Are used booksellers crooked and/or incompetent?

Cafe Society
1

Like many here, I’m sure, I love books, and I occasionally buy used books. I also love visiting and patronizing used book stores.

Now, I realize that operating a used bookstore must be a tough way to make a living and that most owners must do it mainly for the love of books. But…

Since October 2005, I’ve bought six books through Abebooks from six different booksellers. Three transactions were fine, the book I got was just as advertised.

However, in the other three cases, not so much. In the latest (and least) of these, after waiting a month (yes, media mail can take a long time), I finally sent an e-mail asking about a book I’d ordered, and was told that there had been a death in the family and everything was backed up. Okay, so now you’re thinking I’m a heartless asshole. But since this came after the two incidents I’m about to tell you about, perhaps you’ll cut me some slack for becoming a little cynical.

A few weeks ago I bought an autographed book for $75 that was advertised as a stated first edition. When it came, it wasn’t a stated first or a first of any kind. When I e-mailed to ask about it, the seller apologized and said she had gotten mine mixed up with another copy that was a first, but not signed. But, she said, she had looked around and signed non-firsts of that book were going for about the price I paid. I said fine, and left it at that. (She offered me a discount on future purchases.)

But in October 2005, I had ordered a signed book for $225 and when it arrived the signature was clearly not that of the author. The name started with the same letter, but it was definitely not the author. Unsigned copies of that book sell for as little as $3.00. The seller agreed to refund my purchase price. But I have a hard time believing that this wasn’t an out an out attempt at fraud.

Okay, so maybe these are flukes. Maybe 99.99% of all used booksellers are diligent, honest, hardworking, put-upon bibliophiles whom I’m heartlessly slandering with baseless charges.

But it was the story about the death that got me looking back at my history with booksellers, and the fact that 50% of my recent transactions are questionable. If you allow that the death in family is real, it’s still 33%, not a confidence-inspiring ratio.

So my questions are, have the pressures of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and eBay driven some formerly honest used booksellers into ethically dubious practices, if not outright dishonesty? Or were large numbers of booksellers always crooks, and now it’s just easier to find them? Or are used booksellers really nature’s noblemen, and I’ve just happened to find a couple of bad apples, and libeled a grieving innocent shopkeeper into the bargain?

What experiences have you had buying used books?

2

I think your experiences were flukes and that you can’t judge the thousands of used booksellers by them any more than you could judge the members of the Dope by a sampling of six posts.

I could give you my experiences with buying many more than six books, about 99% positive, but that would be as irrelevant as your anecdotal experiences. You can’t judge millions of individual transactions, many of them specialized, by a few anecdotes.

I can give my professional opinion, as someone who has been a writer and held many other positions in publishing for thirty years, that most booksellers are honest and most book sales go though exactly as planned.

Which is exactly true of every single vendor community, including reviled ones like airlines, computers, and electronics. You only hear about the negatives. If you’re one of the negatives it doesn’t matter how many other people got good service.

If all you want to do is vent, fine. Feel free. But if you’re seriously asking, the honest answer to your questions is yes, those were flukes.

3

I am an online used bookseller, and I can say that MY store is ethical, though some mistakes get made that look like fradulent tactics, and there’s no way to prove otherwise to an already suspicious customer. We sell on ABE and Amazon (and Ebay, our own site, etc.) and they are the reason we’re in business, not a competitor.

4

I used to work in a used book store. We conducted a large amount of business online, both buying and selling. Only once did I encounter a bookseller that I would describe as “crooked.” I believe the ethical standards of booksellers to be higher than those of the average online merchant.

5

I’m not venting, and I should have clarified that I’ve bought many more than six used books, it’s just that those were the latest six through Abebooks, for which I had a handy easy-to-reference record. It was just the coincidence that got me wondering if things are getting harder for booksellers.

But I should have realized that, to the contrary, the Web has probably improved business for sellers substantially.

6

Perhaps the title of this thread should be “Are rare book dealers crooked and/or incompetent?”. The books you describe are the sorts of things that aren’t available in most used bookstores, and even in most bookstores that deal with both rare and ordinary used books, those sorts of books aren’t the main business. This isn’t meant to disparge your tastes in collecting. My only point is that I’ve bought many books in used bookstores over the years, mostly in regular ones but a few times online, and I’ve never bought any signed books. A few semi-rare books, but no really rare ones.

7

I’ve bought hundreds of used books through Amazon and ABE and the experience has been 99% positive.

Anyone with a computer can sell books on line. I sold for awhile, to clear up some shelf space. I had to learn how to describe a book, how to tell if what I had was a true first edition, how to wrap and ship securely, etc.

I suspect a lot of sellers are like me, people who sell their overflow, or who buy books cheap at library and yard sales, hoping to make a few bucks.

Your bad experience is probably the result of ignorance or carelessness rather than dishonesty.

8

I haven’t bought anything recently but I used to use Bibliofind to locate signed, first edition copies of books by Sara Teasdale (collect the whole set!). These were generally $100+ purchases. I purchased six of them from five different stores and never had a hitch with delivery or the book being true to description. In fact, every transaction was overwhelmingly positive.

