My Old (2013) Kindle Fire HD 7 could not get to the App Store (Network Unreachable) when Network was working fine. Finally called Amazon for assistance. That was a BIG mistake.
After the rep transferred me to the Digital Dept which did not pick up, she decided to "help" herself. First, her accent was so bad and her pronouncement of English words and letters were so poor I knew this was going to be a long day. As a matter of fact, over an hour with her was painful. It took her 6-7 times to understand the serial number I gave her that I spelled out a character/number at a time with an English word to help her comprehend. She never got it and I told her to look it up on in my account!
Repeatably she had me reboot the Kindle (the 40-sec cold start), restart the network, etc. Everything I had already performed several times before calling. She had no clue how to resolve the issue or even diagnose it. I did the hold the power for 40 secs and cold started at least 4-5 times as per her instructions. The last straw was her instruction to Deregister the device and Register it again. This completely cleared it off my account and not ever to be seen because I was unable to Register it again! We spent at lest 20-30 minutes trying to now fix that, all unsuccessful. I appeased her for well over an hour already before I told her it is time for a manager.
A supervisor (Starling) got on the line from the Digital Escalation Dept (1/24/26 ~ 2:55 pm CST). Obviously not her manager, but in a department that handles escalation for the Digital reps. This man spoke clearly in understandable English and raised points that were logical, but incorrect. For example, the device is old is the reason it wouldn't Register and that probably protocols were different inhibiting the register. He followed up with there is no way to Register this device and their were many other incidents like this. He offered me a 15% discount off a NEW Kindle Tablet which would be go to 20% with a return of this device. Before the Deregister, I had a fully functioning Kindle except for getting to the App Store. Now I had a dead Kindle that I couldn't register and therefor NO functionality! He proceeded to continue his "lack" of technical expertise on me, who by the way, worked in technology for over 25 years in operating system design and support, networking, etc. He finally told me he had no other options than the discount and no other escalation that I could do! It was plain to him that I would never be able to Register this device again. I took the discount and another 5% on my Amazon account and said adios.
But my persistence got the best of me again and my technological skills kicked in in high gear. While talking to him, we did verify that I was at the current operating system (I already had all this written down before calling Amazon). He replied to that with there is a manual way to restore the device, but the operating system downloaded would be the same and provide no solution. It was hopeless!. NOT! I simply did a Factory Reset of the Kindle HD and it restored, granted with any changes in settings needing to be reentered. However, it booted and asked me to Register again (this must have been at least the sixth time I went through this sequence and each time required me to change the Account password (see next problem below re WhatsApp inhibiting this). But for the moment, I was back up and running on the old Kindle HD.
So, now it couldn't get to my Amazon Account with all the password changes made. Turned out that my Account was assigned the new setting defaulting to use the WhatsApp for security between Amazon and my mobile phone that was assigned to get second level CODES for signing in. I had to install the WhatsApp onto my Android mobile phone. Fortunately I didn't need to initialize it and sign in. It was now the way to get a CODE rather than SMS Text. Fortunately, the CODE was presented in the notification message appearing on my phone that was targeted for WhatsApp. Nice security! But I was able to use the CODE to sign in. After which, I disabled WhatsApp security notification (NOY Easy - forget Googling or using AI for help in this area. They sent me to instructions that didn't come close to working. It took some time on Amazon Help to find the proper page to allow me to disable WhatsApp requirement and give me options for 2nd level security via SMS.
Anyway, I change the password one more time to a secure one and tested it successfully. NOW I had a working Amazon account again (wife was ready to shoot me -- highly dependent on downloading books and shopping of course), plus an old Kindle HD that was back to normal. I recall some email years ago re the APP STORE not working or supported on this old device and the need to get to the Store via a Windows Website. I was back to being happy - of course, because the wife was happy. 4-5 hours wasted on the Amazon problems.
What Amazon could have done better?
1. Could have pointed out that the APP was permanently unreachable form this old device as per a previous email.
2. Could have put out a proper message when trying to get to the APP -- NOT Network Unreachable, but APP Store no longer available for this old device.
3. Could have informed the representatives that Deregistering certain Kindle devices would result in Reregistering issues.
4. Could have just told me to try doing a Factory Reset. By the way, the operating system that was loaded WAS the most current on and the one I was on beforehand.
5. Should not have repeatedly forced me to keep changing passwords to Amazon account (part of Register dialog BEFORE it actually works!
6. Do NOT default to WhatsApp for notification security; instead let people know it is a new option, but keep the level of security they had before they select this new option.
7. Make technology experts available
8. Train supervisors on CORRECT solutions rather that their assumed solutions.
9. If an Amazon rep is neglectful, as these two were, and destroyed the device beyond any use as they did before I found the solution myself, then fully replace the device with a like device. The correct replacement would have been a $59.99 Fire Tablet. Don't demand a maximum 15% discount that the representative destroyed!
10. Provide correct WhatsApp Help documentation - it's an OPTION only, how to disable it if becomes enabled, do NOT default to using it, and a very clear way how to get to the documentation without a 15 minute search to find it.
No comments:
Post a Comment