Is this your business?
Claim your listing for free to respond to reviews, update your profile and manage your listing.
Claim Your BusinessThriftBooks has a rating of 2.15 stars from 361 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about ThriftBooks most frequently mention customer service, good condition, and dust jacket problems. ThriftBooks ranks 25th among Used Books sites.
I order books on a regular basis from Thrift Books and am always pleased with the excellent shape they're in, even if only rated "good" condition. Books are shipped right away; I appreciate getting them so quickly. I bought a lot of used books from Amazon until I came across Thrift books and found they not only cost less than Amazon but show up in better condition. The last used book I bought from Amazon had mildew on every page. Gross! I received a refund but should never have been shipped a book in that condition. I don't have to worry about that with Thrift Books.
I ordered a new book called the Atlas of Car Design. It's a big coffee table book that cost over $100.00. It came severely damaged. The spine was broken and pages bent. I think most of the damage was due to terrible packing. It took me 2 phone calls and four emails to finally get a return label. They received the return 2 weeks ago and still have not refunded my money. So now it's time to contact the credit card company. I will never purchase from them again.
I ordered a new book called the Atlas of Car Design. It's a big coffee table book that cost over $100.00. It came severely damaged. The spine was broken and pages bent. I think most of the damage was due to terrible packing. It took me 2 phone calls and four emails to finally get a return label. They received the return 2 weeks ago and still have not refunded my money. So now it's time to contact the credit card company. I will never purchase from them again.
Products used:
Not it was damaged and had to be returned
I ordered a 2003 edition of "Introduction to Complex Analysis" by Mark Ablowitz, paid over $100 and two-days shipping service. I received a $5 worth of an obsolete 1948 edition of the book "Complex Variables" by Ruel Churchill wich is actually marked down for $5. Customer support seems to he unexciting, I wrote a complaint and a review in their page, and I haven't got a response from them. Do not recomend, high possibilities of getting scammed, take your money somewhere else. I included fotos of my order and what they sent me in this review. They don't even provide this option in their website, so they obviously want to limit the customer's ability to file a complaint.
I purchased what was supposed to be a signed edition with boxed cover in good condition. What I received was an unsigned, broken spine, bent pages, bent cover and the book looked as if heavier books had been piled on top of it for a long while as the book didn't lay correctly. Fortunately, I got my money back. When I received the book, it was shipped in a plastic shipping bag which, I'm sure was the cause of some of the damage. When they emailed me the label to return the book, I was instructed to BOX it! Let's just say that I took more care in shipping that book back to them than they did sending a $177.00 book to ME! Terrible service but Justin was helpful in getting my refund.
I order books on a regular basis from Thrift Books and am always pleased with the excellent shape they're in, even if only rated "good" condition. Books are shipped right away; I appreciate getting them so quickly. I bought a lot of used books from Amazon until I came across Thrift books and found they not only cost less than Amazon but show up in better condition. The last used book I bought from Amazon had mildew on every page. Gross! I received a refund but should never have been shipped a book in that condition. I don't have to worry about that with Thrift Books.
Products used:
Books.
I've recently purchased books with their earned book reward so they were $7 or less.
All sold in good condition. THEY'RE NOT. They are water stained. Torn pages. Badly marked up. These should have been in the trash. Buy only books that are New or Very Good or Like new or ex library.
They will NOT replace the books for men or refund my shipping costs. Caveat emptor
I ordered two new books on November 30th. Everything seemed fine until I noticed the tracking information indicated a shipping partner. I've never seen this on domestic shipments before.
One item is stuck in Illinois with no update, and the other item hasn't even shipped yet. The shipping partner is a company called One Stop Mail (OSM), a media mail/4th class mail service.
4th class mail is reserved for stuff like magazines and other media. While it's perfectly acceptable to mail books this way, 4th class mail is in no hurry to get delivered. Thriftbooks shows "standard shipping" on their website, which reasonably assumes first class mail, not 4th class media mail.
Thriftbooks is deceiving people about their shipping methods. They simply say, "5-12" business days to cover themselves. If you're ok to wait two or more weeks for a book that might not even be delivered, then no worries! But if you're looking for timely shipment and delivery of Christmas gifts, shop elsewhere.
Products used:
I never received the items.
Like reviewer Sage L., I suggest only buying books from Thriftbooks that are marked as very good or new. I also have bought some "good" condition books I would throw in the trash or donate. Shipping seems slow, as well. I also find their Customer Service difficult to reach. I'd rather buy more costly books from Amazon or try Better World Books.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THE PAID POSITIVE REVIEWS!
I ordered 50 books in Like New and Very Good condition. I received an array of Poor-to-Good condition books, half of which weren't the ISBN I ordered. These "Like New" books had torn covers and pages, writing in pen through the entire books, and a handful even had liquid damage and were stained.
The overwhelming number of positive reviews is absolutely a paid attempt to keep people shopping on their site. PLEASE don't fall victim like I have, and please shop locally or find a reliable site that actually offers quality and ships you what you purchase.
Products used:
Books
After being sent the wrong book I was had to spend time returning it and I had wait 9 days for a replacement which still was not the correct book!
I searched the Thriftbooks website for "Catch-22" in hardback and ordered the one pictured in my search. The book I received was poorly photographed and it was unclear that it was a study guide and not the novel. Thriftbooks refused to offer me a return or refund saying I received the book I ordered.
