All the Literature and Reading Stuff...

[Raithe]

For those people across the Atlantic, this might be one worth a considered check up..

 

Millions got free amazon credits from an apple lawsuit and it expires this following Saturday

 

 

A year ago, Apple settled a giant class-action lawsuit (details below). The result was that millions of Americans got free credits in their accounts at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or other e-book retailers. If you're an American who is reading this article and you've bought e-books in the past, there's a very good chance that you were included.

The catch? If they haven't been used, all of these credits expire this Saturday at midnight Pacific time. So you'll want to log in now and see if you have money waiting for you that will otherwise disappear in a matter of days.

 

Below you'll find: (a) how to check your balance, (b) background on this whole affair, and © a bit more on an extra tactic I discovered that meant I was able to more than double the credit I had waiting for me. (Although, as you'll see, I almost lost it twice!)

How to check your balance

Maybe you already knew that you had a credit, and you're sure that you've already spent it. If so, fantastic--go read this instead. But if you want to check your account on Amazon to be sure, here's what to do--along with an extra key step that will seem obvious, but only in retrospect.

1. Go to this page on Amazon. You'll find a page entitled "Information for 2016 Apple eBooks Antitrust Settlement."
2. If you're not signed in already, you'll be prompted to do so.
3. Once you're signed in, if you were awarded credits, you'll see a display that provides your "Total Credit," along with "Unused Credit" and "Expiry Date." The Expiry Date should be June 24, 2017, in almost all cases.
4. Very important final step: Most people have multiple email addresses, so it's crucial to log out of your account, and then try to log back in using any other email address you might have been using between 2010 and 2012. Amazon wants you to use these credits--it's a purchase that Apple is paying for, after all--but it can't necessarily tie accounts together, and let you know if there's money waiting for you in an account you don't often use.

Adding that last step more than doubled my credit, solely because I'd forgotten that back in 2010 and 2011, I often used another email address to make purchases at Amazon.

For reasons you'll see in the next section, while Amazon is the most important retailer to check, it's possible you could have a credit with any retailer who sold e-books in the first half of this decade. I couldn't find a similar one-stop page on Barnes & Noble, for example, but this page gives you more information on how it calculated credits, and you should simply be able to log into your account to see if you still have money waiting for you.

Background on the whole case

All of this goes back to 2009. Amazon's Kindle had 90 percent of the e-book market, and Apple was trying to break in. Steve Jobs was still CEO, and he sent executives to try to work out a deal with some of the biggest New York publishers.

Basically, Apple offered to let publishers set their own prices on Apple's platform, and agreed to take only a 30 percent cut. But Apple also required that the publishers agree not to sell to any rival (like say, Amazon or Barnes & Noble) for less. Overnight, some e-books that had been selling for $9.99 on Amazon rose to $12.99 or $14.99.

(As an aside, I paid special attention to this because one of my books, The Intelligent Entrepreneur, which came out in 2010, was affected by it. That experience is part of why I started writing e-books like How to Raise Successful Kids, and giving them away for free.)

Ultimately, the U.S. Department of Justice got involved, and there was a big lawsuit. In the end, Apple agreed to pay $400 million in total to "millions" of people who bought e-books at inflated prices. These were the biggest publishers, and a vast majority of books were sold on Amazon, so the odds are good that if you bought any big, best-selling book between the middle of 2010 and 2012, you were probably part of the lawsuit.

The extra tip

A year ago, I wrote about this settlement when it first came out, and when people started to get their credits. But I also mentioned that I'd realized that I had a second email account with Amazon back at the start of this decade.

 

Hence my zealotry on this idea: My first credit was $17.92; when I logged in under the second (older) email, I had another $21.17 waiting for me.

How's this for irony, though? Despite all that, I actually forgot about the second email address and the second credit until this past weekend, when Amazon helpfully sent me a message reminding me that it was there, and that it was going to expire soon.

 

One more little trick for you: My wife and I had decided we were going to finally break down and get an Amazon Echo, so I thought I'd use the $21.17 toward it. But then I realized that my second account--the one with the unused credit--wasn't signed up with Amazon Prime. Talk about a First World problem, but this meant if I wanted free shipping, my new Echo wouldn't arrive for about five days.

 

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to research how to merge two Amazon accounts, or at least transfer a credit from one account to another. Let me save you the trouble, in case you ever need to do this. There's no way to accomplish this online, but if you call Amazon Customer Service at 1-888-280-4331, they can do it for you.

For security, you'll need to have both email addresses, along with the first names listed on each account, and at least one address associated with it.

[SonicMage117]

My ever growing obsession Jules Verne..

 

Have you guys ever heard of him?

[Raithe]

My ever growing obsession Jules Verne..

 

Have you guys ever heard of him?

 

He does kind of clock up there with H G Wells as one of the fathers of sci-fi. Plus these days he's considered fairly influential on the steampunk genre.

I'm trying to ponder if you're serious about asking if anybody had heard of him, or if it's just my general case of bookworm/geek-hood that makes me think he's much more wildly known than he is.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Raithe

[ManifestedISO]

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/4fd4b8b7-4b30-46ee-94e3-90952fd19fba

 

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/e0c34465-85b2-436b-9e13-460f5305aa73

Edited June 21, 2017 by ManifestedISO

[Guard Dog]

My ever growing obsession Jules Verne..

