Alternatives to Amazon?

[Bertolt]

Have you found any good alternatives to Amazon? I have found Kindle very useful for a number of years but I have found various aspects of their business less than customer-friendly. About 10 days ago I bought a 99p book and they told me my debit card had expired. My debit card should expire at the end of this month, so should still be valid (as of 24.4.2018). I live in Spain for half of the year and my UK bank made such a mess of issuing the new card, that I had to go to the UK and talk to them face to face. My bank was gracious enough to compensate me for the mess and the £50 they gave me was sufficient to buy a return air ticket to the UK (thanks to Ryanair). So today I have paid 99p for the book and Amazon have still not enabled me to read the book on my Kindle. Naively I thought that you paid your money and the book would appear almost immediately.
I have spent thousands of pounds with Amazon and am not a happy customer. I have other niggles about the company and would like to know if other members of the forum can recommend another company. I don't mind buying a new ereader in order to switch to the new company.
Sorry about the longish rant. I would really appreciate your advice/views.

[jhowell]

That is odd. Usually when you click the "buy" button the book is made available immediately, before your card is even charged.

Does it show up in the "Your Orders" page on Amazon?
How about in the "Your Content and Devices" page?

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To answer your question, Kobo is probably the best alternative to Amazon outside of the US.

[Bertolt]

Originally Posted by jhowell

That is odd. Usually when you click the "buy" button the book is made available immediately, before your card is even charged.
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To answer your question, Kobo is probably the best alternative to Amazon outside of the US.

I know that it was probably available for download but I don't always download the book immediately. I have at least 6 books in my "unread list". On my "Kindle for PC" app it says, where the book should appear, "problem with your credit card on file" I have since used my debit card (don't have a credit card) on at least 20 occasions while I was in the UK.
Thank you for your answer.

[Deskisamess]

My experience is that once your payment method is within 30 days of expiring, you can run into this issue. Once a sale is held up, the only fix is to update the 1-Click payment settings. If you don't, the sale/order won't go through.

Keeping a gift card balance on your account is the best way to avoid this, as it would be the default payment for 1-Click orders.

[Barbara1955]

Gift card Balance is Always used 1st .....

I noticed over the years being with Amazon that the Month my sons Debit card is to expire the system rejects the card even if the Year doent expire for another 1 or 2. With todays computers you think that problem would be fixed.

[Apparition B5]

As far as I've found, at least in the United States there is no real alternative to Amazon Kindle for eBooks. Over half of the eBooks I've bought on Amazon over the years are simply not available on other eBook stores, even to this day. This ranges from science-fiction novels to books published by the Vatican.

I've tried Google Play Books recently, but... well... That's a thread in and of itself.

[hildea]

I buy most of my books from Kobo ( https://www.kobo.com/ ). It works fine for me, I haven't experienced any problems, but I can't promise that they'd handle the credit card hassle you describe better than Amazon did.

I don't know how good they are with automatic transfer of books to ereaders. When I buy books, I download them to a PC, remove DRM using Calibre and Apprenctice Alf (and at the same time copy them to my private Dropbox account so I have a backup in the cloud), and transfer them to my ereader using Calibre.

[Hemmi]

I primarily buy from Kobo. Occasionally from Google Play. I use Paypal and keep a balance in there so I don't have an issue with foreign transaction fees and my credit card shutting off with multiple small transactions.

Whereever I buy from, I immediately download and put the book into Calibre.

While I do have a Kindle, my Amazon account is horribly out of date. The CC attached to it is 18 years old but they let me get all the free books I want without making me update it. Not that I would if asked because I don't buy from Amazon at all.

[GlenBarrington]

I'm a happy Amazon reader. KU, Prime, and all. I still prefer the Google Assistant over Alexa, but Alexa IS getting pretty good.

There are other online bookstores, but I doubt anything will be able to replace the unique cultural niche Amazon has carved out for itself.

Maybe in China's giant walled garden that their internet has become, a competitor could arise but I doubt it would translate to the west very well.

[EowynCarter]

Yup, kobo should do for books.

As far as readers are concerned, you can also look at bookeen or pocketbook additionally to kobos.

[LittleRach]

I try to avoid amazon wherever possible, because I just don’t like how huge they’ve become, and how they are pushing all the smaller guys out of business.

Kobo is hardly a small guy, but IMHO better than amazon, so that’s where I go.

[Tarana]

There's no real comparison between Amazon and any other e-book provider out there. Amazon's the top of the pile. Kobo comes a not very close second.

[HLS]

Its not amazon its the bank card that declined your charge

[Bertolt]

Originally Posted by LittleRach

I try to avoid amazon wherever possible, because I just don’t like how huge they’ve become, and how they are pushing all the smaller guys out of business.
Kobo is hardly a small guy, but IMHO better than amazon, so that’s where I go.

I have had enough of this storm in a 99p teacup and have bought a new Kobo. I shall not be buying anything else from Amazon.
Thank you for all your replies to my problem.

[Bertolt]

Originally Posted by kcladyz

Its not amazon its the bank card that declined your charge

That is very unlikely, since they paid everything else that I bought with the card during this month and I use the card a lot. It appears that many other people have had similar problems too.