Wob

I read a lot of middle east history so I often find the books I would like to buy difficult to get hold of. WOB have found me several books I wanted that makes me a happy bunny & keeps me coming back to WOB for I can be reasonably sure to be able to know that Wob can provide what I need.
The problem is that obscure biographies of semi mythical characters are very expensive and truly hard to find but somehow you have never let me down.
I am not very good at photographing books & transferring pictures to letters on the computer & also I have not kept proof of purchase sorry.
I am an 84 year old woman so I have time to pursue my fact finding hobby of history thanks to your vast amount of titles for which I am profoundly grateful
Anne C Heighington..

Book was cateogorised as 'Very Good' - the book I got was in appalling condition (water damage, mould spots, heavily-dogended discoloured pages, some pages ripped or with holes. This copy would not even make into the lowest category 'Well Read'.

I was extremely disappointed with the quality of this copy. Overall I have been very happy with the service provided by 'World of Books', and had decided to shift from 'Book Depository' to WOB, and buy the bulk of books from WOB going forwards. The quality of this title, and more importantly, the difficulty I have found in contacting WOB and having the situation rectified (the feeling I get is that a very high, thick wall has been erected between the buyer and the seller), has sent me, with a heavy heart, back to Book Depository.

I ordered a book, recieved confirmation email, then never received anything else. After about 10 days I sent email to find out when it would be shipped, I was told it had been canceled and refunded. I did check and I did have a refund, but not for the total price a paid. And the website still listed my order as confirmed, not canceled, and I never received any email that it had been canceled. Still haven't received reply to my email about why my refund wasn't for the full amount ir why it was even canceled. Ordered the book from another site that I have only had good interactions with.

I bought a used book for a friend for Christmas. Ordered it through wobcanada on Amazon.ca. It was listed as in "good condition" with a photo of the book confirming this.

What my friend got, however, was a tattered old rag with no dust cover (contrary to the photo in the listing). When I complained to WoB, Wob said it was written in the description that the book had no dust cover. When I went back to look, this was true. Indeed, in the small print it says "no dust cover".

So why advertise it with a photo of the book WITH its dust cover?

Well WoB said this was just a stock photo that Amazon uses. Which, in my humble opinion, comes down to false advertising!

So here's the kicker. I want to return this book because it's in absolute $#*!ty condition. As mentioned above, I bought it through wobCANADA on the CANADIAN Amazon. But if I want to return it (paying shipping myself) I have to return it to... THE UK!

Basically these cheats get away with selling ragged old crap for a LOT MORE than its worth because returning their decrepit junk costs almost as much as you paid to buy it.

So please, stay away from these junk-peddling scam artists! You'll pay 3 times the price for absolute garbage.

If i could give less than 1 star i would. I needed to change my order, emailed and no reply, emailed 9 more times over a week and it arrived, i then called countless times and left multiple voicemails. Still nothing from them. Messaged on facebook and surprise surprise... nothing. At this point I'm wondering if anyone works here. I sent the package back unopened, and the day after i received an email saying:
"Great news! Your order has been processed and is ready to start making its way to you."
Again i emailed more to tell them Wob are too late with the email and its on its way back to them. The best part of their emails to say you've ordered it and that it on its way is this phrase:
"please do not hesitate to contact our dedicated customer service team"

I still haven't got my money back from them, Im still waiting for someone to reply to my emails, and I'm still waiting for someone to tell me that they have my order.

They seem to reply on here so lets see what they say now.

I found this website through booktok, since someone from my country ordered from it (aka Wob ship to me - yay!) and I watched their unboxing (or rather un-bagging) video. I decided to try it out for myself since they seem to have a lot of books that I'm interested in with descent prices.

And so I ordered four books. Three of the four were described as being in "very good" condition, and one as "like new". I've included pictures of all four so you can make your own judgement.

I think I got pretty lucky, since there's nothing wrong with the books I ordered.

Gypsy Lady is the oldest of the bunch (1977 or 1978 I believe) so I did expect a cracked spine (as shown in the picture) and I don't mind. I'm just happy that I FINALLY found that edition/cover, as I've been looking for it for a long time. My only other option was ebay with crazy shipping so WOB was really a godsend.

Both of the Hulk Hogan books are in near perfect condition, the hardback is a teeny tiny bit curved inwards on the very edges but it's not that noticeable.

And the last book is by The Rock. This is the one that was described as "like new". The whole book is sort of diagonal? I can straighten it out, but not fully. But again, I don't mind.

As for the shipping, it cost 2 pounds per book, and my order arrived after 15 working days. I consider this another good thing, since some book selling websites take up to 2 months to deliver to me.

