Alibris

I purchased books by mistake. That is, I clicked the 'place your order' by a sheer stroke of oversight--my bad, I agree. However, I instantly clicked the back button, but the order went through like a dream (read nightmare).

I then decided to call Alibris hoping that a human voice would respond at some point so that I could cancel the order. To cut a long sob story short, I am yet to find a human voice at the other end in Alibris. Apparently, you CAN'T cancel an order. Strange, indeed. My order is scheduled to arrive in a couple of weeks. I hope to speak to a real person in the while. By the looks of it so far, I would not hope for much.

Absolute horror.
I ordered a book from More Books (one of Alibris' 4-star vendors) paid for expedited shipping and told to wait at least two weeks for delivery. After I was notified that the book shipped I was told that they no longer had the item.
The book (same edition and inventory) miraculously appeared the same day with prices which have gone from 67 to 3-400 dollars.
Alibris has no phone number where you can contact them. It took 10 days to get my refund. (Btw Amazon doesn't charge you until the item is shipped.)
Do your homework before you use this vendor. I can imagine that they have honest vendors as well but after this experience I'll never work with them.

Being warned by all the negative reviews I saw, I was very suspicious about risking the order, but I did. And I am absolutely happy with the result: all 13 books came, they were in excellent condition (all were 2nd hand) and the delivery was on time. I have an idea why some people might have gotten disappointed: you must read AND UNDERSTAND their fine print well, before ordering! There are some hooks, like when you order a book from a vendor instead of them (because the vendor might offer the book cheaper), that amount will not count for your free shipping&handling amount. So in case somebody did not pay attention, they might have been surprised. Your own fault! Learn the conditions, then you'll be served well, like I was.

Placed order on 5/22/06. Received confirmation of shipment on 5/23/06. Was told book would arrive BY 6/3/06 (which I thought was ridiculously long for a domestic state to state order - - this typically happens in 3-5 days.) Needed for a gift by 6-9-08. Needless to say, it has not arrived and when I inquired into the whereabouts, was emailed a canned auto-reply which said the book could take up to 30 days to arrive and they could not track the order nor could I cancel it. Alibris was not the cheapest source for the book and definitely not worth the aggravation. As the book still has not arrived it is apparent that someone lied about either having the book in stock or shipping when they said they did. Do not recommend. I wish I would have read these customer comments before I ordered as my situation sounds fairly common for this company.

I'd rate customer service as a 0 if I could since I'd say 'what customer service?'. There is no phone # to contact and they don't answer their email. I ordered a book over a month ago and never heard back about it. They say it's shipped on their website and no other info.

Good luck with these turkeys. You'll need it.

Of my many years of ordering items over the internet, this website is the ONLY one where I lost a very important book in the mail,a book my father had illustrated during World War II. I did receive my money back from the Mastercard. Still is just wasn't the same. The book I ordered was very rare. I will never order from Alibris again. Their employees must make $6/hour and just don't care.

DREADFUL!! DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!! If a seller rips you off, forget about customer service - it is all automated emails with absolutely no regard for your situation!!

I ordered a book which was allegedly dispatched on April 26 although Alibris could not provide proof of shipment. By May 27 it was still undelivered and deemed to be "lost in transit". I am galled to discover I must wait another 14 days for a refund. In my view, Alibris has had the use of my money for 6 weeks in what amounts to sharp, if not fraudulent, practice. Moreover, their customer service seems incapable of generating anything but formulaic replies to e-mails.I will never use Alibris again and will warn all my friends of the disappointment in dealing with this company.

Alibris actually has a lot of rare books that even Amazon.com doesn't have and they're also a lot cheaper too! That's what made me first buy a book from them - I needed an art history book but was more than $100 on Amazon but only $35 (minus shipping) on Alibris!

HOWEVER! I paid EXTRA money for the book to be shipped within a week because classes already started and my professor said we'd need it within the next week. I thought it'd be a pretty quick job done since Alibris seemed very assuring.

It's currently been OVER TWO WEEKS and I have NOT RECEIVED my book yet!!! I refuse to buy another book just to wait for the book I bought from Alibris to come later.

If you are to buy from Alibris, make sure the seller is a good one. And maybe don't pay extra money for shipping. You  might as well go somewhere that actually will bring your package on time.

I've ordered a couple books from Alibris with no problems, but, most recently, I ordered a $40 book that has never arrived. So, following Alibris' instructions on their web site, I e-mailed them with the order no. and, after receiving a reply from them asking me to respond again, I did so. Never heard anything. I've e-mailed them again and again with no response. Just want to say it here - congratulations, Alibris! You must be so successful that you can treat customers so poorly. Highly recommend you not use them. Abebooks has much better service.

I have dealt with Alibris on 8 separate occasions. On my last order (3 books to a friend as a gift)they informed me that one book was cancelled because they found that the item was "unavailable". Perfunctory apologies and refund etc. What surprised me was that this was a newly released book. My "beef" with Alibris is that they could have offered the same book from a different seller at a higher price, which they did not. In addition, trying to communicate with them can be done ONLY thru email. They have no listed, live phone contact. All the emails are "boiler plate" messages, some of which are signed "Rosamaria" and do not address what one is writing to them about.

I ordered a textbook and it was cancelled just hours after I had placed the order. I received an e-mail from Alibris telling me that it was cancelled, and that my refund would be received in a separate e-mail that has already been sent. Well, it is now a week later and I have yet not received my refund e-mail or my actual refund. I have contacted customer service three times and have not received a response whatsoever. I would not recommend this site to anyone.

Terrible Experience! Customer service is non-existent. I'm not saying that there is a customer service dept and it's terrible; I'm saying that it does not exist. I imagine that this is a one or two man operation. I've emailed them three times over the past month, and I have yet to receive one response from them. I accidentally shipped my item to an old address and I needed to contact the seller to inform him of my new address. The only way to contact them is through email. After you send an email, you receive a response saying that they will contact you shortly.... It's been three weeks now and I haven't heard anything from them.
Their prices are great, but save yourself the stress and order from somebody else. It's been three weeks and I still don't my book and I haven't heard from them. My credit-card has been charged.

Alibris is a great place to find a book that you already know you want. I've purchased a couple of dozen books from them and have never had any problems. Good selection and good prices. If I need to have a lot of information first about the book before I buy it, though, I check out Amazon first and then buy through Alibris.

Would definitely not buy from them again. I found a book I wanted through an internet search and ordered it from Alibris. The book that was received was not the book I ordered. I contacted them to return it for the correct one, but they could not find the right one in stock. I shipped the book back, received a refund but they will not refund me the return postage. So, I end up paying the postage to return a book to them that I never ordered in the first place. POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE. This is a small amount, but the principle of it is more important to me. Terrible business practices, so I won't be shopping there again.