Amazon cancels Louis Rossmann's account after Rossmann calls out Amazon on the so called "Racist [Ring] Doorbell"

[starsmine]

You can make a joke, but you can't make threats and/or hate speech and then when called out on it, pretend it was a joke and use "I was joking" as a defense for your reprehensible behavior and words.

Is it hard to tell the difference sometimes? yes. And that should always be part of the discussion. But this "I hate cancel culture because I can't be a pos human being and not face societal consequences for being a pos" is just a wild take. Hate cancel culture on Twitter for its lack of nuance and dog piling, and shame rhetoric rather than rehabilitation rhetoric. But don't hate on cancel culture for not letting you get away with being POS. 

You can FIRE customers who are disrespectful to your workers. that is a normal and expected thing to do in retail and service industries. Some Amazon manager backed their employee over a misunderstanding, the manager should get some praise for that for being the initial reaction. Until more information arose that showed it was a misunderstanding. And then corrective actions should have been taken rather than doubling down. Rossman knows this, he has fired customers before. I don't know why he was being unnecessarily antagonistic initially. I have in retail and service fired customers before even at the lowest level. I'm not going to deal with someone calling co-workers slurs, they can fuck off. 

TL;DR Amazon should have corrected itself when more information came to light, but their initial move of banning the customer was correct. Doubling down is wild and bad, and so are the takes in this thread.

[ravenshrike]

15 hours ago, Mojo-Jojo said:

This is hardly related to "woke" and cancel culture. This is a multinational conglomerate abusing its partners and customers.

Horsepucky. If the idea of free speech was central to the populace's thought and unpersoning people for their speech was anathema, the effect on their sales would be enough to get them to reverse course because the hit to their sales would be more than large enough for shareholders to notice.

[Arika]

6 hours ago, starsmine said:

but their initial move of banning the customer was correct.

i would say it wasn't correct, because it means they did 0 investigation into it and just trusted the word of a driver.

[starsmine]

51 minutes ago, Arika S said:

i would say it wasn't correct, because it means they did 0 investigation into it and just trusted the word of a driver.

As they should?

If I said a customer is harassing me, my manager had best have my back until proven otherwise.  Go ahead and investigate as they should as the second step, but the first step is to put a pause to future possible harassment fo the worker, or their co-worker's full stop.

If the employee is lying his ass off then the situation is an unfortunate minor inconvenience for the customer, and the employee is now fired. If there was a misunderstanding, the customer is compensated, and the employee is told to be more careful. If the customer is being an asshole, then good riddance.

But the incentive is not there for the employee to lie.

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 minutes ago, starsmine said:

As they should?

If I said a customer is harassing me, my manager had best have my back until proven otherwise.  Go ahead and investigate as they should as the second step, but the first step is to put a pause to future possible harassment fo the worker, or their co-worker's full stop.

But were not talking a person harassing someone, were talking about a doorbell where surely Amazon have instant access to that recording, given its their system?  The investigation should have been quick and simple.

 

Isn't it supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?

 

I mean sure, Amazon have the right to block anyone for any reason, but it doesn't mean it was the right thing to do.  Considering how much my household relies on Amazon for food, due to us both being housebound and supermarkets hardly ever having delivery slots available, this is kinda scary.

[starsmine]

8 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

But were not talking a person harassing someone, were talking about a doorbell where surely Amazon have instant access to that recording, given its their system?  The investigation should have been quick and simple.

 

Isn't it supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?

 

I mean sure, Amazon have the right to block anyone for any reason, but it doesn't mean it was the right thing to do.  Considering how much my household relies on Amazon for food, due to us both being housebound and supermarkets hardly ever having delivery slots available, this is kinda scary.

But we are talking about a person harrassing an employee. Thats literally why (incorrectly) the customer was banned. You can not go into hindsight and say that isn't what happened. From amazons perspective, the Customer harassed the employee, Customer got banned. This isn't a criminal court. So I don't know where you get Innocent until proven guilty. EVEN in criminal courts, you are held in jail until a bond hearing or until the court case to prevent future damages.

