"Half.com has increased its commissions to sell an item. I sold a text book for $100.00 and half.com kept $22.50 as a commission. I was not informed of this commission until after the sale. When I contacted customer service, I learned that all of the commissions have increased by more than 10% as of December 16th 2016. I will not be using them to sell any books in the future. "

"I sold a game to a buyer who falsely claimed their package contained an empty game case. They were awarded a refund and told to send the case back. I now don't have my money or my game disc, which was rare and hard to find. Customer service was no help. I'm done with this company."

"This day in age, it's inexcusable to claim that something they sold to me is not longer available. What a scam they have going on here. If I had advertised an item on ebay and sold it, I have not doubt that ebay would expect me to follow through on the order.

What makes it even better? I can't even leave negative feedback for Half for seven days. No wonder they have such good ratings....nobody can document the truth in a timely fashion.

What an utter waste of time! This was my last ebay purchase (or should I say attempt at a purchase)."

"They take a fee to sell your book on their website, but I'm not sure what it goes to pay for as their customer service is horrible. I sent in an email to change my bank listing information where they would be sending payments. I got a sketchy phone call more than a few days later from someone claiming they were going to help me change my payment bank account info. This is sketchy at best as the woman did not indicate this was why she was calling. With all the scam artists calling to try to steal info out there they need to train people better on how to reassure people they are calling that who they are and why they are calling. Or maybe send an email indicating how we will know what to expect or to even expect a phone call to begin with. I explained my situation to the agent who did not understand what I was saying. She basically kept repeating herself as if reading from a book indicating how to respond to certain questions. Like talking to a poorly programmed robot. Asked to speak to a supervisor who understood what I was asking but was horribly rigid about the rules. When I explained that my old bank account still exists but is no longer in my name she explained there was nothing they could do and I should call the bank to have them transfer, except my new account is not w/ the same bank. They said the system is automated and there is nothing they can do. I asked to speak to her supervisor (we are 2 levels up now) and at least got someone how was willing to admit that something else could be done. Looked and claimed there wasn't anything he can do. As someone who used to work for major company's in customer service there is always something you can do in a system. Maybe it requires a certain supervisor passcode or a special work around in the system but there is always something. They said I should talk to the person who has the bank account, but given that I am paying them a fee to use their service I shouldn't have to. And not to mention not everyone would be able to do that. What if I was a previously abused woman and the account was under my abusive ex husband's name? Not helping me (thankfully that is not me) could lead to a lawsuit. Ridiculous. I will be posting this review everywhere I can."

"Tried to contact Half.com and it made me wonder if this is a scam or real deal

I am trying to update my bank info (account #and routing #) since there is a change a realized/ i sold the item and the payment is pending due to account being wrong/ I sent a message via your site and was informed wait 72 h in the worst scenario ( message sent May 1 today is 5th) NO RESPOND from you/ You advertise that half. com is an Ebay company but you are not- probably that why the customer service suck/ phone number that I found is not working/ I can use my ebay user name, sign up with it but I can use the pay pal to get the money. There is no way to contact this company. Just feel like Ive been ripped off by Half.com. It is only 19$ but maybe that is the way to do business/ Definitely wont be selling anything via your site"

"Half.com: Irresponsible business, Zero customer service

If you intend to sell books thru Half.com, please be warned and advised. This site does not care about sellers. They cancelled our selling account after 10 years of long standing good history, because of a supposed shipping violation; they never explained the violation even though we requested explanation several times. Only possible communication with them is via email (they call themselves "an online company"); the online customer representative was very rude and not helpful, ignored all our questions or concerns and simply kept referring us to their "help" pages. Since half.com accounts link to eBay.com, this caused our eBay.com account to also be blocked, which is a totally different site with different policies. This blocks seller activity also on the other site, and doesn't even let you use the account for buying any product; but half.com did not care about helping resolve the situation. The eBay people tried to help but they could not do anything about the already blocked account.

On top of this half.com does not immediately pay seller revenues, as policy they only pay twice a month and they provide no option for requesting immediate payment if you are in urgent need of the money. So upon cancelling an account like they did to us, they place your pending payments on a 60-day hold period, which we doubt is legal. After 60 days when you try to reclaim the frozen funds they come up with another list of hurdles and "account identity validations" in order to release your money. In our case we did not have any extra identity validations to do since our account had current up-to-date information, so then the customer representative simply stopped responding to our email requests for payment. (There is no way to contact them via phone).

We had to call ebay for advise, the provided a phone number for half.com ***-***-****, when you call this number it is an endless loop voice response system that never connects you to a real person. So, when there is a problem with this people, there is no simple way to resolve issues and you are stuck, and THEY ARE EXTREMELY DISREGARDING AND DISRESPECTING OF SELLERS, who are THE ONES WHO ALLOW THEM TO EARN THE STEEP FEES they charge on every book sale.

If you intend to sell with this company beware of their questionable and unfair practices, try to take your business somewhere else.

Thank you."

