Kindle - Wow!

[cooperlola]

Well, I almost feel ashamed to post this since Cathy is having so much trouble but my Kindle is operating just as it should (although it's registered to me at a friend's address in the UK) even using my French credit card and downloading direct.  Having said that I did do the first few downloads "via the computer" (which has a proxy server) but when I tried to transfer these to the Kindle via drag and drop etc, I discovered that they were in fact being downloaded wirelessly.  So after a day browsing through cheap and free editions I now have all of Shakespeare, Shaw, Conrad, James and Trollope, plus a few other bits and pieces.  I only need the time to read now!

I cannot imagine what has happened to yours, Cathy, or why.  I think Simon's suggestion of your de-registering it and starting again is perhaps a good one.   Or just do what Marks and Spencer's are said to do with stuff from their suppliers which doesn't measure up.  "S*d it, send it back!"

[Kitty]

Just back from hospital again (going every day).  BUT where are Amazon?  Two working days, they said?  I shall telephone the number given in Garden Girl's post when I get the chance - thanks for that.

I have been taking my Kindle (reading the few books allowed) and the advantages are:

* unlike a book, you can easily read it one-handed and so it's good while you are having a bite to eat

* the screen is really clear in the blazing sun that we have been having in Bordeaux

* no reading glasses needed as you can set the type face

* it is great to read whilst waiting to be called in the hospital waiting room because when you switch it off, it automatically saves your place

I shall return it if it doesn't get sorted.

[Russethouse]

[quote user="Charly"]I agree, go on Cathy, tell the "Book Police" where to put their so-called questions and "investigation".   I have re-read your posts but am still bemused as to what it is you're supposed to have done. These are not government officials, you have bought something online and paid for it, if  they now have a problem with it working for you exactly wherever and whenever you want it to, downloading whatever you choose and in whatever quantity you choose, then they should expect to  have to refund your money without any further ado.  How shaming and how dare they?!?!?!?!  [:@][/quote]

 I suspect the book police are concerned about such things as copyright and VAT, sadly that doesn't help Cathy

Was this the link posted earlier to a comparrison in todays Daily Mail ?

[Rose]

[quote user="Cathy"]Just back from hospital again (going every day).  BUT where are Amazon?  Two working days, they said?  I shall telephone the number given in Garden Girl's post when I get the chance - thanks for that.

[/quote]

sorry - off thread - just wanted to say hello to Cathy... hope your chin is still very high xx [kiss]

[mrs-nostalgie]

I am still mystified (& jumping up & down with irritated frustration) - so some of you are having no trouble buying kindle material from amazon.co.uk?

They (Amazon) have finally, after weeks of emails,  explained fully to me why it is impossible for anyone (?) living outside the UK to purchase e-books from the .co.uk store; it's not their policy but the publishers'. Amazon signed a Licensing Agreement with the publishers of e-books forbidding their sale outside the UK. The same publishers have agreements with the American .com site where far fewer British ebooks are available and for double the price.

So surely Cathy & I aren't the only people who are experiencing this problem?

I'm pretty sure these agreements contravene the EU Treaties on the free movement of goods & services and now all my visitors have gone I'll be back on my hobby-horse writing letters to the Press & Publisher's Association about it, after all we all get books, dvds etc easily from Amazon.co.uk with no export restrictions. Illegal censorship, I reckon.

I have registered my Kindle at my son's UK address, and can access the UK store using expat shield and a uk hotmail e-dress, so I can choose stuff. But he is having to purchase it for me using his registered card, even though my card is a NAtwest bank one, as soon as I tried to register it I was 'locked out' because of the French address. This includes the free stuff as one-click asks for an invoice address, too. I suppose I will just have to lie; is that how the rest of you have got round it?

Coop, did you say you'd gone to .com store and somehow reset your settings? Where did you tell 'it' you'd moved to?

[Charly]

I remain equally mystified....[8-)]

1. Decided to buy a Kindle  2 Went on-line in France with my French email address and ordered a Kindle for delivery to my Son's address in Sussex - having tried to "register" a vacuum cleaner in the past, and the nonsense that this involved, I now know better than to confuse their "system" with addresses in two countries. They're happy to accept the £££sss but then it all goes wrong! 3 Completed the billing section with my name and address and my card details (all to a French address since I am a French resident)  4 They acknowledged payment on line and confirmed delivery details to Sussex  5 Kindle cover forwarded to Sussex address, followed shortly by Kindle itself  6 Son brought Kindle to France on next visit  7 I set up Kindle and accessed Kindle store on that machine, I chose and ordered first book  8 Download takes the same time as it takes me to walk upstairs to my computer - almost instantly the book is there 9 Shortly afterwards an email appeared in my inbox on my pc with an "invoice" from Amazon detailing what I ordered and when and what sum had been deducted from my credit card to fund the purchase 10 Repeated many orders since with no delay and no difficulty in downloading.

