Order a book on Amazon, read it, return it: do people really do this?

[Praying Colonel]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1532056209658105862

I never would've thought to do it, but I learned a long time ago there's a whole segment of humanity I don't want to contemplate.

 

[GreatLakes]

I think it is pathetic but people are cheap.

 

[Christine]

People have ZERO integrity anymore. I'm not sure what Amazon should do. I've been gifted two books before, purchased through Amazon, that I had previously read. When I received them, I immediately returned them unopened. Also returned one this way, long ago, to a bookstore. I'm sure they don't want to put a no-return policy on books because it might stop people from gifting, but it is ridiculous.

 

[RUDisney]

I was in LL Bean years ago and there was a man returning his 30+ yo LL Bean boots.

Keep in mind, LL Bean has a policy of allowing you to return anything that goes bad for you during the life of the product. Even though these boots had long outlived their natural life, LL Bean took them back and gave the man another pair. They were apologizing to him for not having the exact pair that he had previously purchased and they were asking if the current pair met his requirements.

People who heard this were walking by, saying out loud how cheap he was.

@GreatLakes is right. People are cheap.

If you're going to do that with a book, you should be using the library and not Amazon.

 

[GreatLakes]

If you're going to do that with a book, you should be using the library and not Amazon.

Exactly, or at the very least buy a used book from Amazon, which is easy unless it is a new release, and then sell it back. You can do it super cheap and not be unethical about it.

 

[RamblingMad]

If the book is bad, I definitely return it.

 

[CdnCarrie]

Why not just go to a library? Seems like a lot less hassle. Or download it on a ereader.

 

[tvguy]

People still buy physical books? Or actually BUY any book? My wife's hobby is downloading, reading and then rating the free books from Amazon on her Kindle. I just got a new library card, probably haven't had one in 50 years, and I can check out e-books for free.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I think it's awful that people take advantage of businesses this way.

I seem to remember back in the day of regular bookstore that there were no-return policies, but I guess in today's world of internet reviews, customers don't stand for things like that.

If you can't afford to buy all the books you want to read, get a library card!

 

[NotUrsula]

It's actually easy to tell if a book has been read, as it cracks the spine adhesive throughout the volume, but it requires seeing the volume in person. The simplest thing would be for Amazon to refuse to accept book returns that are processed more than one day after delivery, or 48 hours at the outside. That's fair, IMO; if you have a copy or have already read it, you'll know right away, and if you don't get on it quickly, then you have the choice to sell it as a used book instead. I can read a book in 24 hours, but I'm unusual; most people wouldn't be able to make the deadline.

As to why they are doing it rather than using libraries? This is about best-sellers, and libraries tend to have waiting lists for those. These folks don't want to wait, but they don't want to pay, either. The real answer is increased library funding, so that your library can afford to stock enough copies to meet demand without long waits. (BTW, Libraries don't buy those multiple copies; they rent them. When demand dies down, we send the extras back in trade for a batch of newer ones; it's a continuous process. It can also be done with Overdrive titles, by temporarily extending the number of instances of the license to an open limit.)

As to the demise of the physical book? Nope. I've been buying ebooks for libraries since 1997, and for the most part, uptake of ebooks has been kind of slow, relatively speaking. The pandemic sped up the shift, but there are still a LOT of people who prefer paper, especially for fiction, and especially for summer reading, because they often wish to read outdoors, in situations where ereaders are not optimal. Paper is also still king in books for young children.

 

[StageTek]

Yep, people actually do that. It hurts the author financially but they don't care.

I love to hold a book in my hands so I still buy books. And I love to look at all the books on my bookshelves. The books I don't like I donate but I would never return it to Amazon. I really miss book stores.

 

[AppleDumpling]

Very sad that there are dishonest people in the world who take advantage of the goodwill of others.

Keep in mind, LL Bean has a policy of allowing you to return anything that goes bad for you during the life of the product. Even though these boots had long outlived their natural life, LL Bean took them back and gave the man another pair. They were apologizing to him for not having the exact pair that he had previously purchased and they were asking if the current pair met his requirements.

In 2018, LL Bean changed their long-standing return policy and now only accepts items up to a year, with proof of purchase. After one year, they may consider products that are defective due to materials or craftsmanship.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Just so you guys know this isn't about physical books. This is about eBooks which is totally different than physical books.

So there are a few things that put me in the middle

1) I only get my books through Kindle Unlimited or free books (sometimes of which have been discounted to free or have always been free)
2) Authors have largely gone to breaking up their books and charging a fortune on them and many times it's not disclosed how many books are in the series. This usually leads to people feeling jipped on having to keep purchasing and purchasing
3) Sometimes books are awful like really awful like an incoherent mess full of inconsistencies
4) Sometimes full of typos and grammatical errors such that you typically do not find in vetted published books
5) Sometimes have triggers in them that were undisclosed

Authors can still be largely underpaid but you should see the charges for some of the books. We're talking $2.99 for a 60page eBook that you'd need to purchase 5 other ones at that price just to get the full story. This is something incredibly common these days that authors are doing and it's one of the reasons I purchase Kindle Unlimited because there have been crap books that I would never in a million years pay for.

Amazon pays the author 70% royalties if their ebook is priced $2.99-$9.99 and 35% royalties if their book is below $2.99 OR above $9.99 (some exclusions like country-based, etc)....when you know that you'll see why many authors are choosing to break up things and charge a higher amount. But it doesn't mean their book is any better (or worse).

