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Ebooks should allow returns for
--bad formatting (missing punctuation, extra-wide margins, bad font/text size, OCR errors, lacks pictures included in paper version, Topaz, wrong metadata)
--file not usable with purchaser's software arrangement
--selected wrong filetype (for those that require 1 purchase per filetype)
--corrupt file
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Generally agree although I do think that formatting would have to be pretty bad to be unusable. Plus some of the above should be an exchange for same title, as opposed to a refund, assuming a functional file is available.
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Options 3 & 4 should easily only be exchangable for the same title. Option 2, also--except this is most likely to happen with a seller who only provides a single format, or in a situation where all the formats are incompatible with the end-user's software. (We offer ADE and LIT! So as long as you're not on certain Linux machines, you're fine! But we're not going to tell you that before purchase!) (It took me quite a while to figure out that DRM'd LIT could only be *downloaded* with Internet Explorer.)
One person's version of "easily ignored" is another's "constant eyestrain for the whole book." If the ebook doesn't match the pbook for punctuation, italics, & spelling, that's grounds enough in my mind to call it "bad formatting" and return it. "Minor" OCR errors can ruin a crucial scene; it only takes one "Ill love you always!" to break the mood of the story.
Large margins are another formatting problem. Some epubs come with M-space based margins--so the initial view on the SonyReader is limited to about 2/3 of the screen, but switching to larger text makes for larger margins, so on the largest size, there are two or three words per line.
I almost want to say "font size too big or too small is good reason to return the ebook." I look at pbooks before I buy them and don't buy if the font size bugs me. For ebooks that don't have samples, I think the sellers should take returns based on "I don't like the layout and find it unpleasant to read."
For those that have samples, returns for formatting should be limited to those that have problems that didn't show up in the example--for example, coding scripts that have botched formatting, but no samples were included in the intro chapter, or tables, or indented quotations that are formatted with a different font or heavy indents that make them unreadable.