I'm furious with Kindle Fire. Do I have any recourse?
Asked by
Jeruba (
56061
)
September 20th, 2021
I’ve been happily using my Amazon Fire tablet for more than a year, not just for reading books but for looking at newspapers, working the NYT crossword puzzles, and even doing a little shopping. This is mostly after I go to bed and am not using my laptop.
Last night out of curiosity I tapped the icon on the main screen that has a Zen calligraphy circle and says Amazon Al . . . under it. I didn’t know it was Alexa, I don’t use Alexa and don’t want anything to do with it.
The next thing that happens is that “Alexa” is welcoming me to my “new” Fire and asking me to register it. I don’t want to do this. I can’t back out. There is no back or escape option.
I try to skip forward, but it won’t let me unless I register. I go around in circles. Finally I shut the damn thing off, hoping it will clear. Nope. Back into the same loop. So, really irritated, I register the damn thing.
Then:
• The interface changes. A lot of stuff pops up or has prominent labels that weren’t there before.
• I’m forced to sign on with a password instead of just using the swipe to sign on. Annoying, unnecessary extra step.
• AND . . . all my bookmarks are gone. Everything has been wiped.
So without telling me where that button would take me, without any kind of warning, I entered a one-way tunnel that cleared out everything I’d been using the device for.
This is a dirty trick and I am fuming.
Is there any way back? Do you know? Or do I just have to start all over again?
I feel like biting the thing. Hard.
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10 Answers
I’m sorry, I don’t know the solution, but I totally empathize with your aggravation.
I avoid using Amazon as much as I can, and would love to see you or someone jam a broken tablet sideways into Jeff Bozo’s mouth.
I made the mistake of buying an episode of Fringe from Assazon a few years ago, but there was no option to download it, even though I PAID for it.
That was a genuine LOL, @Brian1946. Thanks for that. I remember rather fondly when Amazon was just a giant bookstore, and I was happy to be a customer. Now I rather begrudge them my customership, but I can’t seem to pull myself completely away. I do admire those who are tough enough to do that.
The broken tablet image, though—that made me feel a little better.
@Jeruba @Brian1946 I had a Kindle when I was 16. I used it to read some books and play some games. Then it broke down and I lost a lot of books with it :(
I’m still looking for the two books about Native Americans written in the early 20th century. One is a breakdown of Native American culture, and one is a retelling of a legend, and both are great read. I got it for free on the Kindle, and now they are lost forever. If anyone can help me find them again, I will be so grateful :(
I downloaded some tunes from A’zon when my previous PC was running on Windows XP.
I then copied them to an external drive.
When I replaced that PC with one operating on Windows 7, that PC couldn’t read the MP3 files stored in my external drive.
Apparently it’s not even worthwhile to backup any files from Amafail.
A temporary solution: if you have a smartphone or iPad you could download the kindle app and try using that for now. You can do it on your laptop too, but I’m guessing you want something hand held.
I once got stuck in something like that in iTunes and it wound up being at the very bottom of the page there was little icons for search, offers, my song library, and I just had to get out of the 3 month unlimited offer by clicking on the icon that brought me back to the regular song list. Is there anything like that at the top or bottom? It was very frustrating. I was stuck in it for days, I did not want to sign up for a free three month trial, and then finally I called iTunes help.
I assume you tried turning it completely off and back on.
Can you call somewhere for kindle help? Maybe just the main chat or 800 number for Amazon? I would contact them directly.
Amazon sells their tablets below cost for a reason. You have to hack them to even get the Google play store.
There is a way to break out of that setup. Go through it and when it asks for a wifi network select one and when you need to log in select “skip”
@Mimishu1995 If you bought books for your Kindle they should still be available on your account, even if the device you originally put it on is broken. Log in to your account and go to “manage your content and devices”. You can download your old content to a new device.
You must admit the sensible thing to do is to contact Amazon Support. I am positive that they will soon sort your problems out and get your Fire back the way you had it.
I have always found Amazon Support to be very friendly knowledgeable and helpful.
I have needed to contact Amazon on many occasion over the years for various reasons and they have resolved my issue every time.
If after you contact their support you are still not happy Amazon do have a complaints procedure you can use.
Good luck
@Jeruba: Maybe there’s a way to put the Kindle back to factory settings, so it’s like you started from a new tablet.
Thanks for all suggestions. My main problem here is that it apparently did set itself back to a “new” state. It cleared out all my bookmarks. That’s the part that really annoys me. I don’t mind losing the history so much, because I didn’t use it, but I had the site accesses tuned and arranged to my satisfaction, and now they’re gone. It’s a blank slate.
The books I had are apparently still there, including bookmarks for the reading in progress.
Not only was this an unexpected outcome for clicking an icon, but it didn’t even tell me what icon I was clicking. It was like a trap. Phooey, Amazon.
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