colinmeinke

UPDATE: The hold has been removed from my account, and I have access again. Even though I had previously been told my account had been closed, it seems like this wasn't final. This resolution was down to an escalation of my case at Amazon, after a team member contacted me through Twitter and promised to personally look into it.

My services are still online, so it's not a total disaster (yet), but I cannot sign in to the AWS control panel.

8 days ago I tried to log in to my Amazon retail account, and received a password invalid error. As it turned out my account had been closed, as it appeared to Amazon that it had received a suspicious log in. This is the same account that I use for AWS - hosting websites critical to my business.

Today it appears I am no closer to gaining access back to my AWS account than I was on day 1, even though I have been billed as normal for my services during this time.

This should serve as a warning to anybody else who has an Amazon account that is shared between retail and AWS.

Linked is a list of every event and interaction I have had during the last 8 days with Amazon, via Twitter, email, phone and chat.

I thought I'd add a timeline of events in case it's of interest to anybody in the same position.

30th June

- Attempt to login to complete checkout of an Amazon order I am trying to make, password invalid

- Attempt a password reset, I get the same password invalid error when trying to log in after the resetting my password

- Raised the issue with @amazonhelp on twitter https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/880794726911356928

- Eventually received a link that got me to a support phone number

- Called the support phone number, and was told that my account was ON HOLD, and would receive an email within 24 hours

1st July

- Within 24 hours I did receive an email stating my account had been CLOSED because of an "indication that an unauthorised person has logged in" to my account (see https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/881814337140248576)

2nd July

- I opened a new Amazon account as per the instructions in the email

- I tried to reply to the email with the new Amazon account's email address that I just set up

- The email bounces as the reply address could not be found (see https://twitter.com/colinmeinke/status/881443024580079616)

- I log in to my new Amazon account and chat to customer support. They can't really help and tell me they have spoken to another team and I will receive an email within 24 hours

3rd July

- I do not receive an email within 24 hours

- I continue the conversation on twitter, and get varying responses from different customer support agents, including a suggestion to contact AWS support

- I contact AWS support via a form on their website

- AWS support says the root issue is with my retail account, however, it has impacted my AWS Account as the login is the same, and that I need to email cis@amazon.co.uk who will provide me with further information

- I email cis@amazon.co.uk

Yeah - crazy extreme. I didn't even know until I tried to log in and my password was "invalid", and reset didn't work.