Kobo Discounts: Coupon Codes + Discussion

[Canuck_in_Japan]

I'm having real mixed feelings here. I am loving the deals but I just completely destroyed a lovingly built "to buy" list that I had been tending for a couple of year now. Oh and switching to India was the best idea ever. I think I bought Rick Atkinson's WWII trilogy for less than $3 and OMG I'VE RUN OUT OF BOOKS! QUICK! SOMEONE TELL ME A REALLY EXPENSIVE BOOK THAT I DIDN'T KNOW THAT I WANTED SO I CAN SAVE 90% ON IT!!

Originally Posted by mrscoach

I think it only applies to one book at a time. It takes many checkouts, but isn't it worth it? (that's been my experience, anyway)

Originally Posted by peachiekene

Were you trying to check them out all at once? If you have multiple items in the cart, the code will only work once for that cart. You have to check them out individually.

As for the "unusual" taste in books --- The vast majority of books on my wishlist are not couponable in the US.
Most of the books I've come across that are couponable --- have been recommended here. ^^;
Other than that, there is a childhood favorite series of mine I have been (slowly) collecting.



Non-agency publishers are listed here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=698

The one at a time works. Thank you both. And tthanks for the non-agency list peachiekene!

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

For me it's been 48 books for under £25. Including gems such as the Judge Dee Mysteries from the University of Chicago press

Why have you said that?

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by slex

It doesn't work for me here in Bulgaria. I had to change to India to make it work.

I bought one book but I feel kind of guilty. It's clearly a technical bug so I wonder if I should exploit it.

Not guilty at all, if bosses put up some untested software, it's their responsibility (I know what I'm talking about )

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Why have you said that?

Sorry. Feel free not to buy them if you haven't read any of them -- who knows if they'd be to your taste.

[zelda.owns.link]

Originally Posted by bartveld

In how many hours does Kobo Canada start its Monday morning workday? When will our dream end and their nightmare start?

It is currently 9:45 am EST and my account is still letting the coupon work. I think the executives are sleeping in!

[Dr. Drib]

Isn't it just speculation that an error has occurred on this huge discount?

[SteveK]

I hadn't purchased from Kobo for quite a while, but I have certainly taken advantage of this incredible deal! I've purchased at least 45 books in the last two days, some of which contain 3 or more titles. I haven't kept track of my total cost, but I'm sure it's not more than $65 or so, perhaps less. My credit card statement will certainly have more pages than usual this month!

Thanks for this code, and special thanks to Kobo!
SteveK

[mXb]

Normally when I buy a book from Kobo I get the order receipt email almost immediately.

I bought a half dozen over 2 hours ago and nothing. I think Kobo's computer must be about to blow a fuse !


...and thanks to the code post, Lady Stardust ( ? )

[slex]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Not guilty at all, if bosses put up some untested software, it's their responsibility (I know what I'm talking about )

Responsible they may be, but that is not the whole story. If your security system is crappy and someone breaks into your house, you will have every right to hold the security company responsible for doing a crappy job. This doesn't justify the actions of the burglar. I don't think that the line "Oh, but it's the security company's fault for not doing their job" will be a convincing defense in court.

I also don't understand the differences in the reactions. Probably a few months ago Diesel had a buggy code giving similar discounts, but most people in the forum agreed that it's a bug and did nothing. Now it's from Kobo and everybody is so enthusiastic and jumps on the wagon. I guess there is a framing effect at work, as we are used to getting coupons from Kobo and not from other retailers.

By the way, this is not the first technical blunder by the company. In 2012 a bunch of books by Faber & Faber were free at Kobo for a few days. Then again lots of people raised their voices that downloading them maybe is not such a good (in the sense of morally good) idea.

But this sentiment is now gone.

And it's not just Kobo that will be hit, you know. They may cover the losses for the authors of the discounted Kobo books, but the timing of this blunder will probably hit some independent authors who hoped that the offered discounts during the Read an Ebook Week will make their works more attractive. Next to Kobo's coupon, they stand no chance.

[Josieb1]

It's been 20 hours since my first purchase and I still haven't had a single receipt. I am using paypal now as my CC isn't accepted anymore. I tried to change it this morning but it wouldn't let me so my guess is their payments system has gone down and until they fix it and process the very first purchase using the code then the code will continue to be accepted. And that's when we will finally get receipts. The debits may not go through until then either.

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by slex

Responsible they may be, but that is not the whole story. If your security system is crappy and someone breaks into your house, you will have every right to hold the security company responsible for doing a crappy job. This doesn't justify the actions of the burglar. I don't think that the line "Oh, but it's the security company's fault for not doing their job" will be a convincing defense in court.

If a company offers a coupon for use it is not the same as breaking into someone's house and stealing their stuff Your analogy doesn't hold up.

I boldly walked into the Kobo India store, said "I want that book", brought it to the register, gave them a coupon, they gave me the coupon discount, and I paid for the book.

I didn't sneak into the store, stick the book under my coat and sneak back out with it.

This happens relatively frequently in online retail and in my experience the retailers just suck up their error. However, most are much quicker than Kobo in catching it. An online cosmetics retailer recently had a 20% off sale, but they made an error in the coupon database and let you stack that sale with another 20% coupon they had out at the same time. They didn't mean for the coupons to be stackable and as soon as they noticed they corrected the programming error. They also asked the person running a very popular cosmetic blog who posted about the stackable coupons to remove the post, which she did. But they honored all the orders made with the stacked coupons and didn't try to sue people for "stealing" from them.

And yes, I made a very sizable order from that cosmetics company and now have a year's worth of primer and various other items I use from them stocked up.

[slex]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Not guilty at all, if bosses put up some untested software, it's their responsibility (I know what I'm talking about )

Adding to my previous post, this shifting of responsibility reminds me of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

[Josieb1]

I agree with what Slex says in part but at the end if the day it's up to Kobo what they do. They could refuse to allow the purchases, not debit us and remove the books from our library's, it's their call after all.

They often issue codes and tbh they are just far too expensive without them. I picked up a book that was £3.95 with kobo and £2.47 on Amazon. Without the code I would buy from Amazon.

[chilady1]

So I have a question: 3 of the books I purchased this weekend would not let me download from my Kobo library on the web, however, all 3 books are showing up within the Kobo Desktop app.

I found the directory where the files resides however, there are all in the form of 8a386142-xxxxx-xxx in other words, gibberish, not titles.

Short of opening each and every file, is there a way I can pinpoint those 3 books so I might import them into Calibre?

Any help would be appreciated.