I see that Bibliofind is part of Amazon now but, back then, it was more of an independent method of locating used book dealers.

9

I’ve bought quite a number of books using abebooks to find what I wanted. I’ve also bought quite a number of National Geographic magazines on Ebay. I’ve never recieved a book or magazine that wasn’t better than it sounded when described online. And only once have I had a less than pleasant experience with the seller. In that case I’d not sent quite the correct amount for postage and the seller, a guy from Germany, took the opportunity to tell me how stupid and uneducated all American customers seemed to be. I offered to make up the difference but he told me not to bother.

The most expensive book I bought online was priced at $100, and the seller, a bookstore in New Mexico, bent over backwards to describe it, also sending info that assured me the book was the very edition I wanted.

10

I’ve done the same, many through Abebooks, and I’ve had my share of weird results. My favorite was when a seller shipped me a book that, while similar in title, wasn’t the correct one. I had to call back, got a befuddled old guy who I’m sure must have looked like Mr Magoo, and talked him through his racks and several false tries pulling books off his shelf one by one.

These type of results have been completely what I would expect, however, when dealing with small private mom 'n pop outfits. Many of these stores still are grappling with doing business in the internet age, often with staff and owners who are used to writing out receipts by hand, make handshake deals, look suspiciously at “them thar big city folk with their credit cards”, and relying on the customer to know more about the purchase than they themselves do. You get all kinds when dealing with small dealers, you shouldn’t expect ISO9001 quality.

11

That one could even be the author’s fault.

Howard Chaykin was invited to the Setmana del Cómic de Barcelona back when I was in college. A couple of his series had been selling very well; Black Kiss wasn’t doing so well but that was to be expected, given the subject. The first days were not open to the general public; by helping prepare stands, lug boxes of books and handle security, I was able to get in for the whole time.

He was supposed to be in for the opening on Wednesday afternoon. No Chaykin.

No Chaykin Thursday morning.

No Chaykin Thursday afternoon, Friday morning, Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon. Finally on Sunday, his editor grabbed him by the short hairs and forced him to come in. By this time, people were already pretty pissed with the guy for acting like that; after all, we’d paid for his Costa Brava vacation but on the condition that he come in, answer fan questions and sign books.

Sunday morning, I was hovering at the stall that had been getting the “Chaykin sign-ons today at X:XX” changed for days, discussing something with another fan, and one of the editors, let’s call him Mr. L, asked us to repeat some of the names we’d said. :confused: we did, and asked whether we were saying them wrong. He chuckled and said that no, no, we said them just right and that’s what he found funny, considering what a short time before nobody in Spain studied English. We talked a bit, I mentioned I wrote reviews for a couple fanzines. He remembered my name from seeing it in the 'zines, not so difficult since I was one of two female writers in the whole of 'zine-land.

Afternoon, Chaykin finally is there, signing. Grabbing firmly the copy of Blackhawk #1 that I’d bought for a friend who had the rest of the series (I was no fan even before the wait), I waited patiently and got in. Mr. L was there. As Chaykin signed the book of the guy before me, he was talking to Mr. L and telling him how much he hated “answering the same stupid questions for these idiots.” Mr. L looked at me and made noncommital noises. I said I didn’t have any questions and handed the book to be signed, but I specifically wanted it signed on a full-page panel. After some more complaining about people who want books signed on a specific page instead of the first page, he gave it to me. The signature was a scrabble; I flipped a few pages to compare it with one from a signed panel and they were completely different. I considered asking which one would his bank accept but figured it wasn’t worth it. After a :dubious: look at Mr. L., I left and bought a new copy, which is the one I gave to my friend.

Sales of Black Kiss hadn’t been so great, but they took as much of a dive as they physically could.

Other authors (JR Jr for example) will be welcome at the Setmana any time they feel like dropping by because they’re so nice to the fans, we’ll pay for Costa Brava vacations or for trips to Valencia or a guided weekend in Toledo if they want, but God what an asshole…

12

[Hopefully Amusing Hijack] The guy at work that I used to engage in conversation about music, who swapped new stuff he found with me recently left for a new job. I had been cleaning up at home and found amongst all my books a copy of Eric Burden’s Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood with limited edition CD. I had bought it at a charity shop for $1.

Knowing that he is a big Burden fan I took the book to work and gave it to him on his last day. He was very grateful, having never read it. A while later he walked over to my desk and said, “Are you sure you want to give this to me?” He opened it to the blank page inside the cover (what the hell is it called?) to reveal a personal inscription signed “yo Eric Burden.”

I had never seen it because I started reading the book where the text began. I told him to keep it, that it was his good luck. I consoled myself with the thought that the signature didn’t look anything like “Eric Burden” however when I checked on the net it looked exactly like his actual signature. [/HAH]

13

Are those blank pages called endpapers? I think so.

But aren’t some people nice? I sold two signed books without noting the signature in the description, and both buyers e-mailed me and asked me if I wanted more money for them!