Bad Customer Relations
I rate Alibris dead last among online book marketplaces. This outfit is very quick to take your money: Your credit card is automatically charged at the moment of purchase. The order confirmation and shipping details, are not automatic; it took multiple requests to get a person to respond with this information. Furthermore, the customer must pay shipping to return a book, even if it's a case of seller error. In our case, Booklab sent an inferior edition of a book we ordered. The price Alibris/Booklab charged, reasonable for the edition Booklab advertised, was TRIPLE the price of the edition the seller sent us. Booklab will take it back, but the transaction is through Alibris, and Alibris doesn't provide a postage-paid return label. Instead it offers a $3 coupon off one's next purchase. Not only is this a fraction of what we'll have to pay to return this 4-lb book to Booklab in VA. It is also presumptuous in expecting us to do business with Alibris again. Moreover, Alibris notes it takes 2 - 3 weeks for us to see the refund after the item is returned. So: Very quick to take your money, not so quick to issue a refund. And the return shipping is on us. That's just bad customer relations. Alibris was once a good outfit to do business with. But it's been sold and resold a few times since I last used it. I wish I'd checked the latest seller ratings on this outfit before using it again. They're abysmal - and now I know why. Stay away.
LeslieL18
Salem, MA