Amazon

A few days ago, everyone  I read on the Amazon Kindle forum got very excited because two of the Harry Potter books were finally there for downloading. The big excitement was because Rowling  had declared emphatically that her books would remain in dead-tree form. We  thought it was a bit odd that the last two books were there and not the first three but the general opinion seemed to be that it was a test-the-waters posting which was why, as someone remarked, the books were priced so low, a mere $3.19 cents for each download.  {And it is not uncommon for books two and three of a trilogy, especially an older series of books–  to be kindlized without the first book. This happened with Lynn Flewelling’s "Tamir" series much to my annoyance. I have emailed the publisher because I WANT book one, The Bone-daughter’s Twin.}

Once the books were downloaded, it was disappointing to find that they were VERY badly formatted. There were word substitutions and places where whole sentences and phrases were either left out or duplicated. Gradually we people on the forums came to realize that there was definitely something wrong here. After I had read a bit, I decided that these were not official copies of the book and so, reluctantly, I deleted them. I didnt think of asking Amazon for my money back deciding that a little over six dollars was a small amount to lose to learn not to be so gullible!

So, yesterday, I got this email from Amazon:

"Hello from Amazon.com.

The copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that you ordered was removed from our systems because it was not authorized by the appropriate rights holder. We are refunding you for the purchase in full.  The refund will be issued to the payment method you used to make the original purchase and is usually completed within 2 to 3 business days.

We encourage you to continue shopping our vast selection of titles available for Kindle."

I have read a lot of comments on the forums about how good Amazon’s Customer Help for Kindle  is. Actually, I have had to return several things lately, and apart from the annoyance of have to call the post office to request a pickup, which, of course, has nothing to do with Amazon, I have always found the process easy to do. I am glad I deleted these books from my Kindle and happy to be getting my $6 back!

"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going."

Jim Rohn

"Enjoyment is not a goal; it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity."

Paul Goodman

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."

Marcus Aurelius