So all in all my experience was very positive.

P.S. If anyone from WOB is reading this, some of my friends have said that you don't ship to Serbia at the present time and they can't order books. I suspect my order was probably one of the last to go through before this happened. Please start shipping to Serbia again, thank you :)

I bought a book, Wob didn't confirm shipment like many trusted online retailers would (it's common sense to contact the buyer when you've shipped their stuff, right?!) I had to contact THEM to get a confirmation. They asked me to wait 21 working days in case I felt the urge to pester them for updates because, wait for it, the shipment wasn't tracked. It's an international shipment, wth wasn't it tracked? I waited two and a half months before contacting them again, they apologised and offered a replacement title. I accepted their offer and yet again they didn't contact me to confirm whether the replacement title was on its way or not. I didn't contact them about it except to ask for a refund. It shouldn't be this difficult to buy a book, and frankly, if it weren't for ebay's money back guarantee, I doubt I would have received my refund as quickly as I did. I know that this is USPS's fault too, but WorldofBooks should have confirmed shipment and provided an option for tracked shipments. It's the minimum for customer service and they couldn't even provide that.

I went online during lockdown to find a Birthday gift for a friend. I searched a book and thought - ok this seems pretty good. I'm from Australia and when I typed in books I selected an Australian Website WorldOfBooks. com.au. My first complaint is that it wasn't made clear that Wob are not based in Australia but in the UK. I waited a long four weeks to have the book shipped to me and arrive at my destination. The book was not protected in the packaging and infact had caused damage to the hard cover spine, the paper dust cover was damaged on top, bottom and side edges and a coffee stain on the front of the book! WTF!

Furthermore I believed I was purchasing a new book, not a secondhand one. They are quite tricky listing the item on the website, small font saying the condition of the book was "very good" Their explanation of "very good" differs significantly to most others "very good" condition. A coffee stain on the fornt of the book very good? I don't think so. The book was an eyesore and only way I could've gave it away as a gift is if I removed the dust cover and explained to the recipient that the spine was damaged during packaging. I still think I'd be embarrassed.

On the customer service side of things. What a joke! Don't waste your time and effort - they don't respond in a timely manner, and they do not address your concerns. They offer no resolution unless you want to ship back the book to them to allegedly obtain a full refund. What would the point of that be. Cost more in postage and time consuming and more cost effective to just pull the pages out of the book and use it to light your fire.

The business is a joke! Stay clear from them!

This company sent me an email stating the book I ordered was damaged in-transit and returned to them. I've worked in shipping and receiving, and shipping companies still send damaged goods to the recipient regardless of how much they're damaged. I was then told the book I ordered was out of stock, so I double checked and Wob never shipped my order in the first place. Additionally, their website shows that they have two copies of the book I ordered in-stock, but they've now raised the price. I brought this to the attention of "Sarah, the Customer Service Advisor", as I await a full refund of my purchase. Will dispute the charges and issue a charge back if my card is not refunded in the 48 hour time frame they claimed.

I had bought books without submitting the number of my house, I do understand I am at fault of this however the books were able to be sent through even without a full address, immediately after recieving the confirmation for the package I emailed WorldOfBooks to tell them I had incorrectly submitted my address and asked for a cancellation. I recieved back that Wob had already been shipped and the shipping details are automatic and cannot tell if the address is incorrect. (Seriously?). I had not even recieved an email telling me my items had been shipped. Thus began emailing back to front arguing with anyone available customer service, no one was of help at ALL and kept telling me they could not track where my package was and IF, by POSSIBILITY if my package was returned back to them I would recieve a refund, keep in mind these books are worth SEVENTY DOLLARS! They even told me to get in touch with Australian Post and again were no help when I was asked to get more shipping information from them and they told me nothing. This had happened in September, it is now January, and still, no package… Sad.

I ordered three books from World of Books, which were described as being in very good condition. Not true. I ordered these specific editions because I collect the Agatha Christie facsimile editions. So the books must be in very good condition to add to my collection.

The first one I received was a dirty ex-library copy from England. World of Books described the book as very good and did not indicate it was an ex-library copy. The pages were brown and stamped and the spine was out of alignment. This is why I never order ex-library copies.

The second book had a price sticker on the front cover that would not come off without destroying the dust jacket. And it had damage on the corner of the book where a chunk of the corner was torn off. Both of these defects were not mentioned in the description.

The third book looked fine, except for a tear on the belly band, which was not indicated in the description.

I will not be purchasing anything from World of Books in the future. The descriptions and photos are not accurate, while the prices are high for books in terrible condition.

