Amazon account closed with £300 Gift card.

upstaged

This is a difficult one. Some people have made some fairly negative assumptions here but looking at it positively you can see where each party is coming from:

1) Pockio (Giftoff). They are just a gift card retailer. They purchase an Amazon gift card, and sell it to their customer in exchange for cryptocurrency. Imagine instead of a cryptocurrency seller this was something like Tesco. That makes it easier to understand. You can buy your gift cards from Tesco - you take them to the till, and pay the cashier, and Tesco hands over the appropriate amount of money to Amazon. I wouldn't expect Tesco to be asking the customer for ID when purchasing a gift card or to be ensuring that the customer has a legitimate Amazon account. How the card is used is nothing to do with Tesco. You would not expect Tesco to refund the customer if Amazon then accepted the gift card but subsequently cancelled the account and the credit along with it. The seller (in this case Pockio) has done nothing wrong and cannot just refund or issue another goodwill as they have already made the gift card purchase.
2) The OP. The OP has clearly made a mistake in setting up an account under the age of 18. He may or may not have given correct details (DOB, name, address) about himself in setting up the account; we don't know because he hasn't been totally transparent here. In any case, let's assume he still intended to make a legitimate transaction with funds legitimately obtained, and had no idea that he might be able to lose his money. He has paid £300 (or equivalent in crypto) and now has nothing. He is the only one losing out as things stand.
3) Amazon. From Amazon's perspective I suspect this is slightly more serious than someone adding a few months onto their age. They are required to protect against fraud. The real concern is not that the age is wrong, but that the circumstances could be indicative of more serious fraud. The £300 oder is shipped to a collection point, NOT a home address, so there is no way to trace the person who bought it unless Amazon has their (verified) details. Add to this that the OP has provided at least some false information as they would not be able to sign up an account if underage, and there is certainly reason for Amazon to detect this as suspicious and freeze the account until it's checked out. To allow anybody to sign up an account without correct details being provided and then make a purchase without a verified adress would be irresponsible. Suppose the gift card had been purchased with stolen funds. Amazon are the only ones who would be liable if the recipient of the goods is not traceable because Amazon do not have verified information about them. I suspect it does not matter to Amazon exactly how the user purchased the gift card, as they have to treat all similar fraud threats in the same way. The account is suspended until the customer proves that the details they've provided are correct (and in this case they're not, which is the big problem and the reason this can't be easily resolved). So although Amazon seem to have come out of this £300 better off and not being very helpful, I can sort of see where they're coming from.

Some of this is speculation on my part but I wanted to show that nobody is necessarily in the wrong here. This all being said, while it is certainly the OP's mistake, that doesn't make the outcome of him being £300 out-of-pocket right or fair. I think it would be reasonable for Amazon to refund. It is difficult to see how they could refund the OP as it would be a gift credit refund and he doesn't have an Amazon account to refund it to (they should not re-open it, based on what we've been told here). They could possibly refund Pockio though (Pockio being a legitimate customer who just purchased a gift card) which would allow Pockio to refund the OP.

Amazon may not be obliged to do this because of the fraud, I'm not sure. I don't fully understand how the terms and conditions and the law and your consumer rights apply in this case. I don't feel it's right that they allow you to apply your gift card in the first place before suspending the account; they probably ought to verify before the gift card is accepted. I can think of many companies who have refused to ship my items to a different address than the one my credit card was registered to, to prevent fraud (it was a nightmare when I was away at uni and my cards were registered at my parents' address!), but they did not take the money first and decline the order afterwards! That's effecively what Amazon have done here, but the roundabout transaction through a third party and using gift cards makes this a very difficult situation.

I would definitely recommend getting in touch with CAG (Consumer Action Group); they have very helpful users on the forums who know much more about your consumer rights and would be able to advise on the best way to proceed. I would also recommend being as open as you can with them so that they can help you.

surveillance

Amazon Privacy Notice

Are Children Allowed to Use Amazon.com?
Amazon.com does not sell products for purchase by children. We sell children's products for purchase by adults. If you are under 18, you may use Amazon.com only with the involvement of a parent or guardian.

[amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=footer_privacy?ie=UTF8&nodeId=468496