AbeBooks

Made a purchase.
After purchase, I was told by AbeBooks that the seller wanted more money (additional money) than what was agreed upon.
I asked questions to AbeBooks in return.
My questions were unanswered and my order was canceled because they sold the books from under me even though I had an active order.

At the time of this review, they have 700 reviews and a 1.8 rating. No wonder.

Item was listed in good condition mentioned that it came with the CD but did not include the CD. Customer service took 5-7 days to respond and still failed to answer my question after I asked and readied. Shipping was very slow. Will never be purchasing from them again. I'll stick with ThriftBooks which is an amazing website for used books!

Ordered a book from GreatBookPrices on Dec. 7 and the co. Hasn't yet shipped it. Tried contacting Abebooks but the co. Doesn't accept emails. AVOID DOING BUSINESS WITH THEM.

Ordered a "new" Ken Follett book for a holiday gift that is not in production anymore. With a lengthy delay I received a damaged book; pages torn and bent. Packaged poorly but book was clearly damaged previous to shipping and used. Poor packaging probably added some corner damages. The rep "Shannon" that was in touch with me seemed really concerned and was responsive. Asked what discount I would like or should they send another. We wanted the book! With a huge delay another book was sent and received. Packaged well but damaged and used? A red stamp with a date was on inside of back cover. Dust jacket for both books used and pages damaged. Received too close to the holiday to be able take advantage of pricing and new books elsewhere plus those books at this point were gone. They gave me $7 off and Shannon wasn't quite as supportive anymore. She was always quick to respond each time though. So I paid an hugely inflated price for a "new" and at this point used book. Never again!

Here is what I wrote to them directly:
I ordered a book set from your site recently. It was Prince Valiant by Hal Foster. Since then, any time I have tried to log into your website, my screen is inundated with books you seem to think I would be interested in and they all have book covers with female nudity, or titles that are sexually suggestive. I will therefore no longer be patronizing your company. I don't need to see, neither do I have the minutest interest in seeing, dirty books you have for sale. I am at a loss to know why on earth your sales algorithms connect a Sunday newspaper comic strip with filth such as you are now attempting to shove in my face, but I'm ending it right here, right now. My business relationship with your company is over. What a disgrace.

After check out, estimated delivery date is 20 days instead of 5-10 as stated. Contacted customer service immediately to stop the order since I need it sooner. They suddenly say it has already shipped, but the delivery date hasn't changed. I live in the middle of the country in a large city, nothing takes 20 days to get here. Spend an extra buck and skip Abe!

The site offers a wide array of books and the prices are typically competitive with other sites. The site is also fairly easy to navigate with the usual search tools and a fairly intuitive interface. My issue with the site is that when I did purchase a book and an entirely different book was sent to me, and I attempted to return the said book for a refund, I discovered I would have to package, label, and ship the item back to the seller entirely at my own expense. When a buyer receives an incorrect item, every effort should be made to make the return process as easy as possible, and the buyer should absolutely not incur expenses.

I have written incessantly to Customer Service to ask where all of my books are that I ordered from Hippo Books. There are about 12 pending purchases with incorrect shipping information on the orders. I have asked repeatedly for updated tracking information to no avail. This website was my go-to site for hard to find books or great deals. Ever since Amazon bought them, they get away with false advertising the state of the used books, overpricing on second hands books and they lie about having shipped items so they can get away with not refunding your money. Seems like Amazon is intentionally bringing down the used-book industry to force people to go back to Amazon to buy these books at full price.

I contacted customer service through email to get help with finding out where my package is and they were completely useless. They refused to help and said it showed delivered even though I never received anything. Do not buy your textbook from this website it's a scam!

And I learned through their website it will cost me more than half of what I paid to send it back. Don't use stock photography to sell your stuff!

I ordered a book from AbeBooks via Thiftbooks. This was an out of print music book and was to be a Christmas gift. A book arrived and was placed under the tree. On Christmas, it was discovered that Thiftbooks has mailed a children's novel rather than the book ordered. That day, emails were sent to both companies explaining the error and asking for the correct book to be sent. A week later, I still have not gotten anywhere with either company, although Thiftbooks says they do still have the book I paid AbeBooks for. Almost daily I hear from a different person at AbeBooks who seems to not understand that the wrong book was delivered. It is impossible to actually speak to a person to solve the issue. I work in sales and if I treated my customers this way, then I would be out of business. This is dreadful customer service.