BEWARE. Please read their negative REVIEWS- not just mine! Company is a rip-off! Wob took my money, never sent a book I ordered, lied about where it was coming from, and when it didn't arrive by the date (I ordered this for a class), I gave them a chance to make it right. They ignored multiple (polite) emails from me, asking them to look into this, ignored my request for refund, and made me drag it through eBay refunds. There was ample time for them to fix this or say oops and refund- they didn't. What's worse? Their ebay account is FULL of this kind of thing. People who did get the books they ordered got them a full month late, and the books listed as "excellent"-"good" condition were more like "poor", according to thousands of angry customers.
Look, I understand mistakes happen- but step up when they do! World of Books refused to, even when I begged them to look into it bc I needed this for a class. It was a hard to find book they had much cheaper than anyone else- i probably should have known it was too good to be true. They had time to remedy this, but chose instead to rip me off and not refund. Clearly, this is a numbers game for them, in which customers are the product, and theft by inaction is the bottom line.

Advertised a book as being in Very Good condition. Pages were literally falling out of it - not attached to the spine at all and the cover was beaten up and somewhat folded, so even if Wob hadn't noticed the loose paged it shouldn't have been listed as Very Good.

I contacted them about it, and they said they'd give me a refund if I shipped it back, despite me giving them a picture of the pages separated from the book. Why do they need the book back? Presumably to try to scam another customer with it.

Finally, they agreed to refund me 25%, which I accepted to avoid the PITA of returning the book and to avoid them using it to scam yet someone else, which they clearly intended to do else why would they want an unsaleable book back?

Further, they told me "Please remove the return request, so we may refund you correctly" which is the height of scamming. No, I won't abandon the only protections I have prior to getting the refund.

Avoid this company. They lie in their product descriptions, send you worthless junk, and have abyssmal customer service.

I made my initial purchase 9/2/2021. 2 weeks later I still hasn't received my order. I contacted them and Wob confirmed that not only had my order not been sent out, but that they refunded me for one of the books I purchased and didn't bother telling me beforehand that the book wasn't in stock even though I bought it off their website. Then they told me they shipped out the other book I had ordered, but it wasn't going to arrive by the time I needed it for my sister in laws baby shower. It has now been nearly a month and I still haven't received my order. I will NEVER use this site again! They do not fulfill their promises ontime!

I have ordered several times from WoB. My last order was placed mid October 2021 and I've still not received all the books. There was no sign on the website that I would have to pay import costs.
Customs in NL seized my books, I needed an invoice from WoB to release them. Paul from CS wrote that an invoice could only be given when the books were delivered! But if the books weren't delivered, and I needed an invoice for that! Then customs was sending them back to the UK! Further no help from customer services WoB. My order was 64 pounds, already written off my credit card so why couldn't Wob provide an invoice?
Received 8 of the 13 books ordered, I noticed that one book, "Help Mum from Bernadino Evaristo" cost originally 1.99 pound and I paid 2.39 pound.
I will not be ordering from WoB anymore as I received no support at all.
Very disappointing, unsubscribing now!

I stumble upon world of books about 6 months ago looking for a second-hand book provider. I love books and reading and my local second-hand bookshops shut between 4 or 5 in the evening, which is usually when I finish work myself, so in a way it has been a godsend. The books arrive on time (sometimes one order may arrive in different deliveries depending on how many books you ordered in one go), Wob have near enough everything and their stock is updated regularly. You're allowed up to 100 books on your wishlist too.
Most of the books on my bookshelf are from world of books.
They're a reliable and trustworthy website too (which is what I always want to know when I first buy from a new website). Their customer service is great and they have responded to past e-mails quite quickly and resolved any issues I had. They re-sell preloved books, which is great because it's environmentally friendly so it's a win win all round. Books are being re-used and not dumped, which means less trees are being cut down and I save money on books!
The ONLY downsides are they don't have EVERY book ever- but does any bookshop? And some books don't include a blurb or review. But that's not a huge deal.

6 days to process, 21 to receive & no response from customer service. The book was in horrible condition when listed as goodtorn pages, stains & crusting on one page of something I'm fearful of. It was for my 2yr old for Christmas, because she loved it from the books we checkout for variation at the library. I don't want her to touch it & it's two days before Christmas when this finally arrived since ordering on 12-6. No response through emails. I ordered it from Texas & the site said it was located in Florida & would process & ship within 48hrs. I can't find a US number to call for a complaint. I wanted to support what I thought was a better, smaller business. Lesson learned. This book is called "That's Not My Monster". It's only six pages.