"This website is horrible! Rented a used textbook from them, paid $30 to rent, which was the lowest price I found. Mailed it back the day they said to and month later, the charge my account with a buyout fee of $60! This was a USED textbook, there was writing all over it and pages were torn.
Would I care so much if it had been $15 or so? No, but they charged me $60! Worst textbook rent/buy site ever!"

"Decided to try half.com because I'd read their shipping rates were lower than Amazon's. Found a CD for less than a dollar and a DVD about half the price of what I've been seeing it for on Amazon (even used). Put them both in my cart and the total came out to a little less than $16 with shipping. Paid with a Visa debit gift card that I'd gotten for Christmas that had approximately $19 left on it (which should have been enough to cover the charges, including the $1 verification charge). Went through the checkout process and received an error message after the very last step--something along the lines of "This service is not currently available, try again in a few minutes." There was nothing to click on so I wasn't quite sure what to do at that point, but I went back to the homepage and the items were still in my cart. Decided to check the balance on my gift card and it was down to $3.12. The charges are still "pending", though. I did manage to contact customer service and I did receive a response, however the gist of it was basically "just wait a few days and see if they decline the charges". There is no record of my orders in my Purchases under My Account on the half.com website, even though I've waited the alloted 48 hours (and then some) they say to wait for "some rare instances" where orders don't show up there right away. (The items also disappeared from my cart as well, and were re-listed--I know, because I checked.) And I didn't receive any other confirmation that I actually ordered something (e.g. email), either. Despite its higher shipping rates, I think I'm going to stick with Amazon, as I've never had a problem with them charging me for things and then basically not confirming in ANY way that I'm going to GET those things."

"I had a book listed on half.com. I nthe description I stated everything that you need to know about the book including that it was an internation edition. A person bought the book and then 3 weeks later told me it was the wrong book and wanted a refund. I stated that I made everything clear in my posting. Never heard anything from her. Instead, she filed a claim with half.com. Instead of them reaching out to me to get my side of the story like paypal does, they ruled in her favor and just took money out of my account that I was not expecting. I reached out to them because now I am out 78.00 plus I have no book. Here the lady shipped the book to an old address on file that I lived at 4 years ago. Now, I buy from Ebay and half.com and my stuff always comes to me however, why did this book get shipped to NJ. I don't live there. All they keep telling me is how to update my address on file. And that I should reach out to whoever lives at the address and see if they have the book... over a month now, I have no money and no book!!!!!!!!!!!!!They are rip offs and frauds and I will escaluate this to who ever I have to go to. It is not a lot of money but it is in my case."

"Bought a book from Capital Books and they sent me the wrong version even though I typed in the correct ISBN. When the book arrived, it had a receipt from Amazon.com with my name on it. I contacted Half.com and they sporadically sent out replys during the holiday to send the book back to a Captial book address . I sent the book back to an address that Capital books told me to which was different. Half.com replied "since you did not reply back, you cannot get a refund but if you want you can sell the book on Half.com. Do not use this site. A few dollars more, you can get the book from a more reputable comany like Amazon.com. I also stop using EBAY for the same reasons. Buy from them at your own risk!
"

"I will never order from this site again. First time ordering texts for my son. Was charged immediately for 1 book then got an email telling me that they can fulfill and will take days to refund. The other promised 2 day shipping and I have not even received a confirm or any comms---and the order has no shipping info listed. Need these books quickly, so this is a real issue. Half.com appears to be totally unreliable."

"Where do I begin with Half.com?

First, I bought a book from one of their sellers for several of my college courses. I usually purchase my books from campus, Amazon, or Alibris, but I thought I’d give them a shot, specifically because they were listed as an option on my colleges bookstore for used books, and also because I read their buyer protection plan. The plan supposedly guarantees that your order will be in as described condition or Half.com will refund your money. The policy also does not explicitly state that they require the book to be returned. I will never buy from them again, and here is why.

All of my books came in good condition except for one: my Developmental Psychology book. It was described as in very good condition with some highlights and no markings. I paid approximately $80 for the book, and boy was I surprised when it showed up.

Not only was the cover in bad shape (it has dents all over the cover as though someone used it for a writing desk), but the binding is torn. In addition, the book has excessive pink highlights to the tune of 60 plus pages. That is far from “some highlights”. The book also has markings inside, but worst of all, the book smells like someone smoked weed around it for years. God awful smell. Smells so bad it could get even get an Arkansas law enforcement agent who burns marijuana fields high. Therefore, I contacted the seller, but the seller was uncooperative about giving me a substantial discount or issuing me a full refund. Therefore, I filed a claim with Half.com.
Half.com sent me a message that they would contact me within 72 hours to resolve the problem— but almost 10 days later, I still had not heard from them. So I searched on their website in order to find a customer service number, a physical address, or even an e-mail so I could find out the status of my claim. No such luck. Despite my searching, over an hour of searching to be exact, I could not find a number, an address, or an e-mail for Half.com. So I began to search online, and I finally found a physical address for Half.com listed with the California Secretary of State. To date, I have not found a phone number that links you to a live person, and I only found a service e-mail address that bounced originally, stating it does not accept e-mails from customers.

