Beware of textbooks-now and bookbyte (Half.com)

Buying used books online, at convenient outlets like eBay’s Half.com, is an relief to college students everywhere who are already cash-strapped thanks to ever-increasing tuition, fees, and abusive, self-perpetuating, overpriced textbook stores (I rant on textbook stores on an older blog). However, a student wishing to purchase books online must be spry.

A required text for a class might be needed the first week of class, though, it’s often not possible to discern what is required, and what’s not, until the first class meeting. Savvy students will visit the bookstore, or an instructors online syllabus to glean the ISBNs of the required texts. If the stars align properly, the student will be able to get a nicely discounted textbook delivered before class even begins.

Then, there are the situations that prohibit such happy endings. Such situations are sometime the result of shady practices by large sellers on Half.com. Namely, textbooks-now, and bookbyte. The problem with these larger sellers is they claim to have a textbook in stock, only to notify you, many days later, that the book is no longer in stock and they will have to give you a refund. In other words, they don’t keep a tight count of stock, and appear to be selling items that they physically don’t have. To make matters worse, instead of the out-of-stock notification coming within a reasonable time-frame (say, 24 hours?) the notices come several days later. But! They give you a refund. Great. But, what about the lost shipping days? Now I have to go find another seller with the book, and hope they aren’t selling something that they don’t have. Sure, it’s only a few days, but when you in the situation I described above, and the book is needed now, the money refund is only a partial solution.

Textbooks-now (aka textbooksNow) claims “Great customer service” in their book descriptions. However, a friend of mine got shafted by these folks and requested my assistance. She was coming down to the wire, and ordered a book that she needed the next week. Even with processing, and sometimes lengthy media mail delivery times, the book would have arrived on time. Two days passed after placing the order, when she received a notice that the book was out-of-stock and textbooksNow would be issuing a refund. After another day, the refund was issue, but only partially; they didn’t refund the shipping cost. Another email to support, and another day, the refund appeared and the reply email requested that we contact Half.com for any futher billing questions because “they process the payments.” Yeah, I understand how that works, being a Half.com seller myself, but that doesn’t give you the excuse to pawn off your irresponsible business practices and shady dealing to a middle-man.

Bookbyte gave me a very similar run for my money. Luckily, I received the full refund immediately. But, the reason was the same. They were selling books they either ran out of, or never had. When they go to pack the book, it’s not there! Whoops!!

Used book dealing can’t deal with that issue like other online retailers. The others, if they run out of stock, can order stock and will usually ship it to you expedited to make up for the lost time. Used book dealers can’t do the same thing, because their stock is dependent on students selling them books (for pennies of what they’re worth).

So, as a hard-learned rule, I avoid sellers with a high number of sales. I’d rather pay another buck or two (I’m still saving substantially compared to the campus bookstore) to a fellow student who KNOWS he/she has the book, and WANTS to sell.

Maybe they were honest mistakes. Maybe my friend and are one of the very few who had a problem. By the looks of these seller’s feedback scores and the comments left, obviously I’m in the minority. All I’m saying is, be wary. Be spry.

UPDATE: The friend I referred to above that suffered the textbooksNow incident emailed me to let me know made an error in the recount of the events. In her words:

“I had to email them and ask where my book was after I noticed that my FOUR books hadn’t come in the mail for over 2 weeks. Then they emailed me saying they didn’t have the books. So it is even worse than you say in your blog.”

I remember it now, because the long delay is why she asked for my help in the first place, since I had a lot of experience with ordering books through Half.com. Indeed, it is worse.