"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 ****@****, with a Sender line of ****@****. So that's one way to reach them even if they don't want to hear from you."
"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 ****@**** but that didn't work. For my last order I e-mailed ****@**** 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: ****@**** 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:
****@**** (worked when I had a problem with my order).
****@**** (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
***-***-****, ***-***-**** 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 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. "
"I purchased from A1Books.com because I need a book (of course). It has the lowest price of all the merchants. I received the book two weeks later. The transaction went smoothly, and I will order from them again if it has the lowest price."
"A1 Books sells/distributes through Amazon and even though they cannot be easily contacted their phone number is ***-***-****. 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."
"Surprisingly good experience, especially with all the negative reviews I read about this dealer.
I ordered a book for school that was close to $30 cheaper than anywhere else I could find it so I thought I might as well take the risk and see if maybe all the reviews I read were just unlucky.
Ordered on the 3rd they said processing would take 5 days, got an email saying it was shipped on the 8th. Shipping took a little long as it was shipped via standard shipping but still landed within the 14 day expected shipping time given by the dealer.
Pros: Very cheap books!
Cons: Slow shipping and no tracking number for orders.
Over all a good experience."
"So I am writing this review because I had a surprisingly good experience with a1books. I was looking for a good digital camera and came to their website through a coupon site. i had never heard of them so i was highly skeptical to spend so much money. i googled them and came to this site - which made me rrrrreeeeealllly think about it...but then i happened to speak to mention it to a friend who had bought a webcam from them before and had a great deal - so i decided to give it a shot - because these reviews were mostly about books and i thought maybe electronics is handled by a different division.
Either i was really lucky or i was really right - the camera - a nikon coolpix p80 - was a good $20 cheaper than any place else - got to me in 3 days of my order in fantastic condition. Needless to say, I am happy!"
"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
***-***-**** , ***-***-**** 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 ***-***-**** and you can speak with a person from A1Books. It helped me with my refund. Hopefully it will help you too.
"
"A book was purchased but A1 Books never paid the seller after a month and half. They are using feedback as excuss to not paying the seller; which nothing to do with him selling his book which I paid for and have received. The seller is very mad and not happy at all they are giving him his money. It is very suspicious and and fraudulent."
"The service is absolutely horrible and incompetent beyond belief. I provided the correct shipping address, but the order never arrived and eventually made back to the seller. I was then partially refunded, meaning that I lost about $10, will never receive the book and wasted time waiting for the book and contacting A1books, just because A1books is so incompetent that they ship orders to themselves. I am a graduate students and will need to buy lots of technical books now and in the future, but I would rather cut my throat than do another business with A1books!"
"Ordered two books on 8/11 from sellers on A1Books. One book was received fine, the other was never shipped. Upon contacting the seller I received no reply, so I went to A1 who sent an email to the seller requesting order info. No reply was received (at least to me) so I recontacted A1 who, again, emailed the seller saying that if they did not hear back within 48 hours I would be refunded. That was on 9/11 and I haven't seen a refund or anything. I've done business with A1 before without problems but will think twice about doing so in the future."