More than two weeks later, I finally received a reply from Half.com. Apparently they did receive my e-mail sent from the service e-mail address, despite the message to the contrary that this e-mail does not take replies, etc. They are failing to honor their buyer protection plan as advertised on their site, and they are demanding that I send the book back in order to receive a refund, since they cannot determine the condition the book is in, which seems to defeat the wording in their buyer protection policy. Half.com clearly has communication issues. In addition, they seem to not hire people who know how to clearly read e-mails and respond to customers, since they keep referring me to their “refund policy” and not their “buyer protection policy”. As much as I ‘d love to send this piece of trash back, my classes start in about a week, and I do not have time to send the book back, to wait for a full refund (which with some merchants takes 30 days or more), and then to order a book that is in very good condition or better. To do this would put me behind on my reading material, and getting behind at the beginning of the semester is simply not an option if I want to keep my GPA over 3.5. I would even be happy with a partial credit, since the book is worth maybe $40 on a good day after it is aired out. So as of now, I have filed a complaint with the BBB’s office of Silicon Valley, the Attorney General’s office of California, and the FTC. Maybe this will get someones’ attention that is literate with Half.com, and then I will be happy to send pictures to the organizations mentioned."

"Half.com is incredibly hostile to sellers. Not only do they not offer a seller protection program parallel to the buyer protection contract, but they also do not automatically provide a tracking order automatically. "

"I have had an account with Half.com for years and have never had a bad experience. Recently, I just ordered textbooks and they came instantly (a lot sooner than I expected). Yay for that! Also, I'm impressed with their textbook rental service, where shipping is free and you can highlight/underline in the books if you'd like."

"I recently opened an account with half.com in order to sell used books to raise money for my family's international adoption (I already have an online craft store, and I love books, so I was looking for ways to expand my business.) Half.com was recommended by a coworker. I was pleased with the ease of listing my items for sale, and quickly made a few sales.

Last week I received an automated message from eBay regarding my Half.com account. The message stated that an item was deleted from my inventory because Half.com does not allow any water or liquid damaged books to be sold on their website. The automated message said if I had any further questions, I could reply to the email, and that I should copy/paste the book title and item number into that reply. I was very surprised, considering not a single item in my inventory (either for sale or one of the many hundreds of books in my personal library) has any kind of damage- let alone water damage. I work in a public library, incidentally, and am the pickiest among my coworkers when it comes to items returned to our branch with damage. I'm usually the first one to charge a patron for the item if it has the slightest liquid damage...but I digress. I responded to the message, explaining there was nothing wrong with my book, and could they please get back to me as to why the item was removed. The book would retail for $7-$9 at the local franchise of a nationwide used book seller (I know because I took my books in and asked!) When I submitted the form, I got a screen saying I would get a response in 24-48 hours. I never got a response, relisted the item, and made sure that there was absolutely nothing in the listing that could be interpreted as damage (all my listings essentially say the same thing: spine is in great shape, clean unmarked pages, cover shows minimal signs of shelf wear around covers, price sticker is still on book and can be removed, smoke free, pet free home.) I then included my standard note about all proceeds going toward our adoption, and said "thank you for your support!" (This is included on my listings on other sites and my business cards.)

Today I received a second notice from eBay, saying the item in question had been removed from my inventory AGAIN. I got the same mini-paragraph regarding water and liquid damage, and then there was a new note saying that if I said the book was missing pages or a cover or something like that, and I classified it in the wrong category (such as listing it as "Like New" instead of "Fair" condition), that might be cause for removal of items as well. Neither of these terms applies to me. At the bottom of the message was a vaguely threatening note implying that if they continued to have problems with me breaking the rules, I would be subject to "stern administrative action". I find this unacceptable. Once again, I responded to the email, offering to send in pictures of my item so they could see there is indeed nothing wrong with it, and told them I was disappointed that they had not contacted me regarding my last message to them.

I am now submitting poor reviews for this website at any venue I can, and am looking into taking further action (such as a formal complaint with an organization like the BBB) against Half.com for baseless discrimination against me and the items I have for sale. Additionally, the "help desk" for Half.com is virtually impossible to navigate in circumstances like this. There are FAQ sections, which did not help. There is no phone number to call, and no alternate email address to use for contact. The only thing a customer can do is fill out the form, which is obviously ignored by whatever customer service department Half.com has. Also, Half.com states in their terms of use that sellers will receive payments via direct deposit into their bank accounts on the 15th day and the last day of every month. This is false. If you dig deep enough, you can find a line that states that the money won't even be deposited in your account until about 7 business days AFTER one of those dates (the 15th or last day of the month.) That makes no sense. They are dishonest and misleading about their payment policies. They have no way that I could find (a search that took an hour and a half of my free time) of finding out if you even have a payment pending. I finally received an email from them around May 7th saying that my payment- from April 30th- was being processed. They should re-word their terms if they are not, in fact, going to pay their sellers on the dates they claim.

I have family, friends, customers and supporters around the country (and a few international buddies) who know about our efforts to adopt, who are fans of my handmade goods and have been spreading the word about my half.com store. These people would be glad to close their eBay accounts and to spread the word, as well."