Anyone who uses Amazon knows what value it brings to our lives. Undoubtedly. I have picked up gems and ended up with unbelievable bargains myself. But all is not always rosy, ain't it?
I want to recount a rather strange incident involving Amazon.
My sister recently gifted us a Kindle. Then she also gifted me some ebooks on the Kindle. One of those ebooks she paid for was 'not available in Germany'. Amazon then offered me the option of converting the value equivalent of the book into a gift voucher. Left with no choice, I went for it.
I almost forgot about that credit until I got a great book recommendation from a cousin's wife and decided to purchase it online against my voucher. To my dismay, I was compulsorily directed to amazon.de to purchase the book but the German site would not allow me to redeem my voucher since it was one issued by amazon.com and not .de.
For the last two days I have been writing emails to Amazon's customer service and trying to get this changed to no avail. Basically it means that my sister can't get back the money in the UK. I can't redeem the amount here in Germany. Purchasing from the US-based site and getting it shipped makes no sense whatsoever. What a waste!
I'm really amazed at this strangest policy from Amazon. Fair enough that they encounter tax/VAT based problems if they transfer credit across countries but I read on some forums about many other people facing similar issues. Surely there can be a better way to handle this? If the site automatically detects my location, then why can't my account be automatically credited to be used only on amazon.de?
My brother-in-law suggested that may be someone from the US could login to my account and try to redeem the amount. I am yet to try that out with the hope that Amazon may still offer me a solution. However, if anyone has a better idea, do comment!
I want to recount a rather strange incident involving Amazon.
My sister recently gifted us a Kindle. Then she also gifted me some ebooks on the Kindle. One of those ebooks she paid for was 'not available in Germany'. Amazon then offered me the option of converting the value equivalent of the book into a gift voucher. Left with no choice, I went for it.
I almost forgot about that credit until I got a great book recommendation from a cousin's wife and decided to purchase it online against my voucher. To my dismay, I was compulsorily directed to amazon.de to purchase the book but the German site would not allow me to redeem my voucher since it was one issued by amazon.com and not .de.
For the last two days I have been writing emails to Amazon's customer service and trying to get this changed to no avail. Basically it means that my sister can't get back the money in the UK. I can't redeem the amount here in Germany. Purchasing from the US-based site and getting it shipped makes no sense whatsoever. What a waste!
I'm really amazed at this strangest policy from Amazon. Fair enough that they encounter tax/VAT based problems if they transfer credit across countries but I read on some forums about many other people facing similar issues. Surely there can be a better way to handle this? If the site automatically detects my location, then why can't my account be automatically credited to be used only on amazon.de?
My brother-in-law suggested that may be someone from the US could login to my account and try to redeem the amount. I am yet to try that out with the hope that Amazon may still offer me a solution. However, if anyone has a better idea, do comment!
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