World of Books really is a load of shite, isn't it?

[Bad Ambassador]

Bought four books from them over eBay. Three of them turn out to be different editions from the listing and two in much worse condition. Get refunds for the last two and email to complain about the condition. They send me a replacement copy of one of them and it's still the wrong edition. Too fucking lazy to actually check what they're doing.

This seems to be endemic on eBay, with two other sellers I bought books from in the last week sending different editions to the ones in the listing. Fuck the lot of them.

[Small Man Big Horse]

It's very hit and miss, the worst example I have is that I ordered a graphic novel and clumps of pages were ripped out throughout, and not carefully either, you could see the torn edges of the page each time, and while sometimes it was just one page which was missing, sometimes it'd be ten or fifteen, and it was about forty pages which had been torn out in total.

I'm guessing they just have no quality control at all, I know they get a lot of books that charity shops fail to sell, and presumably just list them without bothering to even briefly look inside to check there's nothing wrong with it.

[bgmnts]

I have fortunately not had an issue yet but they do worry me as it all seems a bit haphazard, half the time they don't even have the correct information of the books I've been wanting to buy on the product page and I've used AbeBooks or amazon or ebay instead.

Unsure what's going on there beyond general incompetence.

[Pranet]

Once I saw a rare book at a lowish price from them, so I bought it but they cancelled the sale and put it back on ebay at a higher price, which was annoying.

[13 schoolyards]

Once I saw a rare book at a lowish price from them, so I bought it but they cancelled the sale and put it back on ebay at a higher price, which was annoying.

They used to be notorious for that - there was a period of a couple of years where I reckon I only managed to get maybe 2/3rds of the books I ordered. If the shipping notice was a day or two late I knew I was going to get a "sorry, we discovered our copy was too damaged to sell" or "we sent it but the postman brought it back covered in shit" notice, only to see it relisted at 10x the price in a week.

That said, I did also occasionally get a semi-rare title from them for a good price, so swings and roundabouts. These days they seem to have tightened that side of things up and anything interesting is listed at way above what it's worth from day one.

[Vodkafone]

I find them fine, although I have very low expectations of the accuracy of descriptions of the condition of books generally, since the whole trade seems to lie. If buyers of books could be a bit pickier and buyers of vinyl less so, it would be better for everyone.

[cosmic-hearse]

They just list books by ISBN number, so the stock cover used on eBay isn't necessarily what you'll receive (as I've discovered to my disappointment)

[dontpaintyourteeth]

yeah I had that happen too. my Sandman trades aren't uniform because of this fuckery. does it really matter? no, of course not. does it bother me every time I look at the shelf? oh yeah.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Once I saw a rare book at a lowish price from them, so I bought it but they cancelled the sale and put it back on ebay at a higher price, which was annoying.

They've done that to me today, it's not even that rare a book but I bought Bob Balaban's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind book for £8.47, after it was recommended to me in the "Behind The Scenes" thread, only to receive an email from saying that it was sent, but then returned to them via the Royal Mail as it was damaged in the post. Now the identical copy is for sale via there WeBuyBooks account:



It's only a small amount of money but they're such a shitty company I feel like doing whatever I can to highlight that they do this, does anyone have any ideas?

Hmm, it might seem World Of Books and WeBuyBooks aren't the same company. Arse.

[13 schoolyards]

Often when WoB would tell me they'd had a book I'd ordered returned I'd keep searching their site for it for weeks afterwards to see if they relisted it - sometimes they did but often they didn't, so whether the books actually were damaged (unlikely) or they stashed them out the back until the heat died down I don't know.

In your case I think it's just that the different sites have used the same image. If you look for titles on Abebooks usually around 80% use the same stock photo, and it's not until you get to the really pricey copies that the seller bothers to take a picture of the actual book they're selling you

[Small Man Big Horse]

Often when WoB would tell me they'd had a book I'd ordered returned I'd keep searching their site for it for weeks afterwards to see if they relisted it - sometimes they did but often they didn't, so whether the books actually were damaged (unlikely) or they stashed them out the back until the heat died down I don't know.

In your case I think it's just that the different sites have used the same image. If you look for titles on Abebooks usually around 80% use the same stock photo, and it's not until you get to the really pricey copies that the seller bothers to take a picture of the actual book they're selling you

A friend mentioned that as well when I posted about it on twitter, so I took it down as I'm sure you're both right. Not that I believe that it was damaged in the post and returned to them, but it's a no win situation really as they're never going to admit it if it was the case.

[13 schoolyards]

They've definitely improved (for me at least) in recent years - for a while there it was almost a coin toss as to whether an order would make it past the combine harvester that was sorting their mail.

I did wonder if it was the case that their staff were pilfering the good stuff (if you've ever known anyone who works in a charity store you know how common this is) and they didn't realise the books were gone until after they'd automatically filled the order, in which case I assume they recently shot a few thieving staffers as an example or something

[Small Man Big Horse]

Yeah, this is the first time something hasn't arrived, and normally I've been frustrated when I've received something in really bad condition rather than it not turning up at all. But thanks to a kind offer I received on here yesterday I should be able to read the book anyway, but it's definitely made me wary of using the company in the future.

[Icehaven]

Do they have a policy like Amazon/ebay of refunding the customer if the book goes missing in transit? If so if a book is relisted book at an inflated price is it worth buying it then saying it never arrived and getting the refund? It's dishonest but so are they!

[Small Man Big Horse]

Do they have a policy like Amazon/ebay of refunding the customer if the book goes missing in transit? If so if a book is relisted book at an inflated price is it worth buying it then saying it never arrived and getting the refund? It's dishonest but so are they!

I think that unless it's sent by tracked / recorded delivery you can always claim that it never turned up and Ebay will find in your favour. So, yeah, I might have to try that out, thank you for the idea!

[purlieu]

PayPal will always find everything in favour of the buyer unless there's tracking data that shows it's been delivered, and it's 99% the case with sites in general. They always claim it back off Royal Mail.

World of Books currently have a lot of Doctor Who Big Finish CDs priced at £99.99 on eBay. They're almost all available for between £10 and £20, so there's clearly some major error in whatever software they're using to price stuff, but annoyingly there are a small number which never seem to be for sale otherwise. I've been considering messaging them to point out their prices are wrong and hopefully get them at a reasonable amount.

edit: they currently have a Gallifrey boxset for £100.99. It's still in print from Big Finish at £34.99. They've got some serious problems with their pricing.

edit 2: they have the Mr. Men style book Dr. Seventh for £99.99. What the hell is going on?

[13 schoolyards]

They had a fault on their site a year or two ago where everything was priced at 99.99. Took them a few days to sort it out, which seemed odd as you'd think that was the kind of thing they'd want to get onto right away