"DO NOT ORDER FROM ALIBRIS! It is one of the most horrible website I have ever ordered my book from. I do not think I will ever be ordering from this site again. I ordered a book on the 25th of August, and it was supposed to arrive by September 9th. and I got email from them on Sep 11th, that my order has been cancelled. I am pretty sure that Alibris is just playing dirty games with everyone to scam us out of our money."
"I ordered a textbook from alibris.com. About a week later, I received an email informing me that the order is cancelled because they do not have the book. I wonder why they did not tell me in the first place when I ordered on their website if they did not have the book. alibris.com seems to not understand a textbook order is time-sensitive and delay or cancellation can have a big adverse effect. When I checked my credit card account, I found that they had charged my credit card right after I made the order. However, I still do not see the refund to my account even though I received the cancellation email two days ago. When I call the company, I was told by the answering-machine they have no person to answer the phone and that the only thing I can do is to send them an email and wait for their reply. But in their cancellation email, the email address is ****@****. This is the first time I ordered a book from alibris.com. I regret that I did not read reviews from others who ran into similar problems with alibris.com. I will definitely try to avoid buying books from the site in the future. In contrast, the other textbooks I ordered at the same time from Amazon.com had already arrived a couple of days ago."
"I have bought a lot of text books from many different websites, and this is by far the worst. I ordered 3 books from them this semester, and they canceled all 3 orders because the books weren't in stock. It took over a week to get my money refunded. I paid extra for expedited shipping, because I wanted the books to arrive to my step-daughter before the start of classes. On the last day that the book should have arrived I emailed Alibris and asked them about the status of the book, and it took them a day to respond and tell me they will contact the seller and that it would take 2 days to get me any information. 3 days later(5 days total because of the weekend) they emailed me and told me my order was canceled because it was not in stock. There is no way to contact Alibris by phone, and the customer service via email, is a 2-3 day wait. It is really rare for me to write a review, but I had such an awful experience trying to buy books that I wanted to warn other shoppers!"
"It's not worth it! I'm in my Senior year so I've bought and rented a lot of books this is the 1st time it has been so difficult. 1st the seller sent me the wrong book. I returned it with tracking, he had it back within 2 days. 2 weeks later I'm still waiting on my refund. Alibris has no interest in helping resolve the issue. Roll the dice if you want but I'll stick with Chegg from now on."
"Terrible service. Terrible shipping. Never received my book. waiting on my refund. Avoid them at all costs- it's for your benefit!"
"TERRIBLE customer service. Had to go to my credit card company to get my refund. Their "independent" seller sent me a "receipt" for a refund but never posted it to my PayPal account. This, after sending me a damaged book for $60.00 Many emails to Alibris and Econgo (neither of which accepted responsibility) and a lot of runaround later, I'm still working on it (6 weeks so far). What a rip-off!! I suggest you find another way to buy your books and save yourself the ridiculous hassle! I guess that Amazon's excellent customer service and selection have spoiled me."
"Alibris is an excellent source for books; their network of booksellers is huge. The issue is their poor shipping choices.
Alibris' free shipping is a sad joke. My books shipped 14 days ago (11 shipping days ago) and I still don't have it. What is really strange, is that I specifically ordered it via a store within my state for this very reason. So, a store that can be no more than 6hrs from my doorstep is taking at least 12 shipping days.
Amazon Prime: New copy of Philip K Dick novel $10.99 free 2-day UPS.
Alibris: Same exact book, $10.15, free saver shipping (they don't have free 2-day), I'm still waiting going on 2 weeks.
Will you pay a little more? Sure, a matter of cents, but as the saying goes, 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'
AmazonPrime does costs $80 per year. My family has made that back from the shipping savings of items that rarely have free shipping otherwise, and because of this, we have the added bonus of free 2-day for my book habit."
