[omk3]

I have bought many - and I mean many - books and ebooks from Waterstones.
I have also bought two readers from them. I have been a Waterstones cardholder for years. I have now decided that Waterstones is not going to see another penny from me.

Many of the ebooks I bought from them were full of little errors- no news there, we have all found OCR mistakes and other little strange things in purchased ebooks. It is a disgrace, but it is not rare, and it is not exactly the retailers' fault. I never complained, though I admit I probably should have.

Then on the start of January I bought a book that took place in France, so had a lot of frech words in it. All the accented characters were completely garbled, both on ADE on my PC and on my reader. I took a very descriptive screenshot and sent it to waterstones. (For the record, I'm not being picky, though I have every right to be. Everyone that saw that screenshot could not believe a book could be sold in that condition. It was unreadable.) I asked them very politely to either provide me with a good copy of the book or with a refund.

5 days later, I get a very generic response that thanked me for my email and assured me that they have forwarded my details to the "relevant department for investigation", whatever that means. They would contact me as soon as they had an answer from that department. In the email there was also a lovely phrase: "I do apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused as it is not our intention to inconvenience our customers and we always strive to offer a better level of service.". Right.

A week later, there is no other feedback from them. I write an email to the person signing the above email, very politely stating that I have received a number of advertisments and promotions from them in my inbox, but no answer to my problem. Again reminding them that I would be satisfied with either an error-free copy of the book or a refund.

Ten days after that, and having been completely ignored, I write to them again to ask them to please stop sending me promotional material, because if their customer service is what I have seen up to now, I'm not interested in anything they have to offer. I make a point to remind them that my last email of 10 days before has gone unanswered.

5 days later, I get the same generic email about forwarding my request to the relevant department, and the same statement of them not wanting to inconvenience their customers. Another person signs the email. The promotional emails have not stopped of course. I unsubscribe myself.

My tone in the reply is still polite but noticeably angrier. I ask what this mythical relevant department might be. If it was a paper book I could have taken it back, shown it to a clerk, and got my money back. But it seems that with an ebook there's nothing you can do if it's faulty. No customer rights. It is now one month from my initial complaint by the way. Why they can't just refund my money I cannot begin to understand.

I get a speedy response to this angrier and more resolute email, right the next day. Maybe the fact that I said that I had informed several of my friends about my dissatisfaction had something to do with it. The email is again signed by a different person still. It was speedier, but again said nothing useful at all. My query was sent to the relevant department, and they had chased up that department and should hear from them shortly.

And that was 20 days ago, almost two months now after my initial complaint. I have not bothered to write them again. I have nothing else to say. They have lost a good customer. That's all.

This is not about the quality of ebooks, which is of course a major but different problem. It is about the rights of someone buying an ebook. Not only is the ebook not entirely ours, because of DRM, but it also cannot be returned, at least to this specific retailer (I know amazon behaves quite differently in this respect). So the customer loses in about every respect. Enough is enough.