Amazon!Fail

[hils]

Finally got a response from my e mail to amazon.co.uk

Hello,

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloguing error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.

Comments

[duskwillow.livejournal.com]

Yup, I just got the identical one.

[hils.livejournal.com]

I have no idea whether they have actually resolved anything or not

[moonlitrose9.livejournal.com]

"accident"! Yeah right!!!! I knew it would come back to bite them in arse - serves them right. Good for you for joining in the action against them.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Hehe! Well, at least they're fixing it. Not that they had much of a choice with all the bad press they got

[x-pixel-x.livejournal.com]

I got the same one, and color me not impressed. There is no apology here. Which I think given the circumstances, I hope they at least apologized to the authors. I don't know if I'm going to buy there again.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would hope they would apologise

[caersidi.livejournal.com]

Well I shall continue to buy from them. I really don't buy the conspiracy theory and the chap who started this in his blog on Sunday has stated he is satisfied with their explanation.

Plus his book has rocketed up the 'gay romance' charts.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Hee!! It would have been nice if they'd apologised for the cock up but yeah I'm happy enough

[caersidi.livejournal.com]

I expect their lawyers may have cautioned them or even drafted things to be in emails and statements. Think about how litagious the Americans tend to be.

[caersidi.livejournal.com]

I believe them. Accidents, especially in coding, do happen. They have always been a very broad-based company in terms of choice.

It came to light, it got fixed.

[solanyxe.livejournal.com]

This sounds like:
"This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted assessment error. We had no idea it would cause an uproar of this magnitude. It has been misreported to us that knocking off the gay and lesbian titles would benefit our sales. The problem impacted not only our sales but also had the effect of removing us from the list of companies with good sense.

Many books (that we'd happily leave out) have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainders (not all of them) as quickly as possible, so stop preaching already.
We intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accidents less likely to occur in the future, but do not count on it from ever repeating again, because we didn't fire the guys who came with this idea. (And we still think it was a good idea. Maybe the timing wasn't right. Anyway, we'll pretend that it was some random mistake and not the prejudice against homosexuality that guided our decision.)

Why do you have to be so whiny about it? We hope to see you again soon buying our products and not b*tching at us."

[helioshyperion.livejournal.com]

They started sending those out yesterday, and they hadn't resolved it by the time they were sent. So I doubt they've resolved anything by now.

And when they say it wasn't limited to LGBT stuff, they're lying. Some feminist stuff was removed, but only the ones that mentioned LGBT things.

[drbillbongo.livejournal.com]

Having read the other comments to this, I must say I'm not really impressed. They contacted you, which is good, and they gave a little explanation, but I'm still missing the apology - and if nothing's been fixed despite their claim to be working on it, that's even worse.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Hah! That is exactly it!

[hils.livejournal.com]

Aye, and I e mailed them on Sunday. It's only taken them 4 days to reply *eyeroll*

[alinoradesancto.livejournal.com]

Hmm...yeah, they've been sending everyone those.

I'd love to see an apology, at the least. (Hey, we get apologies if the trains are late! Sure it's a prerecorded message tagged onto the end of a 'this train has been delayed/will not run today' but still..)

And yes, things are slowly coming back...

Well, I suppose the good things that came of this are that now, we know the power of the internet (and twitter!). Oh, and I found some australian alternatives to amazon (yay, cheaper shipping!). Amazon will have to remain my last choice...

[hils.livejournal.com]

YAY for cheapness. Sadly Amazon is the cheapest thing we have over here. Good think I'm not short of books or DVDs at the moment *g*

[mysticmoonstorm.livejournal.com]

ditto that.

[innae.livejournal.com]

That is the most convuluted letter I have seen in a long time. They really say nothing in two paragraphs. hmmmm.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Hehe! Yeah, I know!