They may not have promised it outright, but they certainly implied it…

From their website back in October…
http://web.archive.org/web/20120920054700/http://delphiclassics.com/shop/?page_id=990

“As more and more texts enter the public domain, we are constantly updating and revising our Complete Works titles. We also frequently add bonus texts and illustrations to our eBooks, as well as monitoring the quality of the texts and correcting errors. In our pursuit of providing complete editions of the world’s greatest writers, we welcome customer feedback and suggestions.
Purchasing texts directly from our online shop means you can access your downloads at any time from the My Account section. So, if we update a title you’ve already purchased from us, you can click on its link in the My Account section and download the most recent version… absolutely free!”

Dear Joanna,

The update service is a free service we offer customers, which is very time consuming process for us, but we like to offer the customers the opportunity of free updates. We cannot guarantee this service forever – it is a benefit of purchasing from us that we like to offer. The actual eBook that customers download is what customers have purchased, not the update service. Personally, we don’t consider our eBooks unfinished. They are the product of many hours of work and are presented in the most complete condition possible at the time. They are very low cost and they contain thousands of pages.

If a customer buys a print version of the complete works of Shakespeare, and a second edition is released a year later, they don’t receive it for free. The first edition wasn’t unfinished. The second edition simply has more or improved content. Fortunately with eBooks updating is a lot easier, but it still costs our company a lot of time and money. We never realised this could happen and regret that the update system cannot be offered for the lost accounts after next January. Nevertheless, customers still have the eBooks they purchased at the time of sale; it is just we cannot offer the updates service for the lost accounts for an indefinite period. We aim to offer updates for new purchases, striving to make sure this will never happen again. But we have never ‘promised’ this updates service can continue indefinitely.

We are sorry we cannot help more than this, but there is no other solution when dealing with the complexity of orders and different customers accounts.

Kind regards,

Peter

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I want to reiterate once again that I am very unhappy with this response. I will not be recommending this store to others anymore. They may not have uttered the words ‘updates are guaranteed forever and ever’ per se, but they certainly strongly implied it. For example, the Verne book had many pieces in it for which no English translation existed in the public domain, and they put them in in French anyway and has an asterisk that said when the translations would be available, they would be added. They never said ‘if this happens within the next year.’ They never had any fine print fixing this to a time limit or a condition. Customers were led to believe that once they bought it, they could re-download the updated version AT ANY TIME.

I realize this website fiasco was not their doing, but it was not MY doing either, and I do feel they have an obligation to make this right for me. I don’t think they are doing so with the offer they’ve made.

The cynic in me thinks that this is just a bit too convenient, and that the promises of upgrades were just becoming too much for them to deal with. I wonder if any of the collections released up until now will be upgraded until the 12 month deadline is passed? I’m disappointed in thinking that, so will try not to let it spoil my previously good thoughts about the company.

Anyway I will be very interested in any future responses you get from Delphi.