This is the same as firing a customer at any retailer. 

Amazon does NOT have instant access to that recording, I know ring is owned by amazon, but they can not just casually go into the system. 

[Arika]

9 minutes ago, starsmine said:

If I said a customer is harassing me, my manager had best have my back until proven otherwise

if you were working in a role that had a camera with audio on you at all times that your manager can go and look at immediately, then i best hope they did that first, which is more akin to this scenario.

 

3 minutes ago, starsmine said:

but they can not just casually go into the system. 

why not? do you think they would have investigated more prior to the lock out if the person who reported it wasn't an employee?

 

Should i be able to walk around a neighbourhood find someone with a ring doorbell and then call amazon and say "hey the house at <address> has a ring doorbell and they have a racist greeting on it, they should be banned"?

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Amazon does NOT have instant access to that recording, I know ring is owned by amazon, but they can not just casually go into the system. 

I wouldn't be so sure, but at the very least they could have contacted the customer the second they froze the account and asked permission to do so.  There should be procedures in place to deal with this sort of thing that don't involve just cutting the customer off.

 

In any situation, simply blacklisting someone for ONE report is absolutely out of line, without evidence.

If Amazon still just sold books then fair enough, but they have aggressively pushed other companies to use their shop front, they sell almost anything you can imagine and may be a lifeline for some products.  So cutting a customer off should be much harder than a small retail store.

[wanderingfool2]

7 hours ago, starsmine said:

TL;DR Amazon should have corrected itself when more information came to light, but their initial move of banning the customer was correct. Doubling down is wild and bad, and so are the takes in this thread.

Nope banning a customer first from everything and asking questions later is absolutely the wrong way to approach it.

 

To get to the stage of banning a customer, the company should do at MINIMUM an initial investigation or get details on what happened...then do the MINIMUM needed to protect employees.

 

If Amazon had lets say just said, no deliveries to this until we resolve the issue I don't think many people would have an issue.  Shutting down a service that has no relation to safety and security is pointless.

 

Take it from a more extreme perspective, imagine if it was linked to his front door; so he (or his kids) returning home no longer had access.  Or if it was a cold winter, and doing so disabled the thermostat schedule (so the house froze up).

 

The tl;dr is the actions Amazon took had no outcome on the employee's safety.  On top of that, if it is a case where an accusation is made, then the proper actions better be to make 100% sure the employee heard them correctly.  At that stage an employee should get disciplined for making a false claim, if they stated they knew it was a discriminatory remark and it wasn't

 

7 hours ago, starsmine said:

You can FIRE customers who are disrespectful to your workers. that is a normal and expected thing to do in retail and service industries.

In a normal service industry it's okay...when you link everything together though "firing" customers should be reserved for specific cases, and in some cases it shouldn't be allowed (such as ISP's or phone companies).

 

7 hours ago, starsmine said:

Some Amazon manager backed their employee over a misunderstanding, the manager should get some praise for that for being the initial reaction. Until more information arose that showed it was a misunderstanding. And then corrective actions should have been taken rather than doubling down

Nope, a good manager would attempt to contact the customer to get the other side of the story.  Instantly on being told there was video, there should be no actions taken until the video is reviewed (as taking no action doesn't harm anyone)

 

 

I'll say it again, the minimal amount should be done that will ensure employee safety; and in this case it might be just delay any Prime deliveries for a few days.

 

 

@Alex Atkin UK @starsmine It was a Eufy doorbell camera, not a ring.  In the accusation Amazon incorrectly identified the doorbell as being a "ring".

 

But @starsmine consider this, had it been a ring the fact the account was locked would have instantly locked him out of getting the footage the proved his innocence...and not only that but then Amazon would have effectively created a situation where the security of his home was compromised by not having a security camera at the front door (or a working doorbell(

[starsmine]

33 minutes ago, Arika S said:

if you were working in a role that had a camera with audio on you at all times that your manager can go and look at immediately, then i best hope they did that first, which is more akin to this scenario.

