As I’ve mentioned, FirstBorn is completing a double major in Organic Chemistry and Math – the changling theory doesn’t hold because fairies aren’t into science.
He needs a couple of textbooks and the college bookstore has them priced as if they had gold leaf along the spine, so we go the Amazon route, where the price is about 30% lower. Mind you, not low enough to raise eyebrows, just low by comparison.
One book comes in two days – the other is out of stock for weeks. Turns out he can borrow a copy for a month from the school library and his professor has also offered to loan his personal copy.
Emails keep pushing the date up and up until “datataDA!” it arrives last Friday afternoon. FirstBorn opens the package and says, “WTH?!”
Even I, a non-science-type person, see that there’s a slight problem here…so I call Amazon to report that they’re apparently now shipping counterfeit books. First guy to answer the phone (and while I don’t know what country it was, I know it wasn’t this one) asks me what the problem is and I explain the wording, etc. He listens to the entire story and then says, “So, there’s a problem with this book and you’d like to return it? I can help you with that.” I explain that it’s more than just a problem with the book and that it’s not a legitimate edition of the book. “So, there’s a problem with this book and you’d like to return it? I can help you with that.” We do this linguistic tango one more time and when he says he can help me I say NO YOU CAN’T BECAUSE I’VE EXPLAINED IT THREE TIMES ALREADY. and now i want to speak to a supervisor. They must keep hot irons in the back for cs reps who fail to complete their calls, because this guy would not let go – kept insisting he could help me and I kept insisting that I wanted a supervisor. Finally I get put on the dead zone hold – the one where there’s no music, no advertisements and you know the “If you’d like to make a call, hang up and…” message will be coming on any minute.
Time passes … and passes … suddenly there he is – and I don’t know who was more surprised! Capricorns don’t give up, bucky! He makes one more half-hearted attempt to convince me that he’s my man, then sighs and says he’ll get the supervisor. I hear hold music, but it might have been a choir of angels.
Woman picks up, identifies herself as the supervisor and asks what the problem is with my order. I explain the entire thing ONE MORE TIME and she says that she will send out another copy with one day shipping and with a return label email attachment. More importantly, she will flag this so that Amazon can open an investigation because “Amazon takes these things seriously.” go team. I ask that they make sure the replacement book is a legitimate one and she says they will inspect it before shipping it out.
Return home today from a funeral to find the gigantic box from Target containing PITA’s new bike and the Amazon box. FirstBorn opens it up and sees:
So now we’re amassing quite a collection of counterfeit textbooks. Call Amazon once again and I’m on quite a long time, straightening it out. Rep gets permission to pull the listing until it’s been straightened out, but unfortunately, there are no other Sellers showing it. FirstBorn says he’ll keep his professor’s copy until one comes in – they’re all dying to see what makes an Oogranic Compunds textbook so much cheaper than the Organic version.
and i’m calling the publisher tomorrow.
What a saga – my daughter studied Chemistry in undergrad and those textbooks are unbelievably expensive. We have not experienced counterfeit textbooks and we buy all our college textbooks online. With three kids in college and one on the way LOL, (two in grad school, one in undergrad and the youngest starting next year), we have become very good at saving money on textbooks. The most important hint is to wait until the class begins. We have saved SOOOO much money by NOT BUYING books until class begins because so many books on the list are not required. The minute you buy a textbook, it loses 95% of its value at the bookstore. If you buy a textbook and the teacher tells your kid it is not required reading … THEY WILL NOT READ IT. Another hint you probably already know is always search for textbooks using the 10-digit International Standard Book Number (ISBN), If the ISBN is not on the class list, get it from the college bookstore. We buy from amazon.com, ebay.com and half.com and always identify books with the ISBN. Good luck!
Yeah, we only use the ISBN to search, which is why this book has to be a counterfeit – the numbers were identical, but there were a whole set of random numbers under the printing section of the copyright page.
Update please… dying to hear the outcome or latest part of the saga..
Nothing so far – email from Wiley saying it was being turned over to their legal department for investigation. On Amazon, it says this book is no longer eligible for sale by Amazon because there is something wrong with the way it’s described (wait – does that mean they just have to edit the description to include the word “counterfeit” and they’ll be off the hook?
OOThanks Owill ostay Otuned ;o)