Amazon Seller Ratings

[Yugl]

How trustworthy are they? How should look into these ratings in order to determine which are puppet ratings and which are genuine? I've recently found myself unable to purchase textbooks I need, so I've looked into amazon's selections (And I'll soon be researching electronic versions soon). I cannot torrent due to University policy. While looking at amazon I've found sales for $0.01 and even $0.25. My first impression is that this is a rip off and they may be deleting negative comments. However, I see that over one million ratings total to a 94%+ rating for multiple sellers. Radec suggests that universities may be clearing older editions. If that is the case, then I'm fine purchasing textbooks. Given the price, you might ask "Why not buy and see?". The problem with that is that I need to return textbooks by tomorrow if I plan on ordering them online. Thus, if they do not ship the textbook relatively soon, I will have bigger issues to consider.

[Brill Weave]

No way of knowing dood. Though if someone has faked over one million ratings that's damn impressive.

[Overburn]

I'd say if it's a company with a large number of reviews, you should be fine. I've bought dozens of $~1 books without a single major problem even when the book is originally $40 or more. I think it's just a clearing stock thing, because pennying is what I've seen stores like GameStop do when they need to get rid of old strategy guides.

[Kazen]

I got my econ book for a penny from amazon from a seller like that. Had no issues with the book, it was an old university book as it still had the bar-code scan stickers on it.

[Tyche]

You mean you can't access BitTorrent or the university has a policy against pirated textbooks? If the latter, how the hell do they know.

[Yugl]

I don't know the details of how they do it, but I do recall my previous university helping record companies charge two students for illegally downloading material. One instance was the summer before I took classes there and another was during my stay there.

[Tyche]

Well, as long as you don't downloads the book using their service/wifi, I think you'd be fine to use tormented textbooks. There's a thread over in tech that you may find useful. Regarding the amazon resellers, I don't know. I've bought and resold books there and never had an issue.

[The Stig]

I genrally have good experience with high feedback sellers on Amazon.

What I do wish though is if all the extreme end feedback (10000+) sellers on eBay/Amazon would have a bit more of some professional/civilised common sense and/or better spelling. Most negative feedbacks I come across are always in caps and written terribly.

Also. off topic but thanks for linking me to that blog, because I just found the PERFECT social media icons for my blog hahaha!

(I was modifying my templates and all icons I came across were too small or too big)

[Yugl]

Well, as long as you don't downloads the book using their service/wifi, I think you'd be fine to use tormented textbooks. There's a thread over in tech that you may find useful. Regarding the amazon resellers, I don't know. I've bought and resold books there and never had an issue.

Thanks, I'll go check that out now.

[Vandole]

another thing you could do is do what i did. get a megaupload account. and if there's a torrent have a friend DL then upload it to MU for you. Bam, no more torrenting.

[Yugl]

I considered that, but I don't know anyone willing to torrent them and reupload unless they already own the books in question (Which I highly doubt since this one course has the weirdest selection).

[Vandole]

you dont have friends that will help you?

[Yugl]

None in the position to torrent themselves.

[hey]

Give me a link to the torrent, and i'll do it for you.

[Yugl]

Soon after posting, someone on AIM told me they could get the links, but thanks! The one issue they reported is that none of the books have appeared on demonoid (SP?). At the moment, I plan on working through some papers I need to do anyways and then I'll continue to search and see if I find links.

[Draygon]

Not sure if it helps you any, but I bought a textbook for a class this semester off of Chegg.com for $3. I paid a little bit extra for expedited shipping (Got here in two days), but overall it was only about $10. Textbook is in pretty good shape as well. You might have to return the books though, I'm not entirely sure. There was a sheet of paper inside the book that had instructions on how to send it back after the semester.

[Yugl]

That site appears more expensive for the 6 books I searched, unfortunately.

[isladar]

The penny-plus-shipping sellers are people who get their books via donation. It's not a scam, they just get their money through volume on a tiny bit of profit from shipping.

[Cream Soda]

You mean you can't access BitTorrent or the university has a policy against pirated textbooks? If the latter, how the hell do they know.

I can never find working copies of the books i need via torrent :/

[Tyche]

I've found a few science books. Medical microbiology, Chemistry, also a surgical book (but it was one edition older and in .doc, so it was virtually unusable). Seems kind of hit and miss, mostly miss for my medical books. Apple is supposed to have a conference this week. Rumor is they're unveiling partnerships for ebooks to be sold through iBooks store. I hope that opens the door for piracy lol. College textbooks are a huge damn ripoff.