This is rare. According to the Society of Authors, Amazon actually agreed to change its ebook return policies after years of complaints authors and publishers about the “refund loophole” for Kindle books.
In a nutshell, Amazon customers could get a full refund on a Kindle purchase within 14 days, even if the book had been read from start to finish. According to this release from two author guilds, an Amazon VP confirmed the change that will restrict refunds for books that have been read past 10%, “adding substantial friction to the [return] process.”
Why did Amazon make the change? It’s hard to tell. The company’s dogma stresses the importance of “delighting customers” but as many authors and publishers will testify, this often descends into abuse of creators and suppliers. In my experience, when the groundswell of negative PR gets too big, Amazon makes changes, and this may have happened here – the Society of Authors notes that there is a big Change.org petition with close to 80,000 signatures, not to mention strident criticism on social media platforms. In addition, books haven’t been a major portion of Amazon’s revenue for decades, as the number of active readers declines and high-profit services like Amazon Advertising and AWS experience double-digit growth.