How hard is it to return an ebook?
Well you need not worry about how hard it might be to return an e-Book to amazon. Same day service in fact. When purchasing a copy of the bible for my Kindle I chose what I thought was the tried and true NIV version. In fact when I received the bill I had indeed selected the “Todays NIV” a newer updated version. Now I have not read the Todays NIV and it may be fine but I did indeed want the other for sure so I used the customer support option again and sent an email this time. The question I posed was “Is it possible to simply switch the books out on their end or did I need to return the original”. Their reply is below.
Hello from Amazon.com.
Thank you for writing about returning “Holy Bible, Today’s New
International Version”, which you recently purchased for your Kindle.
You can return any item purchased from the Kindle Store within seven
days of purchase.
I’ve requested a refund for the purchase and removed the item from
Your Media Library. If the item is still on your Kindle, please delete
that copy. After the refund is issued, you will no longer be able to
access it. I’ve included instructions for removing an item from your
Kindle below.
Refunds are issued to the payment method used to make the original
purchase and usually complete within 2 to 3 business days.
You can purchase the correct ASIN # B000FC2KBU at your earliest
convenience.
Information about making purchases and managing your content is also
available in the Kindle User’s Guide on your Kindle or on our Kindle
Support pages here:
http://www.amazon.com/kindlesupport
Also, I appreciate that you took the time to include your feedback in
your email to us. It is very important for us to hear about your
experience using Kindle and shopping in the Kindle store. Strong
customer feedback like yours helps us continue to improve the service
we provide, and we appreciate the time you took to write to us. I’ve
passed your feedback along to the Kindle team.
I hope you found this information useful. Our goal is to help you get
the most out of your Kindle experience. If you need further
assistance, please contact customer support at 1-866-321-8851.
Thank you for choosing Kindle.
*****
HOW DO I DELETE AN ITEM FROM MY KINDLE?
To move or remove an item from your Kindle, follow these steps:
1. If you are not already on the Home screen, press the Home key.
2. Scroll the cursor to the Menu selection, and press the Select wheel.
3. Select “Content Manager” from the Home screen menu.
4. Select one or more of the items listed using the check boxes to the
right of each item.
5. Scroll down to the Menu selection, and press the select wheel when
you have finished selecting items.
6. Select “Remove Selected Items” from the Menu.
7. Select “OK” to confirm removal or “Cancel” to abort.
*****
This may seem like a small thing but making it as easy to return a book as buy it was really important to me. If I wander into Barnes and Noble and get a p-Book (Paper Book for those of you like me who didn’t realize there was such an abbreviation, but I was exposed to it recently and thought it funny 
) if I get it home and have buyers remorse they will typically take it back the next day with out fuss. Amazons has done the same thing.
The only surprising thing that was said was alluded to in the beginning of their reply… “If the item is still on your Kindle, please delete that copy. After the refund is issued, you will no longer be able to access it.” That would seem to indicate that items that are in the protected .azw format somehow phone home and see that they should not be used. At first blush I was mortified by this apparent phoning home, but upon reflection realize that is the nature of DRM (Digital Rights Management) and really should have expected it.
Since I did return the book it is only fair and correct that they have some way of insuring I do not continue to use it. I think that despite my Orwellian tendency to dislike any type of phoning home that this is exactly why I don’t have to pay for the wireless portion of the device. I can see this type of action occurring in a great number of devices and portends the ability for a MP3 device to truly be a subscription device shutting off access on a timed or tethered function in the future. But more on that perhaps later.
For now buy all the books you want, if you really hate them within the first 7 days you can return them, pretty much hassle free. How long will that policy remain unchanged? With the ability to shut them off by DRM perhaps a while, but there are some pretty fast readers out there. How long before we can simply rent a book?
Filed under: Kindle
I don’t see how renting a book differs much from checking one out from the Library. If they are capable of disabling the book from their location, why shouldn’t they rent the book with a two week window and simply delete the content after the alloted time. I would prefer greatly to “rent” a book for a small fee than to “purchase” a book only to return it within the 7 day window. I assure you the last book that took me 7 days to read was assigned by a spinster with a bun and granny glasses who should have stopped teaching 2 decades before.
That said, love my Kindle, love reading!