"Potential Buyers Beware: I just reported this place to PayPal because I placed an order of a book in stock and 2 minutes later they emailed me with a cancellation email, they said that they book was already sold. They said upon check-out that they will not make any charges to your account until the item ships. This is a bunch of crap because they charged me one day after they cancelled my order. I contacted PayPal the moment I saw that the order went from in progress to completed and nothing was refunded. I also tried emailing the company, calling them (the number is automated)and tried to send them a message on their website. What a headache for a book that is from the 1960's not in high demand. Bunch of ripoff artists. Do not shop with them even though the prices look good. "
"Ordered a book on the 10th November, expecting it to arrive in time for Christmas from the US to the UK. It didn't so contact Alibris, who told me to wait longer. Contacted them again as it still hadn't arrived, told to wait until the 24 December! Pointless!
Waited and book still arrived, don't even know if they really sent it as it wasn't trackable at all! Money returned promptly, but the wait put me off ordering from the company ever again."
"Horrible, horrible, horrible! I will NEVER deal with them again! After ordering a used book in "Good" condition and being notified that it had been shipped. Two wks. later I contacted them to find out where my order was they said that they had notified me that the order had been 'canceled' by them as it was no longer available but that there was another used copy available and they sent me the link. The original copy was $127.00 but the 'new' used copy was $182.00. When I went back on their site the $127.00 copy was still there and when I notified them of that several times they denied it and then finally just didn't respond. And, oh, by the way. After searching my emails, I never was sent a notice of 'none delivery"."
"Never ever again!
I bought this hardcover book, of course with a hardcover ISBN. I did not receive the book for more than a month and finally I received a book. A paperback, which is folded on at least half the pages and is intended to be sold only in Indian subcontinent.
Upon contacting the costumer service, I was asked to send the book back, upon receiving IF the book was in good condition i would have had my money back. The problem was that the book was already NOT in good conditions."
"I do not think I will ever be ordering from this site again. I ordered a book on the 28th of August, and it was supposed to arrive by September 9th. Well the 9th passed, and after a little over a week of waiting, still no book. I emailed customer service, and surprisingly I got a response by the next day. They said that my book was shipped on time, but the packet was lost in transit, so they shipped me another book and it should supposedly be here in 3 days. Well in that case, it should be here tomorrow, but I doubt it. They gave me the tracking number for it, but there is no way for me to track it on their site, and USPS has no record of the tracking number they gave me. So I'm starting to wonder if Alibris is just playing dirty games with me to scam me out of my money.
*UPDATE: Customer service contacted me again shortly after the first time, and this time a more competent and caring person replied, and expressed how sorry they were that I had to go through what I have been. They said that they would refund my shipping costs (which they actually did) and talk with the seller who did not send my book on time, even though they told me it had shipped on time. My book finally arrived yesterday, and it IS the right book! Thank goodness. I still will not buy from Alibris again, but I had to give them what little credit they were due. "
"I have purchased many text books on line for my daughter who is attending college. My purchase with Alibris was the absolute worst experience that I have had to date.
I purchased a text book. It was supposedly sent USPS priority. It arrived 20 days later. The post mark said it was actually mailed 6 days prior by media mail. School had started and I had to purchase another text book.
I emailed the seller to ask where the book was and when it would arrive. I never received a response. I went on line and followed the instructions to return the item.
On the day that I was going to put the book in the mail with the label that I was instructed to use, I received an email saying that I my return was denied. I guess that the "satisfaction guaranteed" logo that Alibris advertises does not really exist.
I will now have to try and resale a $250 book that as anyone who has sold back books knows, will only bring a small amount of its original purchase price.
Please think twice before you purchase from this company. If you read the reviews on line, their "star rating" is a 1. That should tell you something.
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"1st experience with Alibris was bad. Bought a book from one of their sellers, paid extra for priority shipping. Emailed the seller, got no response. After several days, emailed again, no response, no book. School started, still no book. Had to buy the book locally, paying much more. Would have been better off with Amazon."
"Run away from Alibris! There is zero customer service - you cannot call and talk to anyone. You can send an email but it may take a couple days to get their canned response. 2 of the 4 books I ordered had problems and had to be returned...I hope I get the promised refund.
Stupidly, I decided to give them one more chance and re-ordered one of the correct versions from them, paying expedited shipping again to get it in time for school. 9 days later it hasn't arrived and I've discovered that their "expedited" shipping isn't trackable and may take up to 30 days to arrive. Never, ever again!!! I will pay premium price to buy from a reputable company in the future."