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Amazon has announced a dramatic shakeup to how Kindle refunds are issued as it tries to stop a controversial trend that’s gone viral on social media. Amazon customers can currently receive a full refund on a Kindle ebook they buy up to a week after it was first purchased. This money-back guarantee is even available if they’ve already finished reading the book. And it’s this policy that has sparked a TikTok craze which is encouraging Amazon Kindle fans to ask for a refund after completing a book within seven days of their purchase.

There have long been objections from some authors about this policy, who have called on Amazon to change how Kindle refunds work to stop them from being out of pocket. Now the online retailer is finally taking action with a huge shake-up to its policy.

Going forward Amazon Kindle users will only be able to request a refund if they have read less than 10 percent of a book.

This new policy will become active soon, with an Amazon spokesperson telling Express.co.uk that this change will kick in before the end of the year.

“We’re always listening to feedback to provide the best experience for customers and authors,” Amazon told us.

“While we continue to see low overall returns, we will de-activate the self-service return option for any book read past 10 percent by the end of the year.”

One reason this old policy has caused such a backlash is the impact it has on authors.

The way that Kindle refunds work is once a book is returned any royalties an author had already been paid will be deducted from their earnings.

But this can actually leave authors getting a negative balance, meaning while consumers may save money it can leave writers worse off.

This issue was highlighted on Twitter by Lisa Kessler, who is an author that specialises in paranormal romance and thriller books.

Over the summer Kessler tweeted: “Just a reminder that Amazon is NOT a library. When you read and return a book it COSTS the author… It’s June 1st and I owe Amazon at the moment because people are reading through the Muse series and returning the books when they finish.

“Authors need to eat too”.

A petition was also launched on change.org calling on Amazon to amend its Kindle refund policy which, at the time of writing, has been signed by over 75,000 people.

The long-called-for change to Amazon’s refund policy will bring the Kindle store more in line with its rivals, who don’t offer such generous refund terms.

After news emerged that Amazon was changing its Kindle refund policy one of those who welcomed the change was the Authors Guild of America.

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The New York-based writers organisation said: “Amazon informed us of its plans to change its ebook return policy to restrict automatic returns to purchases where no more than 10 percent of the book has been read.

“Any customer who wishes to return an ebook after reading more than 10 percent will need to send in a customer service request, which will be reviewed by a representative to ensure that the return request is genuine and complies with Amazon’s policies against abuse.

“This process will create a strong deterrent against buying, reading, and returning ebooks within seven days, and readers who attempt to abuse the return policy will be penalised under Amazon’s policies.”

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