For you to know it's abuse of the system you'd need to know the reasons the bulk of people are doing this and based on a ton of reviews it's largely not for the "I've read it, I'm done with it so I'll just return it and get my money back"

I wouldn't agree to someone actively abusing the system but I can and have seen exactly why someone would read a book and return it.

 

[Miffy]

For anyone reading this thread, I'm pretty sure the returned books referred to are Kindle ebooks, not physical books. Not that this makes it any better. It does not.

Authors have petitioned for this policy to be changed--to allow refunds only on ebooks where, say, 20% or less of them had been read--but so far, nothing's happened on Amazon's end. And, yes, Amazon knows exactly how much of an ebook you've read--and a heckuva lot more.

Oops--I posted this before I read the above post.

 

[Miffy]

2) Authors have largely gone to breaking up their books and charging a fortune on them and many times it's not disclosed how many books are in the series. This usually leads to people feeling jipped on having to keep purchasing and purchasing

Some unscrupulous authors have indeed done this--broken up their books into tiny segments and charged $2.99 or whatever for them. But that's not "largely." It's "some."

It may be that you've seen this a lot with authors who've interested you, but this is hardly a common practice.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Some unscrupulous authors have indeed done this--broken up their books into tiny segments and charged $2.99 or whatever for them. But that's not "largely." It's "some."

It may be that you've seen this a lot with authors who've interested you, but this is hardly a common practice.

It's incredibly prevalent but I'll say it's perhaps genre-based not author-based like you are suggesting where it's just authors I've selected. Most of what I read is romance (a wide variety of it) but there's some young adult thrown in there and those two markets are ripe for exactly what I'm talking about. I read hundreds of books in a year by countless authors.

Sometimes what they will do too is have too many books in a series that they consider interconnected so you want the answers to something big from book 2 you need to get book 7 to get that and most though not always the quality of the books suffers the more the author drags it out. Honestly that's normally not a huge deal because a lot of people like more books but you don't want to feel stringed along where you just have to keep purchasing to get things and there are books where that happens. Most complaints I see are when the ebook is under 150 pages or less but 60 pages is also a common length (it should really be called a novella but the point becomes the same).

I'm not saying I blame the authors but that there are both sides.

20% or less of them had been read--but so far, nothing's happened on Amazon's end.

I once read a book through Kindle Unlimited where the heroine was raped by the hero's brother in very graphic detail 49% in. I DNF (Did Not Finish) right then and there and returned to Kindle Unlimited which I hardly ever do that because I like to finish my books. You bet your butt if I had just purchased it I would have done the same. That was not listed in the trigger warning (which is common among e-books with sensitive topics) no mention of "dark".

Not quite the same as what I had been talking about the length of this book was perfectly fine at 346 pages. I got it through KU but the list price is $4.99. Here's what my review had (and blessedly eReaders make it easy to search this stuff because I sure didn't actually count it lol):
Murmur(s)=111 times according to my Kindle
Mutter(s)=87 times
Grumble(s)=28 times
Whispers=45 times

This is also from a best selling, USA today, Wall Street Journal author (according to her Goodreads page). Oooh I was so tempted to return it just for the above stuff but I pushed through it because I wanted to know how it ended. If it wasn't in KU I may have returned it IDK, it was a very frustrating read. I think if this had just been solely a published physical book the company might have picked up more easily on just how prevalent the authors lack of variety was. Seriously the author in that book never once said "He said" it was "he murmured"...but it became comical after a while.

_____________________
If I had to maybe describe the situation it's more like ebooks have become a victim of their own success. They allow for many authors to be self-published and get their stories out there, they allow for people to perhaps read more than they ever could realistically but they also can allow for actions (both on the author and on the reader) to come out. It's sorta become a really bad cycle I would say because I don't think then intent from many avid readers is to leave the author high and dry (and Amazon pays attention to how many returns you do) nor do I think many authors are trying to leave their readers high and dry but it can certainly feel that way on both.

As for someone mentioning "just get it from the library" even though they were originally talking about a physical book I do that a lot but not all books are found within libraries. I have several library systems at my disposal in my area and one of the interconnected very large series I was reading by an author I had to buy (when the book was $0), read through Kindle Unlimited for other books (and eventually the author left KU so it was good I got those when I did) and borrow from 2 different library systems for their ebooks because the whole set was not available in one spot.

 

[mikehn]

Dont feel too bad for Amazon. Jeff Bezos is a billionaire, something in that neighborhood?

 

[starry_solo]

I do!

But, it's through the local library system and it's called ZIP books, where if the library doesn't have a title that you want to read, you can order it through their ZIP books program (it has to be available on Amazon and be under a certain dollar amount (like $25). It then ships to the address you have on file with the library and you have 14 days from receipt date to return it to the library with all the paperwork that Amazon sends to have it marked as "returned". After the 14 days are up, I think the fine is $1-2/day until returned (standard library fine is usually 25-cents a day) and after x days, they charge you the full price to your library card and you can't check any more books out until the fine is paid.

 

[Minnesota!]

Ew, this is gross. People are so damn cheap and unscrupulous.

I get most of my books at the library, but I do buy quite a few, too. I love re-reading really good books, so like to have them at my fingertips!

Tried ebooks - NOT A FAN.

 

[BrianL]

One would think that a kindle should be able to tell if the person read through the entire book or not. Returning digital items can be weird. I know with video games, Steam will allow returns but only if you haven't played more than 2 hours (and within 14 days). That's enough time to determine if there is a technical issue or if you don't like it, but you can't buy, download and complete the game, then return the thing. It's like a meal at a restaurant - if it's not good, you tell the waiter after a few bites and they take it back. You can't do that after you've cleaned the plate then expect it to be removed from your bill!