HACKER Q&A
📣 neotokio

How often do you receive damaged book from Amazon?


I use amazon for buying books for about two years. 99% of those orders go through amazon.de (Germany). Besides one or two of those orders I almost always get a book which is damaged in some way.

- Bent corners - Dirty pages - Bent cover - Folded pages - Some weird sticky substance on covers (???)

I think that amazon does tremendously good job at fining this thin border when it becomes 'a problem' and I issue a return, otherwise I just don't bother because I don't want to waste time packing it again and waiting for delivery service to pick it up.

However, I am starting to be furious. I pay for new book and effectively receive used one, something which never happens with direct buy from any other store. I googled around and found posts from 2012 detailing same issue.

I buy only books from amazon and sad truth is that if I only could - I'll buy elsewhere, but a lot of positions I can find only there + I need delivery to other country and it's impossible to find better rates for shipping than amazon's.

Does anybody experience same level of frustration? We are talking about 100-200 EUR order which is not a pack of m&m's at corner shop. It annoys hell out of me, looking at destroyed pages during reading because I care about my physical books.

  👤 lamida Accepted Answer ✓
I care a lot about my physical book too. I experienced receiving damaged books for several times. If it is not really bad, I just accept it. Returning it just waste my time. But if it is to bad I will request for refund. The worst case was when I purchased The Art of Software Security Assessment. The books is really heavy, but Amazon packing in it very badly and the package torn open, then I think the local post office repackage it using some plastic bag. At the end almost all pages of the books folded badly. I initiated a refund and sending the book back to amazon. The book was around S$70 and the postal cost to return it to US from Singapore was almost S$100 more expensive than the book price. Amazon refunded the book price and also the postal cost. But indeed it is a hassle. As comparison, Bookdepository always pack the books very well and secure. I have never had any experience of getting any edge folded book at all. Unfortunately the price is still not as cheap as at Amazon. It is suck but for now there is no ideal alternative.
👤 Amfy
happened to me a few times recently, too