Amazon has started sending out emails this morning notifying customers of credits being issued as part of the eBooks Antitrust Settlement.
According to the eBooks Settlement website, other ebook retailers are also going to start issuing credits and sending out checks (Sony and Google) to customers who bought ebooks from the big 5 publishers during Agency pricing. But Amazon has so far beaten everyone else to it.
The settlement applies to U.S. residents who bought one or more ebooks from April 1, 2010 through May 21, 2012 from any of the five publishers named in the lawsuit, which includes Hachette, HarperCollns, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster.
The lawsuit was in regards to the big 5 publishers colluding with Apple to switch to the Agency pricing model to fix and raise the price of ebooks.
The amount of your credit depends on how many Agency ebooks you purchased. The settlement website gives a couple of examples of what to expect. For New York Times bestsellers customers can get a credit of $3.17 per ebook, and 73 cents for non-NYT bestsellers.
According to the email that Amazon sent out, customers don’t have to do anything to claim the credit; they have already added the credit to your account and will automatically apply it to your next purchase or purchases, depending on the size of the credit. You can visit this FAQ for more information.
The credit can be used to buy Kindle ebooks or print books sold by Amazon.com, regardless of the publisher. The credit, however, is only valid for one year, so don’t let it sit for too long.
For more information about the ebooks settlement case, you can visit the Attorneys General and Class E-book Settlements website.
The Amazon refund is in my account and I just received notification from B&N about a refund. Both refunds are in similar amounts. Great.
I already used mine on a craft book! It’s a print book and not an ebook so yes it works on both! 🙂
Interesting; I haven’t gotten a credit from Amazon (or even an email saying it’s coming soon), but I did get one from Barnes & Noble. I was hoping for a few bucks, but I just ended up with .73 cents.
If you go to this page at Amazon while logged in it should show your settlement credit balance.