Bought a book as a gift for someone coming up to christmas. Product was not of giftable quality.the book cover had weird bubbleing to one corner, and some of the pages didnt sit flat, almost like it had sufferd light water damage. There was also a large wob sticker applied to the back cover, proclaiming it was a bandage covering an unsightly pricing label. While the item ordered was a newer title, i think describing the item sent, as new, was somewhat hopeful at best.re-ordered the gift from a new book supplier, and the recipient was very happy with their gift. Lesson learned.its nice to do the right thing as far as recycling goes, but attention to detail when describing condition would be advantageous to all. I'm keeping the book to read myself.one more topic of conversation when the gift recipient and i meet up again. Sorry to moan, as i am a long term user of wob, and i have always been more than satisfied previously.

Very much like the ethics of WoB. Recycling not only items that are clearly reuseable and therefore environmentally friendly but recycling the work and efforts of those people who produced those items.

One thing I do not like though is WoB overtly promoting minorities such as black or LGBTQUEER+++ authors. I have yet to see 'Asian author week', 'White British author week', Christian author week etc etc. Singling out these authors, these groups because of the colour of their skin and/or their sexuality/pro noun identity does a disservice not just to the readers but to all the otuer authors out there who equally struggle to have their works promoted, read and appreciated. If WoB wants to promote based on race, colour, creed and sexuality then it needs to cover 'all' groups not just those who shout the loudest because if it doesn't it is culpable in stoking the fires of racial and sexual inequality. I find that when I see WoB strongly promoting these minorities in their emails and front page on their web site I simply close them and go elsewhere for whatever it is I am looking for because I will not support prejudice and division.

Horrible...
Search results are inconsistent (title/author search doesn't always work), customer service poor, books listed a lot of the time in better condition than what is received & when brought to the attention of staff (after close to a week of not having an email or emails answered) you are essentially given 2 options: 20% refund (in their words, 'as a gesture of goodwill') or return the item (at your own cost & high cost of postage) to receive a 'full' refund.
I steer clear now based on all of the above. Prices were once good & quality fairly consistent but now it appears staff wash their hands of taking responsibility of items falsely advertised in a certain condition.
Not good & disappointing considering this site WAS quite good overall.
You're not a 'valued' customer as i've found so buyer beware...

I bought a book in "very good condition" from the seller. Instead I got a book of very poor quality and not as described by seller. I felt cheated and taken for a ride. So I contacted the World of Books for a refund. The seller asked for pictures of the book as If I were a liar. Then, he kept mute. When I contacted him again, the rep replied that he was sending a replacement copy. I declined and responded that I could not wait any longer and demanded my money. Seller refused to issue any refund. He ignored my request. Seller is a crook. The matter is not yet resolved.

My response to Rebecca:
Rebecca, you are lying brazenly. I refused to have a replacement because it was going to take too much time and I could not wait any more. I also have no faith in your company. You already took me for a ride and I feel cheated. You demand pictures of the book because you won't believe me as if my words were not enough. You took me for a liar. You did not breathe a word about the refund because you chose conveniently to dump your shoddy stuff on me. In fact, I had promptly emailed you that I did not want a replacement as it was going to take another fortnight for the book to reach me, and I could not wait that long. I live in Houston, Texas, USA.

I am asking for a complete refund. Please have the decency to issue me a refund. Stop behaving like cooks, liars and cheats.

Bought a book that has been out of print for over 15 years. Was rated "Like New". Received after 2 weeks with international shipping which is an ok time for delivery, not amazing but acceptable. No tracking number was provided. Book was shipped in a plastic wrap, resulting in a few dents and bruises on the cover. Rest of the book was in good condition and as described, even smelled like new (that ink smell when you open a book for the first time) when going through the pages. Condition of the cover of the book could have been much better preserved if shipped in a box, not a plastic wrap. However given the price paid I am very happy with the overall book condition. Support was very responsive and friendly when asking about the shipping status through Messenger. Had to pay no import fees as expected.

1. It has been over a month.
2. Wob say they shipped an order - but no tracking number. I never received that order. My account was charged though. I emailed and a pleasant reply came back saying they're working on things. Wait a few days etc and email them back. I did. They said they would refill the order.
3. I now have two items out of 6 so far and no indication of partial shipping or when the rest of the order is to be finished.
4. This is absolutely nonsensical. If you want drama, order from these people. If you want to marvel at stupidity, step right up and place an order.
5. All items were in stock according to the website when the initial order was placed.

This online store and business is a pure awful mess.