 

Have you guys ever heard of him?

 

Of course! 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island were two of my favorites growing up. I also loved The Lighthouse at the End of the World. It's not as well known as his other stuff but it's every bit as good IMO.

[Raithe]

The one thing to pay attention to with Jules Verne, is that due to various reasons, there is a large amount of badly translated books out there. In fact a lot of the original translations added pages, words, and renamed things. It's more the last quarter of a century or so that decent translations have been published, but a lot of the freely available from public domain versions are based off the original translations from back in the day rather than the more accurate recent ones.

[Guard Dog]

The one thing to pay attention to with Jules Verne, is that due to various reasons, there is a large amount of badly translated books out there. In fact a lot of the original translations added pages, words, and renamed things. It's more the last quarter of a century or so that decent translations have been published, but a lot of the freely available from public domain versions are based off the original translations from back in the day rather than the more accurate recent ones.

That's true of a lot of books. I could not choke down The Count of Monte Cristo until I read the Robin Buss unabridged version. The Gutenburg Free Press translations are pretty good too I've heard.

[Raithe]

The Count of Monte Cristo is one of those books I pretty much read at least once a year. There's just something about it that always manages to pull me in.

[Guard Dog]

Now reading:

 

[Malcador]

Going to try tackling Anna Karenina again

[Gromnir]

The Count of Monte Cristo is one of those books I pretty much read at least once a year. There's just something about it that always manages to pull me in.

has any writer managed to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life," as did dumas? 

 

alfred bester's the stars my destination is typical gonna get our more frequent rereads even though it is clear is an homage to dumas' work.  we like dumas, but at the time the count of monte cristo were released, publishers paid by the word, and more than a writer, dumas were a businessman.  in fact, is tough to say exact who wrote any o' dumas mid-late works as he had dozens o' writers all churning out stories and novels under his name. dumas works were intentional padded to a frequent campy degree. such padding weren't bad... well, such padding were bad but it were kinda charming if you could get into the correct frame o' mind.

 

the stars my destination is one our favorite scifi novels 'cause it manages a seeming paradox.  bester's work is derivative and groundbreaking.  arguable the firstest cyberpunk novel is a remake o' a dumas work from mid 1800s.

 

many years ago had a job interview during which we were asked one of those unbalancing questions:  what is your favorite literary character and why is he/she your favorite? 

 

gully foyle.  'cause the hero o' stars had a can-do attitude and boundless energy.  no obstacle were insurmountable as long as gully foyle envisioned his goal. etc.  am lucky the person interviewing us had never read bester's novel.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited June 23, 2017 by Gromnir

[Guard Dog]

I love that question for an interview. Definitely better than some of the Dale Carnegie questions I've heard. Like you it's not a question I'd have been able to answer honestly.

[ShadySands]

I've wondered what I'd answer if ever asked a question like that since almost all of my reading is obscure-ish sci-fi and fantasy and often times not particularly good.

[Guard Dog]

I've wondered what I'd answer if ever asked a question like that since almost all of my reading is obscure-ish sci-fi and fantasy and often times not particularly good.

Someone from Lord of the Rings or any of Issac Asimov's work would be appropriate.

 

My honest answer would be John Galt from Atlas Shrugged or Wolf Larsen from The Sea Wolf. I don't think either would endear me to an employer however. So I'd probably go with Robert Jordan from For Whom the Bell Tolls. The virtuous prototypical hero who does his duty, saves everyone with a self sacrifice in the end, etc. etc. Something they won't have to think too hard about.

[ShadySands]

If only I'd read any them

 

Maybe I could fudge it from the movies

[Malcador]

Someone actually found The Sea Wolf interesting ?  That's a surprise. 

 

If I had to pick one, I'd say Nadia from the Mars books as she's a good ideal engineer.  I always hate fluff questions like that on interviews, almost as much as the riddle ones (though people use the Die Hard with a Vengeance one too often)

[Guard Dog]

What?! You.... you didn't like The Sea Wolf? I'm shocked sir... shocked!

 

Actually it's one of my all time favorites. Although the ending was a little weak. I would have gone for a more Joseph Conrad ending if it were me.

[Malcador]

Read it near 20 years ago, all I recall was being rather fed up with how long it took the guy to die and didn't find it all that captivating.

[Blarghagh]

Clearly the correct answer is Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide.

[Guard Dog]

Clearly the correct answer is Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide.

 

  Do you feel like you're walking in a circle forever TN?

[Blarghagh]

Yes, also talking to me makes people want to kill themselves. Hence why I keep interacting with troll members. >:D

[SonicMage117]

Yes, also talking to me makes people want to kill themselves. Hence why I keep interacting with troll members. >:D

I get the feeling that people think of me that same way sometimes. Don't worry, people can ignore you but they can't take your freedom. You can reply to everything everyone writes and nobody can do anything about it so keep being you

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Yes, also talking to me makes people want to kill themselves. Hence why I keep interacting with members. >:D

 

fixed it for you

[Guard Dog]

I've got a hardcover collector's edition of Hitchhiker's. I've got to give that one a re-read. It's been a long time.

[Azdeus]

I used to listen to it every night as I went to bed for a while. I think it's time to do that again.