Amazon changes ebook refund policy

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by issybird

The Society of Authors is wrong about the return window; it’s seven days, not fourteen days.

What does work,

fourteen days in UK (and ? EU)

My aphorism “if the Authors Guild wants it, it’s stupid”

I have recently bought a couple of books that each ./ought/ to have had the conventional note on the copyright page that chapters X to Y have previously appeared in a different form (as a short story in a anthology)

They didn’t, so I was well past 10% read at the discovery point. Grr. Fool me twice.

[Paperbackstash]

Nothing is a perfect fix, but I agree with this change and see some of the author friends I have on Twitter celebrating this announcement and news. I rarely return an e-book, but a person should be able to tell if they can't tolerate the writing style before the 10% progress.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

…but a person should be able to tell if they can't tolerate the writing style before the 10% progress.

And 10% is the standard size for free samples so they are not getting anything more than they are entitled to for free anyway.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

Nothing is a perfect fix, but I agree with this change and see some of the author friends I have on Twitter celebrating this announcement and news. I rarely return an e-book, but a person should be able to tell if they can't tolerate the writing style before the 10% progress.

What do you do if you read past 10% and it all goes pear shaped due to errors in the eBook?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by haertig

Why would someone who wants to steal a book go to the trouble of buying it, then returning it, while risking cancellation of their Amazon account - when they could just go to a pirate website and steal it in one fell swoop?

I would be afraid of some sort of malware attack .

Maybe I am wrong about that being a risk, but I'm thinking that readers, even dishonest ones, are on the cautious side.

Also, it is easy to tell yourself that if a book turned out to be bad, you are entitled to return it. just like a lot of people will return a watermelon that is bad. If the supermarket takes such returns, and Amazon takes such returns, I have a hard time condemning the ebook returner, even though I wouldn't do it.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What do you do if you read past 10% and it all goes pear shaped due to errors in the eBook?

Then you point out the errors to Amazon as the reason for the return. Perhaps the author might be get slapped with a KQN and, possibly, their book being removed from sale until the issues are corrected.

Again not something that should happen all that often.

[issybird]

I’ve returned only a handful of Kindle books, and it’s almost always because of a random touch combined with one-click, and very annoying it is, too, to have to jump through those hoops. My guess is that if Amazon let you opt out of one-click ordering for Kindle books, a significant proportion of “legitimate” returns would be eliminated. Which would have the advantage of concentrating returns to the more dubious.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by issybird

My guess is that if Amazon let you opt out of one-click ordering for Kindle books, a significant proportion of “legitimate” returns would be eliminated. Which would have the advantage of concentrating returns to the more dubious.

This would be great. I do love that Kobo at least lets me put all the books I want to buy in a cart then but them all at once. Much better, imo.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by issybird

I’ve returned only a handful of Kindle books, and it’s almost always because of a random touch combined with one-click, and very annoying it is, too, to have to jump through those hoops. My guess is that if Amazon let you opt out of one-click ordering for Kindle books, a significant proportion of “legitimate” returns would be eliminated. Which would have the advantage of concentrating returns to the more dubious.

You're correct. I despise 1-Click. I want to see all of my potential purchases in a cart before I commit.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by issybird

I’ve returned only a handful of Kindle books, and it’s almost always because of a random touch combined with one-click...

I never realized you couldn't turn this off. I've never tried that. Yes, indeed - I can see how this feature could cause significant mis-orders. Especially on a tablet. I always use my desktop computer for browsing Amazon and it's a bit harder to accidentally click on something compared to a tablet or phone with a much smaller screen, although I'm sure it happens.

I never thought of this possibility of mis-ordering until you mentioned it. And it totally changes my mind on how Amazon should treat returns. In my post above, I was targeting the malicious ebook returners, without realizing that there were reasons I never thought of for there to be a significant number of true accidental orders.

Amazon could fix this by making one-click orders always be delivered to your account, not to any individual device. Then they could allow an infinite number of returns, that wouldn't get your account banned, IF the purchase was never downloaded from your account to one of your devices. Once you take the second step of downloading a book from your account to your device, then it's pretty hard to claim that you "accidentally" ordered the book.

Amazon would still have to address the buy-read-return scenario, but at least they could cover the "accidental purchase" claim and take that off the table.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by issybird

I’ve returned only a handful of Kindle books, and it’s almost always because of a random touch combined with one-click, and very annoying it is, too, to have to jump through those hoops.

Could you do your e-book browsing while logged out / in a private window so that one-click ordering is not available? That would eliminate the risk of making accidental purchases.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Could you do your e-book browsing while logged out / in a private window so that one-click ordering is not available? That would eliminate the risk of making accidental purchases.

Amazon should ditch the so called "one click", which sometimes isn't. All online ordering should have at least two stages: "buy" (allowing multiple items) and "checkout" (or "trolley" or "basket") with choice of payment & delivery.
I turned off "one click" in my account, but that doesn't disable it for "Kindle" content, not all of which are real ebooks (or magazines formatted as ebooks). Sometimes you can buy more than one ebook per transaction but only if Amazon lists them like that!

[Gardenman]

I have always wondered why 1-click can be turned off for everything else but not for books.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Gardenman

I have always wondered why 1-click can be turned off for everything else but not for books.

I'm guessing that is the reason that ebooks can be returned where other digital rentals can't.

I'd bet Amazon sells significantly more books due to one click. It takes away the tendency to put a bunch of potential purchases into a cart and then whittle it down to those you 'really' want.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

Nothing is a perfect fix, but I agree with this change and see some of the author friends I have on Twitter celebrating this announcement and news. I rarely return an e-book, but a person should be able to tell if they can't tolerate the writing style before the 10% progress.

Yeah, I agree. I think it is a good change. I actually would have set it at 25%, but as someone pointed out 10% is about what you get in a free sample, so it makes sense.