Thought I’d have another go at registering for an Amazon Seller Account today, as I’ve a mountain of books I want to shift. The last couple of times I tried this feat, I ended up having to be committed to an insane asylum, after trying to chew my own head off in frustration. Luckily, before I was dragged away, screaming and kicking, by the men in white coats, I did manage to pen an email to Amazon support [at the end of June, to be precise] and I’m sure that, busy as they must be, I’ll be receiving a reply a-n-y…​ d-a-y…​ n-o-w!…​

Anyway, even if I’m not worthy of an acknowledgement, never mind a reply, I’m sure Amazon will have taken on board my problem report and acted accordingly. So, here goes:

So far, so good. I’ll use my existing Amazon account to keep things simple:

And…​

Hmmm! Call me old-fashioned if you want. But that’s not the most helpful web page I’ve ever seen in my life. Maybe it’s a browser glitch…​

…​

[Brief interlude ensues wherein our hero and role model confirms that the above page also renders completely blank on Chrome, Firefox and Safari on OSX and likewise in Chrome and Firefox on Debian, Ubuntu and Elementary Linux]

…​

…​OK. It’s not a browser glitch. Amazon’s website is sending me to a blank page. Something’s not right here. Maybe the previous page was asking me if I wanted to use an existing Seller Account and that’s why it got confused [although surely they’d have thought to error-handle that?]. Still, I’ll go back a page and try registering as a new account instead:

Nope. That doesn’t work either:

Right. Time for some lateral thinking here. Maybe there’s some kind of problem with conflicting session cookies or whatnot, because I’m logged into my 'normal' Amazon account. Let’s log completely out of Amazon, to clear the custard and start again:

There’s a slight problem now; because I’m no longer logged into Amazon, I’ve no longer got access to the 'Sell Your Stuff' link, as that’s on my account page. Maybe if I just go directly to the Seller Central section, I can take it from there. Might as well click on 'Sign In' first, just in case my account was actually created before –in spite of the blank page I got served up:

Well, that answers that question. The elusive Seller Account has obviously not been created. And what’s with these past two pages? They look like they haven’t been touched since the 1990s. I feel like the person in a Hammer Horror film who’s strayed onto the abandoned path through the woods, that the locals warn no-one should take "at this 'ere time of night…​":

So, back we go again to the previous page and this time I’ll try 'Register Now' and see if I can create a Seller Account:

Woohoo! --now we’re cooking on gas! I only want to sell a few things, so I’ll click on the 'Learn more about the Basic Account' link:

The lad’s on a roll now. I can almost smell the scent of victory in my quivering nostrils:

OH. FOR FUCKERY-FUCK’S SAKE!!!!

At this point, young Mr. matulevicz begain dashing his head against the wall, screeching incoherently and bleeding profuseley from his eyes, ears, nose, anus, teeth and hair –before being bundled into the back of a padded ambulance and driven away at high speed.