If you own a Kindle and you have been buying Kindle books
Many Kindle books readers received surprising gifts from Amazon last Tuesday. Usually, we all assume those e-mails are just scams, but in this case, the retailer gives you back a partial credit for the books you’ve bought. Why? The American government sued several publishers and after the settlement, it became clear that some of the e-books we have purchased were actually overpriced. So, who gets a credit and who doesn’t? It depends on the books and their publishers, and whether they have been on the New York Times bestseller list. Besides Amazon, Barnes & Noble’s store, Kobo, and Apple’s iTunes bookstore should be also giving refunds, as they were also associated with the antitrust suit.
If you’ve bought an e-book from Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Penguin, Macmillan, or HarperCollins, you will get a partial refund from the settlement in the antitrust lawsuit. The purchase has to have happened from April 1, 2010 to May 21, 2012. Books that were in the New York Times bestsellers list are awarded $3.17, while for the others, the refund is $0.73. According to the e-mail, sent from Amazon to its customers, the credit is automatically added to your account in the website, so you don’t have to redeem it, using some code or anything else. In fact, even if you haven’t received an e-mail, you should check your credit balance. You may wake up to $1.50 or $20 in your inbox, and may be even more. Some customers got refunds worth of more than $200! It depends on how many Kindle books you’ve purchased.
But there’s a catch. You can use the bonus credit only for further purchases of Kindle books or print books on the website. It’s not the best deal in the world, but it’s an exciting surprise for all book lovers. In addition, the credits can be used until March 31, 2015, which is great, because you can use the extra money getting books for Christmas presents, for instance.
