Which sellers are offering refunds?

[raac]

Hi all,

Two days ago a bought a book on Kobo and discovered after opening it that it's the first edition of the book in question. Searching more, I discover that Kobo also sell the second edition for a couple of bucks more. Didn't notice that when I bought and assumed that they would be selling the latest edition only. Why wouldn't they? It's a technical book, so the edition matters. First interaction with customer service wasn't positive but I will pursue this doggedly.

On a more general note, plenty of e-books have typos and formatting errors not present in the paper version. In future I plan on buying only from sellers who will offer a refund if this turns out to be the case. I think this is only fair since, being an e-book, the buyer has no way to see what they've bought until after the money changes hands.

I know Amazon offers refunds (although I don't have a Kindle). I think Deisel might and I'm checking. I've heard that Sony and B&N will not offer refunds. I would love to hear others' experience in this domain so that I can choose which sellers to use and which to avoid in future. I plan on writing to sellers on my ban list to explain why I won't be using them.

Thanks!

[Antoinekamel]

Refund politics, AFAIK, are seller's, not editor's. Therefore, every ebook purchased in Amazon can be returned in one week without hassle, on-line. I think any other seller does this, and it can't be done in a book by book or editor by editor basis.

Just to comment, I suffered and suffered to get refunded from a brazilian ebook store because the book was slow (maybe bad linkage, or strange protections).

[david_e]

Originally Posted by raac

Hi all,

Two days ago a bought a book on Kobo and discovered after opening it that it's the first edition of the book in question. Searching more, I discover that Kobo also sell the second edition for a couple of bucks more. Didn't notice that when I bought and assumed that they would be selling the latest edition only. Why wouldn't they? It's a technical book, so the edition matters. First interaction with customer service wasn't positive but I will pursue this doggedly.

On a more general note, plenty of e-books have typos and formatting errors not present in the paper version. In future I plan on buying only from sellers who will offer a refund if this turns out to be the case. I think this is only fair since, being an e-book, the buyer has no way to see what they've bought until after the money changes hands.

I know Amazon offers refunds (although I don't have a Kindle). I think Deisel might and I'm checking. I've heard that Sony and B&N will not offer refunds. I would love to hear others' experience in this domain so that I can choose which sellers to use and which to avoid in future. I plan on writing to sellers on my ban list to explain why I won't be using them.

Thanks!

Why should you get a refund? It was your mistake, not Kobo's.

[xendula]

7 day one-click refund policy on Amazon.com for any reason. Not all stores have this type of policy: I don't think Barnes and Noble let you return ebooks.

Also, I sometimes get formatting and editing updates to ebooks in my library. They get delivered automatically. I love Amazon.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by david_e

Why should you get a refund? It was your mistake, not Kobo's.

Does it matter? I can return a paper book at any brick and mortar store, so why should I not have the same option with ebooks?

[taming]

When you "return" an eBook, you still have a perfectly readable copy on your computer or device. I think it is great that Amazon will do this, but I would guess that they pay attention to how often a particular customer does that sort of thing.

Kobo Canada often has different versions by different publishers of the same book. It seems fairly common to have a book here to be available in this way. I always look for that kind of thing when I buy a book.

[raac]

Originally Posted by xendula

Does it matter? I can return a paper book at any brick and mortar store, so why should I not have the same option with ebooks?

Thanks for your support, but best not to feed the troll. This isn't the first time he's made comments of this sort on threads like this.

I'm a big boy, I can deal with Kobo's customer service. I have extra ammunition now, as it happens, since this epub doesn't display on my reader for some reason. I just get big fat "Page Error!"

I'm mainly wondering (for the reasons posted above) which retailers people have had success in getting refunds. Also which are really bad, so I don't have to waste my time with them in future. I don't recollect refunds being a problem in the past, but perhaps I only tried Amazon.

[raac]

This from Diesel:

Thanks for the note. Our general policy is that we do not refund an ebook after it has been downloaded. If there are errors, we can get a new feed from the supplier or refund at that time. We try to keep our clients happy and loyal.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by taming

When you "return" an eBook, you still have a perfectly readable copy on your computer or device.

The two times I returned a book (once, because I accidentally bought it instead of sending a sample, the other time because I bought 50 Shades after reading the sample, then realized how sick the book was getting another chapter into it) the copy was instantly removed from my device and from my cloud library. I don't imagine people actually abusing this, but even if they did... You could technically read through a paper book in two weeks, then return it to B&N. Again, I don't imagine people would actually do this, as I assume most people are honest.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by raac

Thanks for your support, but best not to feed the troll. This isn't the first time he's made comments of this sort on threads like this.

I'm a big boy, I can deal with Kobo's customer service. I have extra ammunition now, as it happens, since this epub doesn't display on my reader for some reason. I just get big fat "Page Error!"

I'm mainly wondering (for the reasons posted above) which retailers people have had success in getting refunds. Also which are really bad, so I don't have to waste my time with them in future. I don't recollect refunds being a problem in the past, but perhaps I only tried Amazon.

Gotcha, and this is actually interesting to know. I hope you'll get a good amount of answers.

[david_e]

Originally Posted by raac

Thanks for your support, but best not to feed the troll. This isn't the first time he's made comments of this sort on threads like this.

I'm a big boy, I can deal with Kobo's customer service. I have extra ammunition now, as it happens, since this epub doesn't display on my reader for some reason. I just get big fat "Page Error!"...

Yes, quite ridiculous of me to expect people to take responsibility for their own mistakes.

[starrigger]

If someone bought one of my books and then, for instance, realized they'd already bought it from another store, that might be the buyer's mistake, but I'd have no problem with the store offering a refund. I don't like it when I see a return appear on my Kindle sales page, but it's still better having a reader walk away annoyed.

I've requested refunds a few times, when books had formatting problems or something that were just too annoying to ignore. Sony, BN (I think), and Fictionwise have all responded to such requests, though it required going through customer service. (In at least one case, though, I was really just asking them to fix the error rather than issue a refund, but that was more than they could handle.)

[pdurrant]

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[taming]

Originally Posted by xendula

The two times I returned a book (once, because I accidentally bought it instead of sending a sample, the other time because I bought 50 Shades after reading the sample, then realized how sick the book was getting another chapter into it) the copy was instantly removed from my device and from my cloud library. I don't imagine people actually abusing this, but even if they did... You could technically read through a paper book in two weeks, then return it to B&N. Again, I don't imagine people would actually do this, as I assume most people are honest.

Unlike Amazon's Kindle. folks using other devices actually can have copies of the book on their computer in ways that the seller cannot control. For example, I can download an ePUB of a book that I have purchased from Kobo that cannot be retrieved by Kobo. They could delete the kepub version, but not the ePUBs.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by taming

Unlike Amazon's Kindle. folks using other devices actually can have copies of the book on their computer in ways that the seller cannot control. For example, I can download an ePUB of a book that I have purchased from Kobo that cannot be retrieved by Kobo. They could delete the kepub version, but not the ePUBs.

With Amazon, users can keep a copy as well, I just don't think that users would do this. If you don't go out of our way to keep a copy, the book will be gone from all your devices as soon as they are connected to the internet again. I guess sellers just need to trust their customers if they want to offer returns.