We’ve all experienced that feeling of dread when a gadget is dropped. The more unlucky among us are also familiar with the horror felt after realizing that our once beloved thingamajig is now junk. Paul Gowder must have felt that after dropping his Kindle 2 recently, leading to a damaged screen. He, however, moved past that and decided to get Amazon to replace his Kindle.

Paul felt that it was pretty unreasonable for the Kindle’s screen to break, seeing as it was in a messenger bag at the time. His story fell on deaf ears at Amazon, where he was offered a replacement unit for $200, provided he returned the broken one. He agreed, but Paul wasn’t through with these Amazon folk.

It turns out that Paul went to law school, and he set about crafting a seriously frightening letter to Amazon. Among other things, he cited Amazon’s drop test video for the Kindle 2. Since his Kindle broke after a much less severe drop, Paul claimed that Amazon was misrepresenting the product. All he asked was that Amazon pay him $400. Shockingly, they did. Net gain to Paul: $200 and a new Kindle. Well played, sir… well played.

You can check out Paul’s letter, as well as Amazon’s response at the read link.