Friends in France were given two Kindles as surprise presents when they were away in England just before Christmas.  They live permanently in France and since their return download whatever and whenever they want on their  Kindles and the payment details are sent to their computer's inbox. 

Hope that everyone affected gets their money back or the problem sorted very soon.  I would NEVER have considered buying one if I had suspected that buying something from England whilst living in France would have given me all the problems and frustrations experienced by others posting on this thread.  Amazon are either a)  brain dead or totally inefficient, b)attempting to renege on earlier promises because they have now discovered that they have got it wrong or c)making it up as they go along!  None of this is reassuring.   It's always possible that somehow I have got around their rules and regulations and somewhere in tiny print in the instructions will be a dire warning as to what will happen to me if I do fail to do exactly what I am told to do with my Kindle.  And, do I care?.........they are clearly confusing me with someone who gives a sh**

[pachapapa]

Agence France-Presse

Tweet Le groupe internet Amazon a annoncé lundi la fin d'une particularité qui agaçait bien des lecteurs de ses livres numériques sur le Kindle, en offrant désormais une pagination qui reprend celle des titres en version imprimée.

Double Wow! Thats progress.[:)]

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

I love my nook :)

[Simon-the-censored]

Charly - couldn't agree more.

Love my Kindle, never had a problem with it, can't believe what Cathy has been through and would just love the Amazon police to come and 'investigate' me!

Simon :-)

[Bob T]

[quote user="Mr Coeur de Lion"]I love my nook :)[/quote]

This is getting a bit boring. A thread about the Kindle, which many people are happy with, and you keep telling us the same thing about your nook.

Our Kindle is fantastic and we have no problems downloading to it.

[Simon-the-censored]

BobT - I think CDL works for Barnes & Noble.....

Simon :-)

[just john]

[quote user="Bob T"] Our Kindle is fantastic and we have no problems downloading to it. [/quote]

Since others are clearly having problems which their supplier has not attempted to resolve, (except to explain their stubborness by some possibly illegal cartel move,) perhaps you'd care to elucidate how you manage this?; is the device registered in France?, do you attempt to buy downloads by French registered funds? or is there some other secret to your success?

[Simon-the-censored]

just john - the answer to your question is well documented in this post - admittedly probably a bit hard to find now - so here goes.....no secret !

1. Set up an Amazon.co.uk account

2. You don't have to set up a 'home' address but, if you want to, use a UK one as the 1st one in your list - e.g. the delivery address as per step 3

3. Order your Kindle from Amazon.co.uk for delivery to a UK address. Doesn't matter how you pay - they'll take anything from anywhere!

4. Once you get your Kindle - you need to register it on-line with Amazon.co.uk under the 'Manage My Kindle' part of your account.

5. It should already be assigned to Amazon.co.uk but, if it's assigned to Amazon.com - change your home country to the UK under 'Manage My Kindle'. All will become clear when you start the registration process.

OR...just get a friend, family member in the UK to do it all for you with their UK account and send it to you as a pressie!!

Job done!

Good luck / Simon :-)

[Jay]

You shouldn't have to go to all that trouble. You are the customer, if Amazon don't want your business go elswhere. I got a book reader for Xmas (non Kindle) and download my reading (books, newspapers, magazines) from anywhere, I have even downloaded a few free and paid for from Amazon without any problems.

[just john]

[quote user="Simon-come-lately"] 1. Set up an Amazon.co.uk account 2. You don't have to set up a 'home' address but, if you want to, use a UK one as the 1st one in your list - e.g. the delivery address as per step 3   [/quote]

Read Cathy's post again Simon, Amazon has made it clear that you should not do this but set it to your French address and their .com address.

[quote user="Cathy"]Amazon has rung.  You cannot live in France and buy from the Kindle Co Dot UK site.  It's to do with licences.
[/quote]
[quote user="Simon-come-lately"]  3. Order your Kindle from Amazon.co.uk for delivery to a UK address. Doesn't matter how you pay - they'll take anything from anywhere!  [/quote]

Read Cathy's post again Simon,

[quote user="Cathy"]  the problem seems to be that Amazon picks up that your computer is in France and so having a British delivery addess or debit card or billing address does not work. [/quote]

[quote user="mrs-nostalgie"] Many forums are fizzing with anger over this; Irish, Canadians, Anglophones all over the world and many of the 650 000 expats in Europe furious that the Publisher's Licensing Agreement with Amazon is exercising this censorship.
As for 'investigating' people's accounts... I'm apoplectic! European Treaties insist upon the 'Free circulation of goods and services' within the EU and I reckon Amazon & the Publishers are the ones contravening the law here.
I send emails to amazon & the publisher's association about this and plan to take it further.  [/quote]

Your enthusiasm seems to be persuading you to step over the line that Amazon draws, with consequent problems for some, not least copyright . . .