Products used:
none
I ordered a book on 12/13/2023 for Christmas. It is now 1/12/2024 and no book and no update from seller, just a bunch of spam adverts from them. I will not be using them ever again.
I'll never order from them again. The books don't arrive as advertised. They show one edition of a book, you order it, it's a different edition. Happened one too many times. Never again
I've always had a pretty good experience ordering books from ThriftBooks. You get what they advertise with respect to quality. They are also pretty fast in filling orders and getting the book to you. However, be careful of how you order, because they don't always let you make returns. Their policy is not clear about what they won't accept back--their site says something vague about "qualified returns" (obviously covering their backside). I got stuck with over $50 in books that I didn't want. So to summarize: buying books from them is good, but their after-sale customer service policies are not in your favor.
Products used:
books
Overall average site. Have gotten good to not so good book condition from this site. Damage is from their shipping partner. There is not excuse to allow pre orders to go thru on unavailable books. Ordered 1 book no availability at all. At least if you receive a damaged book or no book they will refund. In picture is damage that can happen to your books thru not very good packaging in some orders by their shipping company.
Products used:
Books
I have purchased separately two old cookbooks I was missing that I used to love. Both times the books were in great condition, arrived incredibly fast - mere days - and the cost of both the items and the shipping were very low!
Products used:
Books
I received the book on time, but when I opened the package the cover of the book was all bent. This book was very used. Whoever sold it left the good will sale sticker on the book. This will be my first and last time using this organization.
Tip for consumers:
No
Products used:
Books
"Very good"= Ok for yourself, but if you plan on giving as a gift, you are better off buying New! IMO.
I order 3 children's books (preschool board books) and one of the books marked "good" was not at all in the condition I expected. I understand these are used books but when I purchase a "good" condition book I don't expect that a section of the book would be torn completely from the binding and only held in tact because it's a board book so the pages are attached to each other.
I am not going to hassle with returning it but will attempt to tape it together and hopefully salvage it.
Just be aware that the condition may not be as described.
I really love this website because they have all my favourite books for super cheap BUT im in Australia and the postage is INSANELY expensive its not even worth purchasing. You can have it cheap and all but the post just makes up for letting the books be cheap. Please make the international shipping cheaper! Im dying to read Warriors!
I never learn my lesson. Literally throwing this away and ordering on Amazon. I have my settings so they don't send me an old library book with a plastic cover … I cringe touching. And they still always do. Never again.
I hate hate hate when they send me some old library book with a plastic cover and a Dewey Decimal System tag on the binding. HUGE and bulky. Hate! And it happens so much that I'm not ordering from them again.
My grandmother recently bought a large order of Bible study workbooks that were in "used" condition, not understanding that these books might be written in or slightly damaged. She ended up spending triple digits on a pile of unusable books. To be clear, this was not the fault of the seller--the books arrived on time and in the advertised condition.
The return policy only accounts for items that were damaged or incorrect, so we doubted we'd be able to get our money back. I reached out to customer service anyway.
They acknowledged that their return policy didn't apply to our situation but offered a full refund anyway and told us not to worry about sending the shipment back. I was blown away. They showed a lot of integrity and humanity. I will definitely deal with them in the future.
Tip for consumers:
I had a great customer service experience.
Products used:
Books
Books are consistently misrepresented as in a better condition than what they arrive in. Customer service team does not respond, they just refund or replace with yet another damaged book. Getting a refund is required, so I'm not giving any more than 1 star for doing what they SHOULD do. But FCC needs to know about the false advertising of these filthy, damaged books.
Tip for consumers:
I would recommend not using Thriftbooks, but instead Better World Books.
Products used:
Purchased a total of 27 books and many were damaged.
Wouldn't recommend. Wish I could vote no stars. They don't let you leave reviews unless you buy the book which is stupid. What that means is if you have already read a book, and know everything about it...you can't leave a review unless you buy it. Dumb.
I pre-ordered Alex Berenson's "Pandemia". At the time, Thrift Books was pricing it lower than Amazon, which was refreshing. I noticed that the book was released and people were discussing it for at least a week before I got my copy. There's no way for me to know if it's Thrift Books dragging their feet, or their supplier.
Tip for consumers:
Be patient!
Products used:
Pandemia, by Alex Berenson
I was the victim of the recent postal service NON delivery debacle especially packages. This book ("Human Capital") was supposed to be delivered (so they said via their Informed Delivery service) LAST Friday. So I signed up for tracking alerts and the first email said this Thursday for delivery of the book. Then a second email said Tuesday (when it FINALLY arrived! And because I set up tracking alerts, now MAIL itself is NOT being delivered to my house as well as packages) I contacted ThriftBooks. Very prompt in apologizing for late delivery of the book (again, no fault of theirs; it's the post office that REFUSES to do their job timely or at all!), and they issued a refund. Plus I didn't have to pay even if the book arrived. I'm not a person who lies or cheats or looks for a handout. Since the book arrived, I resubmitted payment and let them know the check was in the mail. I guess I surprised them. This is a company who not only cares about their customers, but they want to make things right for them as well. A VERY gracious, friendly understanding book company! And those prices can't be beat either! Books are in very good condition for used.
ThriftBooks.com is one of the world's largest online new and used book retailers with more than 7 million books in stock at everyday low prices. Get free standard shipping on U.S. orders over $10. U.S. A: Standard Shipping - 4-14 business days - Fr...
Is this your business?
Claim your listing for free to respond to reviews, update your profile and manage your listing.