Will someone please tell me if this is acceptable behavior? A poster on a message board is planning to exchange a book she didn't like after reading it. Do people actually do this? I thought she was kidding.
If you don't like a book do you save the receipt and return or exchange it for a different one. I can't believe how offensive I find this. With this logic the next book I buy will be the last, I'll just keep exchanging them until hell freezes.
6 comments:
I had a "situation" happen recently. I have never returned a book no matter how much I disliked it. Wouldn't even consider it. Until, by mistake, I picked up a book I had in my mind to avoid based on a number of bad reviews. It sounded dreadful. I was at Walmart and looking for new books and completely forgot about this book I "meant to avoid". When I got home and realized it was the book I "meant to avoid". I thought shit!. The next day I took it back. I went to the return counter and this bleach blond with roots, gum smacking, looked like she'd never read a book cashier asked me what I wanted. OK, I lied. I flat out and out lied. I said I already had a copy of this book and someone bought me this one and I would like to EXCHANGE it, not return it. She asked if I had the receipt. I just assumed it was in the bag. I never even considered that it wouldn't be there. Well, it wasn't. And the bleach blond with roots, gum smacking, looked like she'd never read a book cashier said in a real nasty (loud) tone of voice that they wouldn't take it without a receipt.
Walmart will take "anything" without a receipt. Humiliated at her tone, feeling bad about trying to return a book, and feeling terribly guilty about lying, I slunk out of the store. Now I'm stuck with a book I have no intention of even trying to read. It will forever bring back bad memories. So, to make a long story short, I will never again try and return a book.
Kristie, I have absolutely no problem with someone returning a book they bought by mistake--it happens.
A few years ago one of my BILs gave me a book for Christmas that I would never read. I had no problem bringing it back to Waldenbooks and getting something else.
What I found offensive was she read it and because she didn't like it that made it okay to return/exchange.
I don't know about acceptable, but people do it all the time. I can't tell you how many times the person ahead of, beside or behind me has come up up with some obviously lame a$$ excuse to return a book. Never have I heard someone say- "I read it & it's horrible & I don't want it."
I used to work for B Daltons when I was in college and you should have seen some of the stuff people used to pull. We had this one customer that literally returned about 25 to 30 paperbacks in one haul to get store credit. She did it so often that the managers put their foot down and told her she couldn't return anymore books. It doesn't surprise me the stunts people pull anymore. I have never returned/exchanged a book after I read because I didn't like it. I would usually try to sell it to the ubs and get something else I'd like with the credit.
Amy
Kristie - take that book back to Walmart and talk to a manager. There is no reason in hell they can't give you a credit. You haven't read the book, it is returnable. Stupid bitch had no right to make you feel bad. It would be one thing if it was read but a nice, tight new unread book will go right back on the shelf.
Unemployed Chick - one of my bestest friends works as an admin for B&N and sometimes helps on the floor. Some of the stories of books returned and the 'state' they are in so turns my stomach.
Tara Marie - I responded to your post at RT but figured I would post it here as well, cuz I can ;)
I have returned two books one that was a gift I didn't want and one I brought home to find I already had.
I think sarah or candy (I forget which one) from the smart bitches site has the right idea with the 15-page rule. If you aren't sure about the book, read the first 15 pages before you buy it.
I can even go with buying a book, starting it, and finding you don't like it then returning it because you aren't going to read it. But do you eat a meal, clean the plate and then ask for a refund because it was bad?
There are books I have read that I didn't like. And honestly after I finished Cheryl's Holt's latest I really thought about returning it because I hated it so much I disliked the thought of anyone making money off of it. But at the end of the day, I bought it. I read it - cover to cover. So returning it and punishing some other reader, who wants it and just might love it, with buying a 'used' book at full price seemed rude, tacky and unfair of me.
I don't care how carefully you read your books; a paperback book that has been read shows it. And the author spent time on that book and earned her pay for that book, even if I don't like it.
I had a choice to wait for it used or to use the library, I chose to buy it new. No one made me do it. So even though I have a budget and it hurts to spend good money on books I end up hating, I need to be a big girl and take responsibility for my actions.
So the book went to the ubs to find a home with someone else, who hopefully loved it or not and returned it to the ubs for the book to try again.
of course that is just my opinion and I could be wrong.
That's not funny because when I worked in a bookstore a few years back, we had a woman who we called the "Library lady." She came in & bought several Harlequin romances & then over the course of the month, she would bring them back to exchange them for another one. Her reasons were varied & she would also make sure she got a different clerk each time, so it took us a few months to catch on to what she was doing. Sometimes she would have a receipt, sometimes not. She would say things like, my sister (friend, mother, etc) gave me this book & I have already read it, can I exchange it for one I have not. Or, I bought this book, got home & realized I had already read it. Because the books ALWAYS looked unread, we always took them back. Because the store poilcy was pretty lax & the manager was afraid to make waves, she got away with it for quite awhile. But one day after she had been doing it for awhile & our area manager was in the store on a day when she was in making one of her "transactions", I told the AM about her. She went & talked to her. I don't know what she said to her but the practice stopped then & there.
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