AbeBooks Reviews 954

They sent me the wrong book, then they made an error with their prepaid return shipping label, so the book got lost when it was returned. Now, I am out the $60 I paid for a book, and they are blaming me for the issue. They STOLE my money and refuse to do anything about it.

Avoid at all costs.

Abe books advertise and sell second hand books. They do advertise books showing dust jackets yet only after confirmation of purchase they inform with a small sentence amidst purchase confirmation that the book is not bearing the dust jacket that is cheating and luring on customers to attract purchase.

I think the rating Abe Books have on here is misleading. Abe Books is a selling platform for hundreds of individual booksellers. So any bad feedback on here is related to the service they received from individual booksellers, not Abe Books. Because buyers can't leave feedback for a seller like on Ebay they leave it here, which is wrong. The reviews are for individual sellers, not Abe Books.

Useless, I have been an abe bookseller for year but the situation is now so bad there I want to close my seller account but can't find anyone to discuss this with. After searching their wesite for 3 hours I am still no wiser so will resort to cancelling my monthly listing fees. Avoid dealing with them!! they are rubbish!!

I am a student. I waited weeks for my book to arrive.
It did not arrive when it said it was guaranteed to
arrive even though that was several weeks after I
ordered it. They sent me a book that I didn’t even
order. The ISBN number didn’t even match the I
ordered. A books has been Unresponsive in this
matter. I will not ever be purchasing from here again.

I recently ordered a book from Grand Eagle Retail via AbeBooks on 1/18. As of 2/6 the book has not arrived and tracking info has not updated since 1/21. I've contacted Grand Eagle Retail and am now waiting for a refund. I've attempted to contact AbeBooks about the missing order as well, however their website "contact us" page is useless and sends you around in circles. AbeBooks is a middleman and doesn't care if you're satisfied with your order - or if you even get it. I will never order from them again!

Bought a book from TrueWorldofBooks via abebooks - turns out they are a complete scam website. The 'tracking' information for my book showed it never left the seller's house - the origin and delivery location were the same. Then they claimed it was due to a 'customs issue' and would refund me 25% of the order total. BE WARY!

Complete rip off. Horrible customer service. No accountability. Will NEVER use this business again and strongly recommend no one else does.

My only experience with Abe Books is ordering German language books from Germany and Austria. The sellers have been truthful and the condition was as promised. The books arrived within time range estimate. As with using any third party seller platform, it's all about the seller's integrity. Sorry to see others have had such bad experiences!

I placed two orders with the same book seller, SecondSale, before I realized the trap I had found myself in. SecondSale provided me a tracking number for both orders. Each order contained multiple books yet there was only one tracking number for each order. For the books that did arrive, I received them individually so clearly a single tracking number per order is erroneous at best. For the first order I paid for 13 books but have received only 4. For the second order I paid for 3 books but have received only 1. Now for the trap. Abebooks says you are denied the right to request a refund if the book seller provides a tracking number. Per Abebooks my only option is to contact the book seller. However, the only way to contact the book seller is via a form on Abebooks. At this point the book seller, SecondSale, is ignoring my complaints via the Abebooks’s form. Moreover, any attempt to contact AbeBooks directly via their ‘contact us,’ results in me being asked a series of questions which always results in me being instructed to contact the book seller. So round and round I go without the books I paid for, without the means to request a refund and basically being totally screwed over. I will have to contact my bank and initiate a refund request via that means.

I bought a book from a seller who turned out to be with is now being called a book jacker. In other words they don't actually keep any inventory or even look at what they're selling. They put up everything and describe it willy-nilly, and then if you order the book they try and find a copy of it. The book was described as in good shape but it came and it was fair at best, torn binding, stained cover, leaves turned over everywhere. I spent almost 3 weeks trying to get a refund from this person. No good. The best they would do was offer me a percentage back. Okay that's just one book seller on the whole site. However, if you try to contact ABE books customer service, you will get an incredible internet run-around. They tell you to go to a specific page which asks you some questions, and then when you're done answering the questions it takes you right back to that same page. I went through every avenue I could find including asking around online. None of the solutions worked and the complaints against them are numerous.
The only way I got any sort of satisfaction was to threaten to turn the book seller over to the authorities for fraudulent advertising and shipping fraudulent items that they knew were fraudulent across state lines. I copied in several attorneys and about 5 minutes later I got a full refund. It's disgusting that you have to go to that extent.
I will say that I've been dealing with the site for more than three decades, pretty much since they opened, and have never had a problem before. Then again I've never tried to return anything before. This was a completely miserable experience.
Based on them no longer allowing you to personally review your experiences with a seller, plus this experience, I will never ever use them again.

