Is it fair to be able to return ebooks? I saw an online petition against the return of ebooks on sites like Amazon. People apparently abuse the return policy and essentially read books for free. Should ebooks be like the gaming platform Steam, where you can't immediately return games but instead contact support if you have a good reason to return it. Or is it fair to let returning easy like it is now?
I can understand if the ebook is low quality. I have read plenty of ebooks that were a complete disappointment. I didn't return them though. I can also understand the seller's point of view. Some people really do try to take advantage of the system and try to get the product for free. I experienced this as an ebook seller. I have a few people ask for refunds while keeping the product. I can understand both sides so I guess I'm undecided. It seems harsh to punish the majority for the actions of the few though.
This really is a tough one. On one hand the book might actually be terrible quality and the buyer will want their money back. On the other hand, the book might have been great and the person is only returning it to get it for free. I wonder if there is anything they can do about this? I don't feel like Amazon can just say no returns because that would probably dramatically decrease their Kindle sales.
I personally never returned an ebook before. I think that probably allows some dishonest people to quickly read the book and return it. On the other hand, for some books they might not be what you thought they would be, or there is something right at the beginning that ruins it for you and you can't keep on reading. So in those cases it would be fair to return. The issue is, there is no way of telling who is returning for what reason.
I have to say no. I do not think it is fair to return e-books. The customer has already used the product, and i m sure that they made a copy of it. I definitely think there should be a rule against it. It is to easy for people to abuse that system. I think Amazon should make a no return policy on e-books. That would be fair. If the customer want's a return policy they should buy a physical book.
I don't really see the difference between returning physical books and ebooks. I had a friend who used to buy books from a major chain and then return them. It's pretty immoral, but I guess it's worth it to the store to keep a good relationship with its customers. I think it would be fair to have a 24 or 48 return period for an ebook. Someone might realize they've purchased the wrong one and want to return it. It's certainly possible that someone would read a book in that time period, or simply screenshot every page before returning it, but I think this way would best accommodate honest customers while trying to deter "thieves."
If you can't open the eBook it it's missing some pages, then it's just right that they allow you to return eBooks. But if you just return an eBook because it's poorly written? Well that would simply be cheating. If the return policies are lax, it would be taken advantage of by a lot of customers.
Well having paid for a blank ebook where there was no return policy, I think to some extent it helps with keeping the sellers honest. There's nothing wrong with having books returned if they don't have any value to the person who bought that bought. Granted, there are those who will abuse the system to get free ebooks to read, save them on their machines and pretend they've 'returned' them, I nonetheless believe most people are honest individuals who are not into the defrauding game. It it's a good ebook, I'm sure no one will bother to return it but if you oversell yourself and fail to deliver it's fair that you don't get paid for that book.
