Watchdog talks about Amazon closing accounts

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I take it you have evidence of that?

The warning letter we received about returns was only about physical goods. Even though Amazon won't talk about the criteria behind the warning I know it's only physical orders as we (it's a joint Amazon account) have never returned a single ebook, audiobook or any digital order.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I take it you have evidence of that?

Originally Posted by Josieb1

The warning letter we received about returns was only about physical goods. Even though Amazon won't talk about the criteria behind the warning I know it's only physical orders as we (it's a joint Amazon account) have never returned a single ebook, audiobook or any digital order.

You do realize that Bilbo1967 wasn't challenging the statement that closures aren't caused by digital returns -- he/she was challenging the statement that people are buying books, stripping DRM, returning, and distributing them.

I think just about everyone knows about your letter by now, and most people know the circumstances. (It's certainly been discussed enough...)

Shari

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by shalym

You do realize that Bilbo1967 wasn't challenging the statement that closures aren't caused by digital returns -- he/she was challenging the statement that people are buying books, stripping DRM, returning, and distributing them.

I think just about everyone knows about your letter by now, and most people know the circumstances. (It's certainly been discussed enough...)

Shari

Clearly not the poster who commented that Amazon should be closing down accounts of people returning e-books.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Clearly not the poster who commented that Amazon should be closing down accounts of people returning e-books.

Ah...but I don't think that poster was talking about josieb1 at all--he/she was just saying that if somebody had done that, (bought books, stripped, then returned) then that would, indeed be a reason to close an account.

Shari

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by shalym

You do realize that Bilbo1967 wasn't challenging the statement that closures aren't caused by digital returns -- he/she was challenging the statement that people are buying books, stripping DRM, returning, and distributing them.

I think just about everyone knows about your letter by now, and most people know the circumstances. (It's certainly been discussed enough...)

Shari

Not really no. To be honest whilst I have an interest in this thread I skate the comments to avoid stress so I was simply commenting that in my small view of this subject it's physical orders that causes accounts to be closed and not digital.

Based on the comments of authors I know (and I know quite a few as a book reviewer) Amzon don't seem to care a dicky bird about ebook returns

[Dusky Rose]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Based on the comments of authors I know (and I know quite a few as a book reviewer) Amzon don't seem to care a dicky bird about ebook returns

From what I've read, from various authors, and web sites like "The Digital Reader", what happened when someone returned too many ebooks, their ability to return more was removed and they were notified they'd have to contact customer service for future ebook problems.

Here

Which makes sense. You don't want people to stop buying books, but if they're just downloading a copy and want to return it and now can't, they're going to have to think twice about buying another.

I suspect that if some authors are seeing a lot of returns, more than the norm (which one author pegs at between 0.5 to 6%) Here, then they need to do some hard looking at the book itself.

Could be a lot of reasons for a large number of returns. For example two to three I return a year usually are because they book's been reprinted under a different title and the author doesn't let the buyers know that. Or the book was just horribly formatted.

So I do think Amazon cares, they just handle it a different way than they do physical merchandise.