Lost all my audio books

Question

As it seems the folks at apple cannot help me can any one else point me in a direction that can help with the following issue?
I am a truck driver, and I use my IPad and IPhone to listen to audio books purchased through ITunes. To make things easier today I purchased an ITouch so I could listen to my audio books while driving down the road as I can keep the books on an ITouch without cluttering up my phone and my tablet is too large to keep on the dash. So I got home and there was an update available on all of the devices, and in an attempt to keep things in best working order I did the uploads, then my brother-in-law allowed me to use his computer to backup my IPad and then I was going to sync all of my devices. I followed the instructions online and when I was done all of my audio books were gone. This is several hundreds of dollars worth of books. When I called support they said I would not be able to have them anymore because they don't get backed up to the cloud. And even though both I and the support person could see the purchases of these books I was told that I would have to repurchase or send an email and wait for a reply. I tried to explain that I was a truck driver and only have limited computer availability, or down time to scan email, find a hotspot I can use, etc... While very sympathetic I was told the only options would be to send an email to the "store" or repurchase. I then asked to talk to the supervisor to see if there were any other options besides waiting for weeks to get things taken care of or spending hundreds of dollars again. I was told this wasn't an option because the person I was talking with had a supervisor who was an HR person and only helped with providing reviews and such. I asked how long the email process would take and do they have email staff available 24/7. I was told yes they are available 24/7 but that they may not respond for 48 hours or maybe in one. I then told the person I would like some kind of response within 2 hours because that is all the availability I had before having to leave out on the road again. Agent said he would be glad to give me his personal contact information but he would be getting off within 35 minutes. I said then can I have someone call me in 1 hour and 30 minutes to let me know if there was any update on how things were going. I was then informed that he wouldn't set up a call back because the next person wouldn't be able to do anything he couldn't do right then. I have waited the promised 1.5 hours and have had no response. I am disappointed in the response to my issue. I was informed several times that even though the products I bought that were developed and supported by your company couldn't be supported because it was a "store" issue. even though the problem was instigated by 1. buying another product from y'all and expecting it to work the way advertised; 2. following the instructions online that explain how to do the updates and purchase transfers; 3. have support that doesn't understand that internal process failure shouldn't effect the customer so negatively. I am very upset, disappointed, and quite frankly hurt that your company would treat people so callously and with such disregard as to say that there was only one option whether it worked or not, didn't matter what happened, or that it was a technical failure and the process on your end didn't allow for any support for the customer. And it really made me feel that your company is only about greed. I understand making a dollar and profit and the bottom line, I don't understand giving up your ethics and disregard for Social Responsibility, and Consumer Support, and standing by your product the expectation that you want people to believe your company is about. It is not surprising to me at the moment why Apple has issues regularly if this is what customers can expect from you.

Answer 1

For info we are fellow users here on these user-to-user forums, you're not talking to iTunes Support nor Apple.
Audiobooks (and ringtones) have always been a one-time only download from the store, other items are only potentially redownloadable for free if the remain in your country's store and if you don't move countries. I believe that all audiobooks are supplied to Apple by audible.com, so I assume that it's them that are requiring the one-time only download. No iTunes downloads (not any of your own content in the Music and Videos apps) are included in a device's backup, an iTunes restore will copy those items that are in that computer's iTunes library (did you do File > Devices > Transfer Purchases to copy them over to your brother-in-laws computer before starting the update ?), an iCloud restore will redownload what it can from the store.
The store's terms advise you to take a backup copy of anything that you download as you may not be able to subsequently redownload them - you should be keeping and maintaining a backup copy of all of you downloads.
It's possible that if the audiobooks are still in your country's store that iTunes Support will grant you a redownload - if they do then take a backup copy.