AbeBooks

Hello all, this is my first here in this subreddit.

I already saw some of the posts from other users asking about AbeBooks to buy books from, but I didn't see a reasonable amount of reports telling that they got scammed, or similar.

Well, the story is that I decided to purchase a book on there (never used this site before that time), from a seller called 'Irish Booksellers'. I never received it: to Spain, and also never saw a refund.

Order date: November 24, 2017.

At the time being, I decided to contact the seller through the platform (internal message system). I contacted 3 times with it (2-3 days between replies). They said all the time that I needed to wait the book to arrive, and they already checked that book was shipped to the destination address.

After 4 o 5 attempts (emails) I decided to open a complaint/demand (don't know the exact term in english: demanda), by going to my local consumer claim department. They just said to me that, as I have purchased it from another country outside Spain (USA), I'd have probably wasted the money, and there wasn't much they could do.

After some time, I decided to give up. Then, 9-10 months after, I decided to contact the book seller again just to see if something could be done. But, after few messages, nothing. They stopped replying to me.

Well, now we are in 2023 and I decided to give another try, but don't know how to proceed, if something can be done.

I think, I never contacted AbeBooks directly, just with the "seller".

What do you think about this situation?

Thank you!

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I decided to copy/paste and create a thread on their forum, just to see what they say if someone does:

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Order date: November 24, 2017

Lately I've been looking for a textbook for my math class which from just about every site I've checked is about 100-150$ CAD, however, I recently stumbled across a website called AbeBooks that sold the book that I'm in the market for, for about 17$ USD + 14$ USD Shipping (Which comes to around 39$ CAD) Normally I would jump on a deal like that (if it was from a retailer that trust) but large contrast in price leaves me a bit suspicious.

From the research that I've done, I found a few review websites that that said to avoid the website like the plague, with stories such as retailers cancelling their orders and then replacing those orders but with massive increases to the shipping cost. On the other hand I saw a few other reddit posts where people had almost nothing negative to say about the website but said to be wary of the particular vendor that sells the book in question.

So I guess to wrap my question, is AbeBooks safe to use? Such as who processes the transaction (AbeBooks or the vendor/Like if it was AbeBooks would charge my payment method and then forward the funds to the vendor after taking their commission)? And under the assumption that it is safe to use, how can I ensure that I don't end up with one of the "Horror stories" that those negative review websites talked about?

Edit/Side note: The vendor that sells the book is called "LowPriceBookDeals" and supposedly has a 5/5 star rating, however, I don't know how many products they have sold, and they only became a seller in July 2017.

I used to be very happy about AbeBooks because I thought it was a sweet alternative to Amazon and I like price shopping. Then, I found out that AbeBooks IS Amazon. So, is there an alternative to AbeBooks, in the price shop for books category?

Hey guys,

I'm interested in buying some used books through AbeBooks and Amazon (UK websites). They're sporting pretty great prices, but I see there is a classification system concerning the quality of the book. If I see one listed as 'good' (for like 3-4 pound), can I expect a decrepit librabry copy or could it still be worthy of a manga collection?

If you regularly buy used books this way to get yourself a discount (on hard to find sets or smth), please think of any tips we could use when shopping on these sites. For instance, they list shipping costs per individual book, but wouldn't it be possible to bundle them if you're buying from the same seller?

Thanks!

Hello. Please let me know if this is the wrong sub to post this question in.

I have used Abebooks for well over a decade now and generally have been very satisfied with it. However, today I encountered a problem about which I don't know what to do.

A book I ordered still hasn't arrived, though it's past its latest estimated arrival date. I received a USPS tracking number, but whenever I look it up I get a message that "tracking information is not available yet" and that I should try again later. This has been happening for weeks. I wrote the seller about this and they did not reply.

Because it is now past the estimated arrival window, I demanded a refund. However, I got a message from Abebooks that, since the seller had provided a tracking number, the refund was not initiated, and that I should contact the seller or the shipping company directly. Since the seller isn't replying and USPS doesn't seem to have the tracking number in their system, how can I proceed to get my refund?

Thanks for listening!

Compared to Ebay and Bilbio, how well do books sell on Abebooks?