I have bought many books from WoB and generally have been happy for books I want to read rather than collect. The descriptions of the books' condition on WoB is rarely accurate. Often books are described as being in ‘very good' condition but this is simply not true, especially when compared to the descriptions on ABE Books, for example, where sellers live and die by their honest descriptions. There are conventions about describing book condition which WoB either ignores or doesn't understand. If WoB added accurate descriptions I'm sure it would reduce any negative feedback.

The books are so old. Payed over £500 for premium standard books. I thought I was buying books by latest 250 top authors. And ex works books as advertised. But no, I got 600kg of mills and boons, free map brochures, books over 40 years old. All the books had ex labels from charity shops where Wob did not sell in charity shop and WOB brought by weight from them. They are not as advertised. These are terrible and now I have to pay for them to be taken to the tip. Don't go there. I would download photos I took of disgraceful old smelly yellow books but they won't download. Anyone wants proof of crap just ask and I shall send photos

I purchased a book from World of Books on Abebooks.com. The book was a used book but was described as in very good condition. Here is the text from my request to return/refund my costs:

Buyer: xxxxx xxxxxxx
Abebooks Order No.: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reason for Return: item not as described
Initiator's Comments: The description for this book reads: "This book has been read but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged." Under book condition it is listed as "Very Good" Meanwhile the book that I received is warped so badly that it will not lie flat on the table and it is also warped vertically as well. This is hardly a book in "excellent condition" and by no stretch of the imagination can it be termed "Very Good" as its overall condition.

As you can see the book I received was warped so badly it would not even stand up.

I followed AbeBooks procedures to send the book back to the seller and in the meanwhile I went through a series of emails with the seller where I was requested to send pictures of the book. I did so and after some time I received a response from a support person.

He agreed that the book was not in the described condition and would I like to pick out another book from their store. (A stalling maneuver if I ever read one.) I replied that no, I did not want another book and that I had already sent the book back to them following AbeBooks policy.

I gave them the tracking number and told them that I expected to see the refund of the cost of the book and my shipping costs which is in line with AbeBooks policy when a books description is not accurate.

The next email I received told me that Wob had received the book in question and that:

"I have now fully refunded you and this may take a few days to appear in your account."

Ten days later I still have not received my refund. I have responded back to them that I expect my refund now. I have also written to them via the AbeBooks interface and I have also written a note to AbeBooks support.

I will update this review once something else happens.

In the last couple of months I have ordered several lots of books from WoB.

The prices were good, postage is free, delivery quick and there are often discounts available for multi-buy. The quality of the books as described are, to me usually conservative with those coming under a 'very good' umbrella often like new.

All in all it is difficult to fault WoB and I shall certainly use them again. My partner Jean and I are both in our seventies and avid readers over a number of genres. WoB gives us the opportunity to purchase our books at a reasonable price without the hassle and expense of trawling the large book shops.

I purchased a used book from worldofbooks via abebooks. The listing said "The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting." (This appears to be the standard text Wob offer, regardless of the book's actual condition, since I have seen it in other critical reviews on this site.) When the book arrived, I found that it had extensive highlighting throughout the book as well as some handwritten notes in the margins. When I requested a refund, they asked me to send photos documenting the problems, which I did. Next, they offered to refund me 40% of the purchase price (for a book I did not want, given its condition.) I decided that I had wasted enough time already, but I was determined to write this review to warn others. The bottom line: this company misrepresents the condition of the books it sells, so don't trust what you read in their listings. If you do order from them and the book is unsatisfactory, you can expect that they will drag things out as long as possible, hoping that you will give up, and then they will offer you some token refund (which incidentally violates the policy stated on abebooks' site assuring buyers that they can return a misrepresented book for a full refund.) My conclusion: avoid this bookseller at all costs.

The book never arrived.

I ordered a book that said it should arrive in 7-14 business days. That time has past and no book. I tried to contact the customer service team only to get a message that said that would contact me within 48 hours. That time has also past, still no book. This is the first time I have Used WOB and it will be the last. No tracking info was provided and customer service has been non existent. I recently went to the site to check my order and now it says I have no orders. Luckily I still have the emails. Made several more attempts to contact WOB and still no answer, still no book, no refund and no attempt at all to make it right.

World of books used to be a good company to deal with but lately Wob have gone down hill. Not so long ago they charged a fair prices for a second hand book but recently they have doubled their prices and now, generally you can buy new from Amazon at less that you can buy second hand from World of Books. As to the descriptions of the condition of the books they sell, they are either false or the books they send out are not the ones in the description!. The last book I purchased from World of Books, which was described as good, looked like it had been kicked around a school playground for a week or two before being packaged and sent out! I will NOT be buying anything more from this company!