Tuesday, April 14, 2015

rant ahead - be warned. The Amazon seller who wins the WTF award for April is



friendlybooksforyou.

This Amazon seller has the dubious honor of sending me the wrong book TWICE in a row.  I ordered a reference set of books (2 volumes) called Crime Fiction II, which I wanted for my permanent collection in my crime fiction/mystery library.  The first time I was sent a mass market paperback book by Brett Halliday.  Here's what  I actually ordered looks like (bought from an entirely different seller after the friendlybooksforyou debacle); as you can see, they are big, hefty tomes and definitely not mass-market paperbacks:


I get that a mistake was made, so giving them the benefit of the doubt,  I waited and lo and behold, I went back to the same seller, who claimed they had my book in stock and that they would sell it to me for right around $15.  Well, crap ... when it sells for $435 otherwise, $15 is a great deal, right?  I figured the first time was a fluke so I ordered it again.  The second time, I received a book by an author I've never even heard of, which wasn't even close!  Check out the label at the bottom of this book by Caroline Crane, which I received instead of the book I ordered:


 At this point, I'm like screw this. After sending an email (this time not so nice) -- I left the following feedback:


How freakin' hard is it to actually take a look at the cover?????????? I ask you!!! 


****
update:

After all is said and done, I went to get the book by Caroline Crane packaged to return to these people, and this morning inside the book I found this:


So my intuition about friendlybooksforyou was correct: they had ordered a book they didn't even have in stock and it was sent to me.  I never ordered this book (I've never heard of it before).  So I do a little digging and discover that friendlybooksforyou is really one of several seller names under the auspices of Winter Ventures --


friendlybooksforyou

Value Promenade
Quality Bargain Mall
Slategray Books
(and whoever else) 

-- all of whom apparently use the exact same warehouse.  Wow.  Talk about misrepresentation. Well, there are four "booksellers" who will not get my business.  

*****
today's update: 04/17/2015
******

Email received from friendlybooksforyou re a book I never even ordered. To be fair, and in case I'd forgotten, I did a search on all of my Amazon orders and sure enough, I was right.  This made me laugh.

"Dear Nancy,

Your order for these books should have arrived:

 - Caught Dead

We thank you for your Amazon order.

Your order number: 110-8468824-2236253

We sent you this email to see if you had received the book and were totally happy with your purchase. If you have any concerns or issues with this order please reply to this email and allow us the opportunity to resolve it with you.

If you have not done so, we ask that you please leave us positive feedback.

If you have already done so, we thank you!"

6 comments:

  1. They do not know what they are doing or they are committing fraud, hoping that a sale went through and that the buyer won't notice or won't bothering making a stink and/or returning the books.
    I've had problems with sellers at Amazon, but not for books. I ordered a "cotton" robe and what I got was some kind of synthetic rabbit which I had to give away. I got a children's Lego set with a handwritten sign on it -- "choose this last. Look inside." Duh? Would I give that to a child?

    But I have gotten credits for the wrong or problematic items. And when I've raised a ruckus when I didn't receive books for children in time for holidays< i've gotten duplicate orders.

    Glad that you finally got the books you wanted.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think that they just don't have a clue. This woman told me the second time that the book was mislabeled and she didn't understand how I couldn't understand that. The label is like a teeny tiny little thing while the title is pretty apparent on front cover and spine. I told Larry this is just BS. As I said -- once I can sort of get, though not really, but twice is just stupid.

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  2. The same thing happened to me. I ordered a hymn book from 1902 specifically because there is a very famous song in it called "Keep on the Sunny Side" made famous by The Carter Family and instead received a book to teach a mother on how to nurse her child with references to breastfeeding, giving morphine and opium to babies etc. Although this nursing book was from 1902 is was clearly not what I was looking for and was quite obvious and of course had a sticker on the back of the book with the actual book I was looking for. I was so mad I just put it right pack in the box and got a return label. And Amazon knows about the issue and my post is by "Kenneth M."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry that happened to you. I think they just don't care. Call me stupid, but it is not hard to match a freakin' sticker with the damn title on the front side of the book it's on. I would rather stick pins through my eyes than to use that seller again.

      Delete
    2. Exactly. Whoever packaged it could see my name, address etc. so I don't understand how this could happen and say they have it for sale on Amazon etc. You are not stupid. If anything, I was the one who should have read up about them before I ordered it from them.

      Delete
    3. Well, we both learned something, and that's what counts.

      Delete

Say what you will, but at least try to be nice about it.