Quote:
Originally Posted by Grumpyreader
However if they still offer the 15% discount for the book they do list, they'll be honouring that statement and, subject to anything else people can find, I don't think there's any breach of an implied covenant.
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While they never claim to carry all their books forever, I suspect that if they dropped all DRM'd books and just offered multiformats, or removed everything except its erotica selections, many people who bought Buywise memberships would say that they had been cheated--they bought them under the very reasonable assumption that, while FW might not have *all* its current offerings forever, it was at least implied that FW would continue to offer a comparable range of books for the length of the club memberships.
A bookstore that sells $200 "lifetime reader's club" memberships, "good for 15% off everything in our stock for life!" and then closes down in two months, will be facing a lot of angry customers and demands for refunds. A bookstore that sells those memberships, and then in two months, turns into a specialty store focused only on travel books and foreign language dictionaries, is also going to face a lot of heat.
It can be argued that that's what FW has done--had a recent big push for long-term memberships, followed by a substantial drop in available stock. Whether that would hold up in court is anyone's guess.
However, it doesn't have to hold up in court for FW to face widespread drops in sales from bad public opinion. The money they get from long-term club memberships is very much secondary to the money they get from those members buying new books, which is why they can afford to have 100% micropay rebates on club memberships. They may have dropped club memberships in awareness that they have less to offer now, and may be willing to refund club memberships rather than face the public outcry (in addition to what they'll be getting for just not stocking those lines anymore).