This is from a customer who contacted Amazon UK, asking them to put a
warning on their site for the "Tubular Bells 2003" corrupt disc.
Amazon replied with misinformation.  All CD-ROM drives are designed to
play audio CDs, so that invalidates one of their arguments, and there
is no way that a corrupt disc can be classified as a "Red Book CD", as
it breaks both the word and spirit of that standard.  Their own lack
of commitment to their statement reveals that they know it is a lie.

If Amazon are going to treat their customers with this much
disrespect, I don't think they deserve the business.  I suggest people
use one of the other major suppliers (e.g. CD-WOW.com or PLAY.com),
who have more customer-friendly policies (although it must be noted
that they don't reliably put warnings on the site either, if at all,
but they *will* make full no-hassle refunds and are more honest with
their customers, which is better than nothing).

If Amazon make a clear commitment to a much more consumer-friendly and
honest stance, I will update this, but until then, here it stands.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

I saw the mention on the bad CDs page of how Amazon are selling Mike
Oldfield's Tubular Bells 2003 without warning that it's a copy
protected disc. I actually contacted them about this shortly after the
album's release, telling them that their description of it as an Audio
CD could be seen as misleading. They had this to say:

 "Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk with your comments.

  A large number of CD titles now employ copy-protection technology
  which will prevent them from being copied, or in some cases even from
  being played on PCs or other computer-based equipment such as games
  consoles.
  
  As these titles can be played in equipment designed as Audio CD
  players, they can still be listed as Audio CDs.  In addition, because
  of this advance in CD technology it's very likely that the Red Book
  has been updated to include these protected CDs and class them as
  Audio CDs, though I cannot guarantee that this is the case.
  
  With the majority of titles employing this protection we do have a
  notification to that effect on the product's detail page.  I have
  passed the information about "Tubular Bells 2003" onto the relevant
  department, and you should see this updated on our web site soon.
  
  Thank you for taking the time to inform us of this, and thank you for
  your interest in Amazon.co.uk."

Well, that was on May 29th, and I still don't see their promised
update... and as for the bit about the Red Book being updated...

I also heard from one of their customers who'd been trying to return
the copies of the album which he bought from them - they appeared to
either not be reading his emails, or just playing stupid, as when he
sent them back, demanding a refund, they apologised and sent him a
replacement ... I believe he sorted the problem out in the end, but it
wasn't plain sailing.

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