I am very suspicious of this company because I believe my credit card number was stolen through transactions with them. Within days of buying an electronic book through A1Books, fraudulent charges were made against my credit card. This is a card that had been used very rarely for several months, so it was not in wide circulation. The card number was changed, I purchased another ebook, and the card was immediately compromised again. The only purchase I had made so far with the new number was through A1Books. I have no absolute proof, but the circumstances are very telling. I saved a lot of money on those two books, but I doubt I will use the service again unless they start accepting paypal.

So, I like everyone else am struggling to figure out why I have yet to recieve my order. As you've all discovered A1books does not have a telephone number to call. I did eventually find this working one:  
 
(973) 426-9995  
 
Now, if you press 9 for customer service a machine tells you to go to the website and then hang up on you. However, I also found the first names of several of their employees (http://www.jigsaw.com/id552229/a1books_com_company.xhtml) :  
 
Shinu  
Bobby  
Abhish  
Rini  
 
So, if you go to their employee directory and enter the first three letters of any of those fellows, you get to at least leave a message. I'm harassing them til I get a response. You all should join in.

I ended up ordering the wrong book for my daughter's Government class and needed the right book in a hurry and at a good price. A1Books.com got it half right.  
 
The price was very good but their customer service is non-existent. They shipped twelve (12) days after I ordered and used some UPS service that shipped the book to within twenty (20) miles of my home and then shipped it hundreds of miles away to be shipped USPS (originally shipped UPS). When I inquire as to why this happened, I keep getting the same form letter asking for my order # and issue. It's like a joke with them. I sent them the information and whoever's having a bad day there keeps sending the same form back.  
 
Obviously we need the book before the semester ends and at this rate, knowing the book has been sent to the other end of the state to be sent USPS, I'll assume A1books.com sent it via slugmail and I'll have to find another copy I can get faster (like online) then sell this one. I would have to rate A1books.com a big fat F. There's no benefit to buying a book a few dollars cheaper if you won't get it within a reasonable time. Buy Elsewhere!

This company sucks. The phone number and fax numbers are disconnected. I bought my book through Amazon and will NEVER BUY THROUGH AMAZON AGAIN. All they had to say is I'd have to contact the seller. Amazon sent me an email Aug 20 saying that my book had shipped. Today (Sept 1) I got an email from A1 saying that my book had just shipped. I contacted Amazon to find out why there was a discrepancy. The lady, who I could barely understand, said I'd have to contact the seller. Obviously the seller is lying to Amazon about when they ship items, but Amazon doesn't care. They represent crap sellers and by doing so crap on their customers.  
 
BUYER BEWARE OF A1 BOOKS AND AMAZON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Order an urgently needed 250.00 dollar item and not until FIVE DAYS LATER dill they tell me it had shipped. As of now TEN DAYS LATER it has not arrived. Email complaining was met with a denial of responsibility.  
This is the worst merchant I've ever dealt with, I will not do so again.

THIS COMPANY SUCKS!!  
I can't believe they are still in business. The website said that it take 3 days for processing and it really took 10 days. I ordered this book on the 21st and I still haven't received it. One of the reasons why I ordered from this compay is because they are located in NJ and so am I. Unfortunately, that was the wrong reason to pick a company. The book left Elizabeth NJ and went to Philadelphia-for what I don't know. There is no phone number to contact them because they don't want to deal with the complaints. This is the absolute worse book company I have ever dealt with throughout all the years I have been going to school. I would rather pay full price for a book than to deal with a1BOOKS...I usually don't write reviews but this company need to go out of business...STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY, IF YOU NEED YOUR BOOK RIGHT AWAY!!!

a1books sucks. I ordered through www.amazon.fr.  
They took 3 days to look at my order before sending it. I guess it was not really in stock. I still do not have the book. Now to be fair, I live in France...so I should allow at least 1 week for the book to arrive. Well my jeans by regular mail from Florida took only 4 business days. It has been 19 calendar days (3 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!) since I ordered my book...and it still has not come. Is this book being shipped from the moon. My mother in law shipped a package from RURAL INDIA and it got here in 1.5 weeks. The final straw is that they do not list a phone number or email address because they know how crappy their service is. Do not use them. You know someone has a crappy service when you have to do an intricate google search just to get a freakin email address or phone number.  
 
Unhappy customer,  
Frans

A1Books sucks!!!! I ordered one book, and now they're spamming me monthly with reminders about their reward points system. There is no way to turn off the emails, no way to change my email address, no way to cancel my account, and no way to contact "customer service" because they don't appear to have any notion of what that term means. No phone number on the web site, just a fax number. No working email addresses either.  
 
Stay away from these bozos. They'll take your money but then poop in your inbox for the rest of your life.  
 
EDIT: after giving them a negative review, they contacted me using an email address of seller@a1books.com, with a Sender line of seller@webnotions.com. So that's one way to reach them even if they don't want to hear from you.

This review was modified by its author, touretzky, on 4/2/09 1:43 AM.

I ordered a book that was listed as "In Stock." In reality it was out of stock. I found out later than A1 Books does not have any inventory. All books are out of stock at all times. I was led to believe that my order was at A1 Book's place of business in New Jersey, when in fact it was nowhere because they had not even ordered it from the distributor. My credit card was charged immediately instead of waiting until my order was shipped. A1 Books is a fraudulent enterprise. I will never order from them again. Next time I  
will use Amazon.  

I would be writing two bad reviews had I not found this website. I was about to make a large order(10+books) through a1books.com when I found this wonderful website. I thought "hey these stories sound like my awful experience buying a book through buy.com marketplace. Hey who was that seller anyway? Oh it was a1books!"  
 
