Audible has just disabled the ability for people to send credits to each other. This is a system in which authors would commonly send credits to users to get a free copy of their audiobooks, but it was abused by people on EBAY selling the credits at a steep discount. Audible has stated that the reason why the killed this system was so they could focus on popular gift memberships and send this book feature.
I believe one of the reasons why Audible disabled the ability to gift credits was because of what a small minority of users were doing. A user by the name of Sixbucks explained what he used to do with the credits “Back when there were a bunch of promos running I would have 4 accounts all taking advantage of the deal and gifting the credits to my primary account.” This resulted in one user with many accounts accumulating a massive amount of credits. They would use the credits to rack up a huge library of audio titles or simply sell the credits on EBAY.
I am very sure that authors and narrators that used to give out credits so people can be exposed to their work will be overjoyed that the credit system has been suspended.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