No. They don't just oh let me first go look at the footage before acting, You ACT first. Investigate second. You halt potential harm.

29 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I wouldn't be so sure, but at the very least they could have contacted the customer the second they froze the account and asked permission to do so.  There should be procedures in place to deal with this sort of thing that don't involve just cutting the customer off.

 I can agree with that. That is a great second step

11 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Nope banning a customer first from everything and asking questions later is absolutely the wrong way to approach it.

 

To get to the stage of banning a customer, the company should do at MINIMUM an initial investigation or get details on what happened...then do the MINIMUM needed to protect employees.

Protect the employee first, investigate second

11 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If Amazon had lets say just said, no deliveries to this until we resolve the issue I don't think many people would have an issue.  Shutting down a service that has no relation to safety and security is pointless.

That is a ban. That literally is a ban. What you just described here, is a ban.

11 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Take it from a more extreme perspective, imagine if it was linked to his front door; so he (or his kids) returning home no longer had access.  Or if it was a cold winter, and doing so disabled the thermostat schedule (so the house froze up).

 

The tl;dr is the actions Amazon took had no outcome on the employee's safety.  On top of that, if it is a case where an accusation is made, then the proper actions better be to make 100% sure the employee heard them correctly.  At that stage an employee should get disciplined for making a false claim, if they stated they knew it was a discriminatory remark and it wasn't

None of that has anything to do with this. You are not locked out of your house when you lose Amazon access. you are not locked out of your thermostat. Even if you have a ring doorbell. You think the thermostat stops working when your ISP goes out and you cant get into your house?

 

11 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

In a normal service industry it's okay...when you link everything together though "firing" customers should be reserved for specific cases, and in some cases it shouldn't be allowed (such as ISP's or phone companies).

ISPs and phone companies do fire customers. 

11 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Nope, a good manager would attempt to contact the customer to get the other side of the story.  Instantly on being told there was video, there should be no actions taken until the video is reviewed (as taking no action doesn't harm anyone)

you stop the harm by stopping all interaction until an investigation is done. You don't go, oh we will just continue to send people to be harrassed until we finish the investigation. 

 

[Arika]

15 minutes ago, starsmine said:

No. They don't just oh let me first go look at the footage before acting, You ACT first. Investigate second. You halt potential harm.

Hey mods, Starsmine, just sent me a PM that was incredibly sexist and disrespectful, i expect him to be banned immediately upon you seeing this message.

 

Spoiler

and only maybe unbanned if he disputes it, only upon his dispute should you actually look into it at all.

 

what kind of corporate controlling dystopia do you want to live in? jesus...

 

also do you want to answer the second part of my post?

51 minutes ago, Arika S said:

do you think they would have investigated more prior to the lock out if the person who reported it wasn't an employee?

 

Should i be able to walk around a neighbourhood find someone with a ring doorbell and then call amazon and say "hey the house at <address> has a ring doorbell and they have a racist greeting on it, they should be banned"?

 

[wanderingfool2]

3 minutes ago, starsmine said:

No. They don't just oh let me first go look at the footage before acting, You ACT first. Investigate second. You halt potential harm.

That's an asinine and completely ignorant argument.  In this scenario there wasn't any potential of direct harm to their employee.  It's not that hard to understand, if an employee says "XYZ made racist comments" and XYZ is not in the store, then yes 100% the manager would look at the video to find the incident.

 

6 minutes ago, starsmine said:

That is a ban. That literally is a ban. What you just described here, is a ban.

Do you not understand that they blocked his entire account.  There's a difference between delaying a delivery (if one even comes up), and banning an entire account.

 

7 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Protect the employee first, investigate second

Do you seriously not understand the context?  Say it with me, "the employee was not in any direct danger".  Oh no, the customer is going to somehow use his amazon account to put an employee in danger, get real.  Banning an entire account and cloud access is a stupid and ineffective policy to protect an employee; it's doing surgery with a blunt axe instead of a scalpel.

