.