When Jill was here on Monday she met the mailman outside and came in with this very pleasing huge stack of mail. Unfortunately, the goodness was quite deceptive, because 3 of those packages were books I'd ordered from Amazon. Normally this would still qualify as good mail in for me, but I was hugely disappointed by these used booksellers.
Now I know Amy H. is shaking her head and thinking that's what I get for buying used books, but I only ordered ones that said they were new, like new, or very good condition. I don't know what these sellers are thinking, but these books are definitely not in the condition I specified. I would say fair at best, and Jill can back me up on that. One has marker and crayon on the cover, one has a cracked spine and a very wrinkled cover, and one looks like it has been passed around to all and sundry for the past 10 years and then got dropped in the bathtub. (For the sake of full disclosure, I ordered 5 books and 2 of them look perfectly new.)
I'm upset, because it ended up being such a waste of money! One of them ended up being $10.50 including shipping, and I could almost have bought it new for that. Of course I will leave negative feedback, but I don't think it will do any good. Sigh. Maybe I should stick to book stores, eh?
On the bright side, I did get this darling package from Liz! It had honey-lemon cough drops, chapstick, a little candle, ribbon, a hand-made card, and an adorable pumpkin pincushion. All color-coordinated, too, and packaged in a plaid box with green ribbon. So cute, so thoughtful, and always so amazing to get a package from someone I don't even know! If I hadn't had this bright spot to help counterbalance my crappy books, I would have been in a serious bad mood.
So do you ever order used books from Amazon? Am I just unlucky?
5 comments:
What a bum deal. I have ordered several used ones and felt great about them. Linc ordered a hardback that said new condition once and he was pretty ticked that it looked as worn as it did. I think the whole feedback thing is great, but usually leaving the negative kind doesn't result in much. Hope you either get better results next time, or stick to the cheap DI finds.
Love the mail goodness- those are my favorite cough drops.
I think you've just had bad luck with your used books. I've ordered lots of them and only had 1 or 2 that were obviously used. I still think it's a great way to get around paying full price for books, but I can definitely confirm that your copies were in bad shape. You really should post pictures because they're not to be believed. (Or were you trying to spare Amy H. from going into shock?)
The package from Liz was so nice of her, not to mention the extremely cute good mail labels she had on there. Oh la la.
Michelle, I've ordered many books used from Amazon, and I'm always disappointed. Of course other people's idea of "new" and mine are probably very different. That being said, however, it sounds like your books were grosly misrepresented. Leave the nagative feedback. I look at feedback every time I buy from a used book seller. It's a bummer, I know, but at least you did have some real good mail to counterbalance the disappointment.
THat is a bummer deal. I have ordered a book or two off of Amazon to find them TOTALLY marked up like it was some sort of text book.
Fun good mail from Liz. She is always thinking of someone!
I'm glad that you had at least one "bright" spot in all of those packages! I'm so glad it got to you safely!
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