A disaster, a month has passed and I have not received the package. In addition, they do not take responsibility. Not recommended.

I am quite frankly amazed that this bookseller is still in business!

I placed an order for a rare book on the 13th of November 2024 with the assurance that the book would contain any and all supplemental materials, in this particular case a 3.5 inch floppy diskette as the book was listed as 'New'.

After a few weeks I was hit with a more expensive shipping charge and the original debit entry on my bank statement was cancelled and a new debit entry was recorded.

That's not all! It gets worse - much worse. When the book finally arrived not only did I discover that the book was not new but more crucially it did not contain the supplemental disk I was expecting to see!

Returning this book was a nightmare. Not only did I have to cough up to pay for the return label (this is contrary to UK consumer law where an item is not as described) but the seller turned out to have a completely different address for handling returned goods (this is alleged and they could just be providing false information to avoid accepting responsibility for returns).

I was promised a refund of £96.68 plus £25.52 once the item was sent back. After being fobbed off for several days, they finally decided to refund me £96.68, ignoring the £25.52 I am still owed.

They once had a happy customer. Now, they will never get my business again and if I am not reimbursed the shipping cost I will be taking further action.

Buy from them at your own risk and stay well clear of Save With Sam!

Terrible shipping -- incorrect delivery status. Reaching out to both AbeBooks and OSM Worldwide did no good. Was told they would reship (due to postal destruction of label) and would not charge me. REALLY?? No new tracking info and nothing more. I will be requesting a refund but it says I have to wait 30 days to do that. TERRIBLE SERVICE, BUSINESS PRACTICES, AND SHIPPING PARTNER. I will not do business with AbeBooks again, nor do I recommend anyone else to.

Do not order from Save with Sam on AbeBooks. They took my $73 wanted $18 more for shipping even though it said free shipping in the US. They didn’t ship the book. Then they relisted it for $100 more.

Today I placed 3 separate orders at abebooks.com to be sent to 2 separate addresses, one of which was to be sent to me at my billing address. Minutes later when I saw the confirmations, two of the orders showed that they would also be shipped to me at my billing location. Neither "Help" nor "Contact Us" on the website were helpful. They only showed FAQ's that didn't answer my question. I saw no way to contact a real person or even chat with an AI. It seems I would have had to cancel the orders or only deal directly with the actual book sellers, two of them. Sending emails to the booksellers resulted in automated messages that they generally answer emails within 2 days. A new confirmation showed that one of the books has already been shipped within minutes ... on a Sunday!
Sadly when I receive the 2 books I cannot mail them myself because they are both gifts to a person in prison. The regulations require that incarcerated persons may receive books only from bona fide booksellers, not from individuals.

I ordered Bake with Brooki, that is completely sold out in the UK. Amazon completely let me down as I'd preoredered and they didnt deliver and told me a lot of useless reasons why and lies to cover their over-order under-deliver. My daughter really wanted this book so I made the order through Abe books and weirdly afterwards I'd checked these reviews and thought oh no am I away to have a nightmare here. I've used Abe books before but not for a few years.
At that point I just had to wait. I was sent confirmation emails and then one saying royal mail was expecting it.
This seemed delayed as it said 48 hours so I emailed them at citiretail who seem to be the ones sending it. They emailed back and yes the book was coming and it's taking longer as it's coming from Australia.
The book arrived this morning. Its immaculate. Now with my daughter who is delighted. She loves to bake.
Ordered 26th Dec arrived today 4th Jan. I cant complain at that. So I'm sorry others have had difficulty but for me and this order they have been perfect.

I ordered a book from this company 20/11/24. Due date was 11/12/24. Arrived 21/12/24. Never again will I use this company.

I got my college textbook for $5 within 6 days. I got nothing to complain about.

DO NOT BUY WITH ABEBOOKS!

I emailed AbeBooks to ask if I could review a crappy seller & was told, "AbeBooks does not currently have a feedback feature that allows customers to submit personal seller reviews. The Seller Ratings system is based on the percentage of a sellers successfully fulfilled orders. Each seller has a rating out of 5 stars, based on their average completion rate in the last 6 months, that is displayed in each of their listings on AbeBooks. These ratings are monitored by our Customer Trust team to ensure the highest quality of customer service and order fulfillment from each of our sellers."

So, despite picking a 5 star seller, thinking I was getting a reputable one, I got a crap seller. Despite FIVE written requests, I had to contact AbeBooks for assistance in getting tracking information.

Also, I accidentally purchased the wrong book for my husband's series, buying one he already had instead of the 5th in the series. The same seller refused the return "just because..."

Buyer beware.