Amazon.it has helped overcome dread of speaking Italian on the phone

I have to chuckle when I see the book we have next to the toilet in the bathroom: Italian in Three Months. Somebody should have written a book more geared to my learning curve. They could have called it Learn Barely Passable Italian in Just 25 Years. It seems strange that I’m pretty good at English—good enough to have been a newspaper journalist, book author, English and journalism teacher, freelance writer for magazines—but such a slow learner in Italian.

It's not something that I let discourage me, but rather I take the attitude of the turtle. I will get there eventually, if I keep moving forward, and what I can do now is adequate for my needs. I’ve long since overcome my fears of making mistakes, which is an essential hurdle in learning a new language. Often I recognize the mistake as soon as it tumbles out of my mouth, but I soldier on, knowing that my meaning was probably clear enough despite persistent grammatical butcheries.

I normally look forward to opportunities to practice and improve my Italian, but there is one context that I’ve dreaded and avoided over the years: speaking on the telephone. Communication without visual cues is different. People can’t see the look of confusion on my face when they finish their torrent of instructions and questions, so after a few moments of silence while I slowly try to process their words, I often have to say: “Non ho capito tutto. Puoi repetire, per favore?”

However, thanks to some high-level bungling by Amazon.it, I recently have received a lot of valuable practice. Looking on the bright side, I thank Amazon.it for forcing me to practice my Italian while speaking on the telephone, as I had to make eight different phone calls to solve a very simple problem. The feeling of triumph at the end of my struggle almost made up for the two weeks of frustration and fist-pounding that my desk had to endure.

I had set up my Amazon.it account a couple of years ago, and everything worked flawlessly. Orders came quickly and efficiently. We could watch movies on Prime, choosing either English or Italian as the language, even adding subtitles to some shows. But between last year and this spring, the company added an extra layer of security: a two-step login process that required me to enter a code that had been sent by text to my American cell phone number.

I have an Italian cell phone that I use here, and I can’t access my American phone, so I couldn’t complete the login. Without being able to access my account, I couldn’t change the phone number, and there was no option to have the code sent to my email address. I did, after some clicking around, find an option to deactivate the two-step verification process, which required me to send a copy of an identification document. I then received an automated email which said my request was being reviewed by the responsible department, and I would hear from them in 24-48 hours.

Two days later, still unable to login, I repeated the process. Two more days later, I bit the bullet and called the help line. The rest is a bit of a blur. I do know that I explained the situation to eight different people. One of them put me on hold and then hung up on me in the middle of my explanation, but the other seven were extremely kind, patient and sympathetic. They spoke slowly and repeated themselves when asked. However, over the course of the conversations, it became clear that they did not have the power to deactivate the two-step login process, no matter how many security questions I answered correctly. In the end, the best they could do was send me a link to the department responsible for this procedure, which did not include the possibility of actually sending a message. I just had to enter my login name and then send my identity document, with no chance to say I had already done this twice with no result. Nevertheless, I did send my identity document for a third time. First, I used my passport. Then, I sent a photo of me holding my passport up by my face. Then my American drivers license, and then a photo of me holding it up. And finally, my Italian carta d’identita’. Surely five consecutives submissions would draw someone’s attention!

Many automated emails resulted, but two days later, still no results, and I saw no route to get a progress report other than calling again. Then, in a stroke of uncharacteristic brilliance, I wrote out everything that had happened in English, translated it into Italian, and saved it in jpg format. This allowed me to send a personal message:

For the fourth time, I ask you to deactivate the two-step verification because I can’t access my Amazon account. Please. I beg you. I’m not able to receive messages on my American cell phone number, and therefore I can’t access my account with the two-step process. Otherwise, you can let me do the verification on my Italian cell phone number, 3533986899. Or at least do me the courtesy of explaining why you refuse to help me.

After sending this, I decided to try one more message of an unusual nature, thinking that it would surely draw attention to my plight and might even appeal to someone with a whimsical sense of humor. I had a photo of myself that Lucy had taken just as I had awoken after nodding off while waiting during a seven-hour layover in Frankfurt. I looked disgruntled, though I swear I was just tired and in truth was perfectly gruntled (I know that’s not really a word, but I’ve always wanted to find a good place to say it). Above the photo I wrote: “How I feel at this moment about my amazon.it account.”

The usual automated email came. Two days passed. More silence. I’d had enough. I made one final phone call, closing my account. After that, I opened another using Lucy’s email address. To celebrate, we watched a movie on Prime. Thanks, Amazon.it, for helping me overcome my fear of speaking Italian on the phone!