 

At most, they should have prevented employees going to the house; until they could contact him.

 

11 minutes ago, starsmine said:

None of that has anything to do with this. You are not locked out of your house when you lose Amazon access. you are not locked out of your thermostat. Even if you have a ring doorbell. You think the thermostat stops working when your ISP goes out and you cant get into your house?

If an account gets banned...yes it is quite feasible for things to get all messed up.

 

It's not just a simple ISP outage, if lets say a device tries calling home and it doesn't get a response it goes with the local data.  It's totally different when it calls home and says account terminated.  As an example, I had a printer that called home...it would still work without internet; but if it was connect to the internet and the service threw errors it would effectively blank out.

 

It's why I said it's an extreme example, to show that locking out of an account is more than excessive.

 

The simple fact is that Amazon went above and beyond what was the bare minimum to keep the employee safe

[starsmine]

10 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Hey mods, Starsmine, just sent me a PM that was incredibly sexist and disrespectful, i expect him to be banned immediately upon you seeing this message.

 

  Hide contents

and only maybe unbanned if he disputes it, only upon his dispute should you actually look into it at all.

 

what kind of corporate controlling dystopia do you want to live in? jesus...

 

also do you want to answer the second part of my post?

 

The hell are you talking about?

not the PM thing, but you ignoring the rest of what I said
For an employee to make false accusations, they lose their job. The employee has their entier livelihood on the line.

On top of that fact, for an employee, they and the team are forced to interact with said person unless a reason is given. You are not, and have never been under that obligation. 

[Arika]

1 minute ago, starsmine said:

The hell are you talking about?

not the PM thing, but you ignoring the rest of what I said
For an employee to make false accusations, they lose their job. The employee has their entier livelihood on the line.

On top of that fact, for an employee, they and the team are forced to interact with said person unless a reason is given. You are not, and have never been under that obligation. 

so you're not going to reply to the second part of my post. got it. conversation over.

[starsmine]

12 minutes ago, Arika S said:

so you're not going to reply to the second part of my post. got it. conversation over.

I wasnt planing to because its not relevent, you generally dont fire customers on interactions that dont happen with the company. And like I said you take the EMPLOYEES complaint seriously as again, their job is on the line for lying.
Why you are bringing a joe shmoe off the street into the conversation is beyond me.

I am not defending Amazons actions beyond the initial ban. Once actions limiting future harm are in place, an investigation needed to have happend.

[Alex Atkin UK]

24 minutes ago, starsmine said:

On top of that fact, for an employee, they and the team are forced to interact with said person unless a reason is given. You are not, and have never been under that obligation. 

Its already been pointed out to you that they could have just frozen deliveries, not frozen the whole account.

Or just make the customer pay to use a different courier, assuming they couldn't just make sure that customers deliveries never be assigned to that driver.

No matter which way you look at it, their response was extremely excessive given one complaint with zero investigation into the validity before taking action.  They did NOT need to do this to protect one delivery driver.

[RejZoR]

I've also noticed that most companies or services these days have f**k all systems in place for abuse or moderation. Like for example Reddit. You can have spotless account, zero warnings and it'll suddenly and permanently ban your account for reason X which may be justified or not. No prior warnings or notifications, just out of the blue permanent suspension. And this isn't the only example, there are others who do similar. And then make it absurdly complicated to question said ban or get in touch with anyone. Which often takes forever and often ends up with canned responses that make no sense and you can clearly see no one even looked at the case and it's all automated BS. Youtube for example is notorious for this.

[Kisai]

8 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Nope banning a customer first from everything and asking questions later is absolutely the wrong way to approach it.

 

Nah.

 

There's two ways to look at it.

 

A) Was the customer an immediate threat to (company), call centers have this "red button" to record the call and alert the call center manager in case of actual threats/bombs/shelter-in-place type of things. 

