Amazon apologises after saying Northern Ireland not part of the United Kingdom

LONDON: Amazon has said sorry after mistakenly telling a customer in the Northern Ireland that he was not in the United Kingdom, triggering ridicule on social media.

Chris Jones, from Ballyclare in County Antrim, who was told by Amazon's customer support account on Twitter that he was not in the UK, said in a tweet on Sunday: "Got it sorted, finally. A very nice man from Amazon phoned to apologise and switch the territory on my account from ROI (Republic of Ireland) to UK. That's all they had to do."

It all started after Jones struggled to watch England's rugby match against Georgia, which was being aired on Amazon Prime Video on Saturday.


When he reached Amazon's customer support account on Twitter to find out why he was blocked, it cited geographical reasons.

"We apologize but upon reviewing your location you're in Northern Ireland. Rugby Autumn Nations Cup coverage is exclusively available to Prime members based in the UK. We don't have the rights to other territories," the Amazon account said.

This response from one of the biggest tech companies went viral and even attracted political attention.

According to a report in The Guardian on Sunday, Amazon initially appeared to be confused when some people pointed out that that Northern Ireland is part of the UK.

"Thank you for reaching out to us. We'll be sure to pass your feedback along to the appropriate team," Amazon said in response.

It appeared to realise the error after another person raised similar issue regarding access to the game.

The Northern Ireland Justice Minister, Naomi Long, said in humorous vein that Amazon had resulted in an "international incident" with the responses from the customer service, said The Guardian report.

"We apologise for the error in our colleague's response. Our Prime Video subscribers in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK can access and watch the Rugby Autumn Nations Cup on Prime Video as part of their subscription," Amazon said.