Amazon just locked a man out of his smart home for a week by accident

notthebee.com

13 points·gsibble··5 comments

> "The representative told me I should have received an email, which I indeed found in my inbox. It was from an executive at Amazon. As I dialed the number provided in the email, I half-wondered if Amazon was experiencing some issues and I was unwittingly falling into a scam. When I connected with the executive, they asked if I knew why my account had been locked. When I answered I was unsure, their tone turned somewhat accusatory."

Don't be shy. Name the Executive. I'm quite sure employees and companies alike would benefit from understanding who in a senior leadership position would make such a miscalculated and egregious accusation against a customer.

> "Update: I was not truly in the dark for a week. My smart home runs mostly locally and Alexa really is just a polymorphic interface. I was just able to use Siri. Though out of habit I’d sometimes say “alexa” only for her to remind me how stupid I was."

This really is the crux of the matter: Alexa is replaceable.

https://medium.com/@bjax_/a-tale-of-unwanted-disruption-my-w...

How Amazon acted in this case is ridiculous.

It was no accident. They locked the homeowner out because a delivery driver (falsely) accused him of racism.

Well, make it so I can make a longer title and I'd put that. I couldn't figure out how to phrase it in the length of title allowed.

The actual story is a much better read: https://medium.com/@bjax_/a-tale-of-unwanted-disruption-my-w...

Edit: scrum-treats beat me to it!

Also, this looks like it dupes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36296250

Reply on news.ycombinator.com