B) Was the employee retaliating for what was probably a perceived personal threat?

 

Generally, most people who work at a call center might press the red button about twice a year. It'll always be someone who got so irate that they start saying threating things, and the amount of times someone actually goes forward on those threats is far lower. But it happens.

 

So usually cutting off the customer to avoid further escalation is an option. But there has to be grounds to do so. You can't simply go "this person worships the wrong god, you're gone." There has to be some aspect of threat to the company to do it.

 

And believe me, there are "new hire" types that generally don't understand the difference between "threat to me" and "threat to the company". This is why call centers should not require their staff to use their real name, because that means the customer will go look them up on facebook to go harass and intimidate them. And before anyone goes "that doesn't happen", yes it does. 

 

[jagdtigger]

20 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Nah.

Yes, "innocent until proven otherwise". We definitely do not want to live in a distopian hell-hole where you are guilty until you have enough money to wash yourself clean/prove your innocence.....

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Yes, "innocent until proven otherwise". We definitely do not want to live in a distopian hell-hole where you are guilty until you have enough money to wash yourself clean/prove your innocence.....

This is not a criminal case. This is "terms of service", you have no right to service unless the government mandates it. If that was not the case, no service provider would ever be able to terminate accounts under the DMCA.

 

 

[wanderingfool2]

12 hours ago, Kisai said:

Nah.

 

There's two ways to look at it.

 

A) Was the customer an immediate threat to (company), call centers have this "red button" to record the call and alert the call center manager in case of actual threats/bombs/shelter-in-place type of things. 

B) Was the employee retaliating for what was probably a perceived personal threat?

Please read what I said

 

Banning everything (all services) is no, and to say that it's a case of protecting their employee is dead wrong.

 

You want a way to look at it, the claim was racist remark

So assume he did have a ring doorbell, and ring security stuff.  Their actions would have shut down the security of his home.  For what, what good comes from shutting down his accounts?

 

Actions that should be taken should be the minimal amount to protect the employee; and that would be to delay any orders he makes until figure out what went on.

 

So I ask you this, what threat did the home owner pose to warrant the discontinuation of his Echo device?  How in any sane rational thinking could someone who is accused of racist remarks be a threat to a device like that.  Or how could enabling him to still have access to his "ring" doorbell (if he had a ring) be a threat to an employee.

 

They made the actual threat worse by requiring him to contact support and then literally phoning support and accusing him of being a racist.

 

[Rex Hite]

Rossmann often gets very far up his own ass. His brand is glibertarian outrage over the claim of reduced consumer ownership in society, while Amazon's interest is maintaining corporate ownership. His is confused and nonsensical ideology of arguing against his own fundamentals.  He has tapped into the lucrative industry of 'Big Outrage'. What's a laissez-faire business-bro to do?

[jagdtigger]

17 hours ago, Kisai said:

This is not a criminal case.

Defamation and false accusation is pretty much criminal......

[goodtofufriday]

On 6/24/2023 at 3:06 AM, starsmine said:

But we are talking about a person harrassing an employee. Thats literally why (incorrectly) the customer was banned. You can not go into hindsight and say that isn't what happened. From amazons perspective, the Customer harassed the employee, Customer got banned. This isn't a criminal court. So I don't know where you get Innocent until proven guilty. EVEN in criminal courts, you are held in jail until a bond hearing or until the court case to prevent future damages.

This is the same as firing a customer at any retailer. 

Amazon does NOT have instant access to that recording, I know ring is owned by amazon, but they can not just casually go into the system. 

I think innocent until proven guilty is how things should work. 

 

Let the customer know they are under investigation. Then let them know the results. 

 

Can't just say someone is guilty based on hearsay alone. With my own employees I'm gonna hear both sides before I take action. 

 

You could just as easily have an employee who's straight up racist and trying to get innocent customers in trouble. 

 

No one's word is immediately believable.

[SansVarnic]

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