Kindle help, please!

[Cliftonite]

Bought my wife a Kindle Paperwhite from Tesco

She has been happily buying (too many!) books directly from her Kindle until now, when her credit card has just expired.

Trying to purchase a book is now failing at the Buy Now button with no apparent way of putting in the new credit card details.

Rumour has it that the Kindle must be connected / registered / tied to an Amazon account to enable purchase of books. But which account? Her Kindle doesn't appear under 'Your Devices' in the only Amazon account she has knowledge of. Or on mine, for that matter.

Can anyone please help as it is, of course, all my fault for being a cheapskate and buying her Kindle from Tesco because it was, at the time, cheaper than Amazon.

For my part I am just glad I have no time to read books as my whole waking life is spent on PistonHeads!

[funkyrobot]

Have the books been delivered with some sort of email confirmation?

You do indeed have ways of managing your Kindle device on Amazon.

I've just had a quick look at Google and people have suggested contacting customer services as accounts can be duplicated. Apparently, this can be an issue with the Fire.

Don't worry about where you bought your Kindle. They are the same thing wherever you buy them from. I don't own a Kindle device, but have the reader on PC's and other devices.

Have you tried registering the device under her account yet?

[Cliftonite]

Thank you for your help on this.

My good lady wife has discovered, after finding a phone number to enable her to have a chat with a real person at Amazon, that when she first registered her Kindle (two years ago!) she used an incorrect version of her e-mail address!

The good news is that the e-mail address is not operational. So no-one has access to her account via that address. The bad news is that the address (being [e-mail]) is (so far as I can see) not available and that Amazon will not change this address to my wife's correct address because she does not own the one she quoted in error!

This is probably good news for people who leave Kindles on trains for thieves to find but leaves my wife somewhat in the lurch as she cannot access her account via the Amazon web-site, which would be a tad convenient.

There is some more good news, though. Amazon did update my wife's credit card details so that she can resume showering Amazon with cash for new reading matter. Good of them, what?!!

Edited by Cliftonite on Tuesday 18th November 18:24

[funkyrobot]

I can sort of see why Amazon wouldn't change the address. Anyone could try to get an address changed.

Best thing to do would be stop using the old address and just sign everything up to the new, correct one. She can then use everything properly.

Forgot to say - has your good lady tried signing up to the incorrect address?

[Morf]

funkyrobot said:

Forgot to say - has your good lady tried signing up to the incorrect address?

Indeed, if the email address is not active then why not just claim it as your own?

[Cliftonite]

.
Seems that if dear wife signs up for new account she loses her library of books!

E-mail address was in use (by someone else) when she was setting up Kindle in first place. We know this because that was the one she wanted but couldn't get it. Presumably also, Amazon would not have accepted an invalid address at that time. She cannot now get the address as it has been used (but currently invalid) and, as it is an [e-mail] one they are no longer available in any case. We are now in the era of @Outlook.com

She will have another chat with Amazon tomorrow to get them to change their minds and see sense. Meanwhile she is now, at least, able to buy books.

Thanks for your thoughts and advice, folks!

Edited by Cliftonite on Tuesday 18th November 19:18

[ali_kat]

Can she open an account with Amazon at the incorrect email address, go into settings & change the email to the correct address?

[funkyrobot]

ali_kat said:

Can she open an account with Amazon at the incorrect email address, go into settings & change the email to the correct address?

That could work, unless they send a confirmation link to the email address.

[ali_kat]

Balls! Didn't think of that

Then, how many will she actually re-read?

How big is the typo? Amazon should be able to cope with changing a typo.

[Cliftonite]

ali_kat said:

Balls! Didn't think of that

Then, how many will she actually re-read?

How big is the typo? Amazon should be able to cope with changing a typo.

The error is 5 missing characters before the '@'.

[ali_kat]

She's fked then I think

Will she re-read any of them?

Amazon may negotiate her keeping 1/3rd?

[cherie171]

The simple solution is download a program called Calibre, transfer all purchased books off the Kindle and save. De-register kindle, the re-register to a valid email address. Obviously I can't advise on how to remove DRM to enable you to transfer back to the Kindle, but Google can.