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

[quote user="Simon-come-lately"]BobT - I think CDL works for Barnes & Noble.....

Simon :-)[/quote]

And I think you work for Amazon :)

[cooperlola]

Just a couple of things.

1.  Amazon explain quite clearly when you buy a Kindle using a French based account (even if you get it sent to a UK address) that you cannot buy books from the UK site if you live in France.  They even refuse to send the Kindle to France and explain in very clear language that French users are tied to the .com site. 

It's only through manipulating the account details and sending the Kindle to a UK address that some have got around the rules.  It's a crying shame that Cathy is one of the ones who got clogged up with the rules but in all fairness to Amazon, they are made clear.  It was posters on here who - through no fault of their own - encouraged people on this forum to go ahead as they had had no such problems.

2.  The rules are not made by Amazon.  I get the distinct impression, and Cathy's conversations with Amazon bore this out somewaht, that this is to do with French protectionism and it is this country and its regs which seem to be at the bottom of this.  As Simon says, Amazon will take anybody's money, from whatever source.  They are not daft and preventing French customers from using Kindles is not in their commercial interests.  I have noticed on the UK site that there are plenty of French classic novels available very cheaply in the original French.   I reckon that what the publishing industry over here knows well is that if students/schools and ordinary customers over here can suddenly get classic texts for nowt from the UK then they will start to lose out - or at least that's the mindset.

Thus I'm not sure that it is in fact Amazon who is the villain here.  And no, I don't work for them.

[Russethouse]

 I think you are right Coops, however I wonder how it works with Jay's e- book reader ?  Could it be that Amazon have fallen foul of the regulations as they have a presence in France ( I assume they do, or is it Luxembourg or Belgium ?)

[cooperlola]

Clearly, R/H, I do not fully understand the logic nor why Amazon has been singled out.  Nor why it's OK to download from the US but not from the UK.  And e-book readers are available in the shops here.  But I also know (as I noted earlier) that France is also one of the few countries in Europe (if not the only one) where you pay postage from the UK.  Nearly all the others are now free for purchases over a certain amount, (£40 or so iirc), but not France.  I do smell a large rat therefore and I don't think that it's in Amazon's cupboard.

[Russethouse]

 It must be because both UK and France are in the EU but that still doesn' help with the other e book reader question - maybe Amazon is just the biggest target?

[Jay]

[quote user="Russethouse"] I think you are right Coops, however I wonder how it works with Jay's e- book reader ?  Could it be that Amazon have fallen foul of the regulations as they have a presence in France ( I assume they do, or is it Luxembourg or Belgium ?)[/quote]

I wonder how it works also. I have Kindle for PC on my computer and (as an example) I wanted a collection of SciFi novels which cost £0.72 from Amazon UK. I went onto their website and paid with a Visa card with French address, the book was then downloaded to the Kindle for PC on my French computer, I then transferred it to my book reader. I also have lots of other books downloaded from all over the world on the Kindle for PC program. So why can you not download a Kindle book to your computer then transfer to your Kindle reader?

Failing that if you are not happy with Amazon download from SOMEWHERE ELSE

[mrs-nostalgie]

Oh Jay I could CRy! How did you

a) access the UK store?

b)not get locked out as soon as you put in your card details?

Does everyone lie about their billing address/delivery address? In that no hard objects are ever sent? But your card company wouldn't clear the wrong address...

Why are Cathy, John & I having problems?

Wait a mo. Simon has the 149£ model with both 3g & wifi. Is it just those with the cheaper one who can be traced by Amazon?

Btw, amazon claim it's not them - they had to sign a Licensing Agreement on ebooks with the British Publishers.

I am currently trying to get the Publishers' Association to reply to me and will start writing to papers as I'm convinced this restriction is illegal under EU law.

Check out other forums, Irish, Canadians, language students across the world are all furious about this.

Anyone would think that publishers could do without the money!

[cooperlola]

Has anybody taken this to SOLVIT?

[Russethouse]

 Two things: I am interested in the fact that from what I have read on other Kindle forums VAT is charged on kindle downloads but not on print books. As I thought the idea of the exemption was that the Uk did not charge education, will this be reviewed (or is my premise wrong?)

Secondly a friend in the USA told me that many bestsellers are available on Kindle for just $10 instead of $15 or so for the print version. That seems pretty good....

[cooperlola]

Certainly, VAT is payable on Kindle "books" - but not relevant for hundreds of classics of course because 0% of £0.00 is.... 

Whether an increasing number of e-books will mean that UK government might review this is for them to decide.  I guess they are not in the business of lowering taxes at present though, for any reason.

Yes, R/H, the prices of best sellers is reasonable.  Some of the more obscure books, however, are not very differnent in price so I, personally, will continue to buy those in hard copy and probably won't bother with a Kindle version.