AbeBooks is just fine with its sellers shipping a different book than was ordered.The listing was for a 'New!' book in unused condition. When the seller realized the book wasn't actually in stock, she ordered one from Amazon and had it delivered to me. Needless to say, it was not 'New!'. And it cost me twice as much as if I'd ordered it from Amazon myself. When I emailed "customer service", they replied - "Occasionally, when you order an item from an AbeBooks seller and they no longer have it in stock, they will locate and ship the item from an alternate source rather than cancel the order." Really? How is that OK? Because cancellations reflect poorly on a seller's star rating, based on the percentage of successful (non-cancelled) orders. Cant have those sellers looking bad! So now I get to return the thing at my expense, along with two weeks I'll never get back. BTW I never have these issues with Biblio.com, who I recommend highly. Good luck!

Ordered a book with specific cover art that I wanted, but received some mass reprint instead. In order to return it I'd have to spend 55% of the overall cost to ship it back. Feels like I'm dealing with those websites from China. Last time I ever buy from AbeBooks.

I have had the experience now two times of ordering a textbook on AbeBooks, but receiving the wrong edition. In the first instance I ordered a calculus textbook but received the solutions manual for it instead. In the second instance, I ordered the 4th and most current edition of a biology textbook, but received the 3rd instead. With the calculus book, it cost more money to ship it back for a return than I paid for it, so essentially I just lost my money. I am sending back the biology book and hoping I will get my refund as it cost me almost $170 with the postage and tax, but I will only get back what I paid for the book. I strongly advise against trying to save money on textbooks by using AbeBooks instead of your school bookstore/publisher. The sad part is, AbeBooks used to be a very reliable place for buying books (I was a customer for years), and I can only think it went downhill after being taken over by Amazon.

I've been ordering books through Abe books since about 2015. In the last two years the quality and descriptions of the books have deteriorated. When I order books in very good condition, they come ripped up torn up and with missing covers. And depending on the seller, it can be a nightmare trying to get a refund. I think I'm officially done. Stick to eBay where you can get actual photos of what you're buying.

Non existent customer service!,, I ordered a book September 12 th! No Book o Response
Terrible experience!

Ordered a book described as "good condition"

Hardly! Writing throughout the book! I would say not even fair condition. I tried to contact and was told I could return for refund. It would have have cost me the amount of the refund to send it back. And the responses were much less than helpful, as well as very delayed.

Won't be using Abebooks again. Going with Thriftbooks! Do recommend them! I have had a great experience with Thriftbooks.

I ordered the Veterinary Anatomy Coloring book for My daughter for Christmas on December 4th. They said that it was delivered to me on December 16th. I emailed them to tell them that I never received it. They told me to give them a couple of days to look into it. It was over a week and they never got back to me until I emailed them again. They then asked for me to be patient and to give them time to look into it and they will would get back to me. I then asked them to just refund me my money because it was now 12/31 and I never got any answers. My daughter needed this book for school and it was suppose to be a Christmas present and now she never got it. I ended up having to make a complaint with my credit card company to get my money back and then had to order it again from another retailer. I will never order anything from AbeBooks again! The bookseller was Byrd Books (Austin, TX).

I only received a partial order. The company makes it hard to contact them via email text or phone. Tracking is out of the question as well And I have no way of finding out which sellers sent me their orders and which one did not. They also make that complicated. I've written off the order as a bad order and understand my money is gone. I will not buy from AbeBooks again.

I've purchased many very cheap used books on Abebooks. Most arrived without an issue. The problem is that if the seller fails, you have ZERO protection, your money is gone forever. So just spend money you are willing to lose, Abebooks will not help you at all.
My last purchase was 20 days ago, seller "Ergodebooks" will not respond after my book didn't arrive, so no book and no money back. I'll take that $12 loss, no big deal, but still a waste of time and effort.

A company called Glass Frog advertised the Baltimore Catechism #2 on Abebooks. The copyright date they gave was from the 1960s which was what I wanted as a Traditional Catholic, but when I got it it was 2012 with revisions making the book useless for my purposes.

They refused to refund and let me return the book.

I had a horrible experience buying from this website, the sellers on this site seem often not honest. The shipping date was changed after I placed an order, and I couldn't cancel it because the seller changed the status to shipped right away, but not tracking info. The seller does not respond to messages. Customer Service Does not exist. It is either automated, or takes forever
Then, I realized, Amazon bought this company and the worse experience that we get the better. We will all have to go back to buy on Amazon… and they will be able to control all the prices.

My wife was scammed out of $1200 by someone using this site. They made it look like four $300.19 purchases. We have never even heard of this site much less bought anything from it. But apparently its an easy way to steal money. There should be some way to identify the seller.