Amazon offers Kindle AND money back to selected customers

According to TechCrunch, Amazon is tempting selected Amazon shoppers with an amazing money-back offer: try a Kindle (and a Kindle cover) for 30 days and if you don’t like it, you get your money back…and you get to keep the Kindle (and cover).

Apparently the offer is only being extended to selected, handpicked, “unusually active” Amazon shoppers; it is not being mentioned publicly anywhere (though Amazon did confirm it in response to a TechCrunch inquiry), and only shows up in e-mails to members lucky enough to make the cut.

Presumably Amazon is picking only those people it judges likely to decide they would like to pay for the device—or who buy enough books to make giving them a Kindle worthwhile even if they decide not to pay for it. Perhaps I am being too cynical, but it is hard to imagine anyone willingly paying for a Kindle these days if they could simply say, “I didn’t like it” to get the $250 device for free.

The offer ends the day before Apple premieres its new tablet, so as TechCrunch suggests, perhaps they are trying to hook as many people ahead of time as they can.

If any TeleRead readers are offered this promotion and decide to take advantage of it, please let us know what you think! We would love to post about your experiences.

As Al noted in a comment the other day, Amazon does offer a 30-day money-back trial of the Kindle, with free return shipping included, for anyone who would like to try it. I admit to being tempted, but since I already know I could not afford to buy the Kindle even if I liked it—and I am sure I would like it enough to want to buy it—there does not seem to be much point.

I also wonder how Amazon can afford to risk giving away so many free Kindles given that they are apparently already losing money on every $9.99 book. But I expect they know what they are doing. And maybe, given that so many people who can afford them seem to like them, it is not so much of a risk after all.