substring() doesn't work

substring() doesn't work

I want to delete the first 3 characters of my a element.
I tried several opions, but none of them work:

  1. $('.ouder-item a').text().substring(3);
  2. $('.ouder-item a').html().substring(3);
  3. $('.ouder-item a').substring(3);
I know that I call the right elemet, because the following works correctly:

  1. $('.ouder-item a').removeAttr('href');

Does somebody know why it is not working or what i'm doing wrong?