When Amazon and Kindle Sucks

08 Mar 2011

I love my Amazon and my Kindle 3, but what I had to do this morning hurt.

Below is the process (from memory) to purchase the Kindle version of Wit'ch War (by James Clemens) if you live in the US.  Books 1, 2, 4, and 5 of the series seem to be available in the US store, but not book 3.  The actual process was even more of a pain since it took a while to figure out steps 5-7 were the key.

1. Access Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.com
2. Click Edit next to United States
3. Lookup a real UK region and postal code via Google
4. Enter a fake (but sorta valid) UK address and save
5. Go back to Amazon.com and view a Kindle book
6. Click the "I want to start shopping using the UK store" link (I forget the exact wording of this, but it was along those lines - promising me a better experience as well)
7. Confirm that I want to convert my Amazon account to an Amazon UK account
8. Go to the Amazon UK Wit'ch War Kindle Edition and buy it
9. Access Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.co.uk (can no longer access it from Amazon.com)
10. Check Edit next to United Kingdom
11. Revert to my actual address (which is conveniently available in the dropdown)
12. Confirm that I want to convert my Amazon UK account back into an Amazon US account (this time I was prompted right away instead of having to find another link on my own to make this happen)

I only hope that I've done no permanent damage (to my account) and broken no laws.  Whatever policies or legalese that resulted in this insanity should be abolished.  This is the most consumer unfriendly lunacy I've seen in quite a while.