I ordered the book on December 17th. Received an e-mail apologizing for a delayed shipment and an option to cancel my order. I waited patiently until Jan. 4th to e-mail them and complain. They send me an e-mail on Jan 6th stating that the book is out of stock and that their reordering system has been delayed. The book should ship out in the next couple of days. About two weeks later the order finally arrived! It only took a little over a month to receive my book!  
 
Further thoughts:  
From what I can collect it seems that a1books is based out of india. It seems that nearly everyone who buys from them gets the same "out of stock, delayed shipment" problem. Nearly every item on their website is marked as "low stock item." It seems that this is all a cover to excuse themselves for a slow ship time from india. They are either a middle man for an indian supplier or the india location is another middle man for somewhere else that they get the books. It seems like A1 gets your order then orders it from somewhere else. It would be ok if they just told you this up front and told you to expect shipping times of a month or so. Their prices are so low I would order low priority books from them. I tried to e-mail them to ask and make sure they had my stuff in stock. I tried support@a1books.com but that didn't work. For my last order I e-mailed buy@a1books.com and that seemed to go through. I never got a reply when asked about free shipping however I did get an e-mail when I never completed my order and left a full shopping cart on their site. I recieved this e-mail from: csrel@a1books.com and when I replied to it I got through and they sent me a message back that their available stock is on their website.  
 
Maybe if you order straight through their site it might go more smoothly. I wasnt brave enough to try it though. Their customer service system is awful. It is impossible to get in contact with them unless you've made an order. They list no phone number and no direct e-mail address.  
 
If you want to send them a message try:  
buy@a1books.com (worked when I had a problem with my order).  
 
csrel@a1books.com (could be a specific employee or could stand for customer service relations?)  
 
Good luck getting though if you're having problems, and avoid them if you have yet to make an order. I'm glad I didnt order any of my school books through them because I wouldn't have gotten them until the semester was over!  
 
Oh I just looked up WebNotions (comes up next to a1books on this site) and I got this information:  
 
WebNotions Inc.  
Private Company, Headquarters Location  
35 Love Ln., Netcong, NJ 07857-1013, United States  
(973)426-9995, (973)426-9955 fax, http://www.a1books.com  
Primary SIC: Mail Order Houses, Primary NAICS: Mail-Order Houses  
Description: Retail: Online sale of books and DVDs  
 
Maybe those phone numbers work!

This review was modified by its author, Big_M, on 2/2/09 7:06 PM.

THIS COMPANY IS HORRIBLE!! I placed my order on January 3, and I still have not received it. Their website says it taked 1-3 days before the order is shipped, yet they didn't even ship it until the 9th. When I track it through their website (which is the only way I can do it because of the tracking number they gave me), it says that it is still in Jacksonville, and has been there since the 14th. It is impossible to get a hold of anyone in customer service via phone and when you email them, they reply with some generic message that was probably copied and pasted from the FAQ's. DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY!!!

Same story as "senorpickle" - they said the book was in stock, and shipped on 12/23/08. First they quoted 1-2 weeks for delivery, then 4-14 business days (that's 3 weeks), now they're showing 21 business days (that's almost 5 weeks). I don't have it yet, and the class I need it for is only an 8-week class and I'm almost finished with the 2nd week (graduate-level). They won't answer an e-mail or provide shipping details so I can track it, except to say that it went "standard shipping." That can mean anything. I feel like I've been bait-and-switched on the delivery time frame. I will alert American Express and the Better Business Bureau, and tell them that I suspect fraud. Please do not do business with this company!!!

Looks like a scam, smells like a scam... You be the judge. I ordered two books, highly technical and pertaining to a specific manufacturing industry. Something that probably not too many people order. I placed the order on 12/24/08 and their website stated that "few" of these books were IN STOCK. Well, imagine my surprise when a week later or so they told me that there was a sudden spike in the demand for these books (on Christmas Eve of all times!), and now the books are out of stock. (Well, at first they said they'll ship in 3 to 5 days, but that was a blatant lie). When they could not provide a date as to when they expected to have the books in stock I decided to cancel the order. I also notified AmEx to investigate this as possible fraud, which they agreed to do. Soon after I got apologetic emails from A1 stating that they will refund my money (they did), and that I should not re-order the books because they don't have them (it's safe to say they never had them in the first place, but that's not what their website said at time of purchase). Overall this was a very bad experience; who knows if I'd get my money back had I not notified AmEx of the situation. I'd say stay away from A1. It looks like a big bait and switch scam.

A1 Books sells/distributes through Amazon and even though they cannot be easily contacted their phone number is 973-426-9995. I was only able to leave a voicemail regarding an item I ordered. 9 days later I received notice the item was not in stock. I expected it to BE here by now!! They are not available to comment?! I am concerned that if I cancel my order that it will not be refunded, since this company has a bad reputation. Once I reach resolution I will be leaving a review for this seller on Amazon.

Well... as most everyone has had a similar experience, it has been 8 weeks since i placed my order with A1 Books and still I do not have a product or a refund to show for it.  
 
Because they do not have a published phone number on their website, there is no one to speak with regarding my order. Their helpdesk doesn't provide adequate service so I did some research. I found that their domain name is registered to a company called WebNotions, inc.  
 
WebNotions's contact info is as follows:  
WebNotions Inc.  
Private Company, Headquarters Location  
Netcong, NJ 07857-1013 United States  
(973) 426-9995 , (973)426-9955 fax  
http://www.a1books.com  
Company Description: Retail: Online sale of books and DVDs.  
 
So if your having a hard time contacting a live person, just call 973-426-9995 and you can speak with a person from A1Books. It helped me with my refund. Hopefully it will help you too.