A Public Service for Fine Press Forum

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A Public Service for Fine Press Forum

1dlphcoracl
Modifié : Mar 30, 2021, 5:17 pm

In keeping with Truett's unpleasant experience with the Centipede Press, I thought I would once again bring the topic of "bookjackers" to the attention of the LT FPF.

What are bookjackers? They are "booksellers" - and I use the word loosely - that do not own nor are they in possession of the tens of thousands they fraudulently list on Abebooks.com. In the rare instances they do own the book they will charge an outrageous price well above what a legitimate bookseller would list the book for. Most of the time they will simply not bother to fill your order and send a book. If they decide to fill an order, they have to first purchase the book from a legitimate bookseller, have the book sent to them, add a markup charging you much more than you should normally pay, and then send the book in the cheapest manner possible without proper packing and protection. This entire topic is described in detail by Zubal Books - a legitimate bookseller. See links below.

http://www.zubalbooks.com/article-bookjacking.jsp

http://www.zubalbooks.com/article-bookjacking-part2.jsp

I should add that the most ubiquitous bookjackers, i.e., the worst of them, who have listed hundreds of thousands of books on abebooks.com they do not possess or own are:

Irish Booksellers
ergodebooks
Murray Media
Book Deals
BRILANTI BOOKS
Castle Rock
Extremely Reliable
Glass Frog Books
Lost Books (appropriately named, I might add)
Kings Ridge Media
Vault Media
US_Bookseller
Discover Books
ProQuo Books
V Books

Never, repeat - NEVER! , purchase anything from these booksellers on any of the internet search websites. A strong hint that you are dealing with one of these booksellers is that their listings will never contain any information directly relevant to the book they purportedly own nor will their listings ever have photos (note: they may have generic photos or stock photos posted) because they do not possess the physical book. If you are in doubt, ask the bookseller to send a specific photo - they will be unable to supply it because they do not own the physical book - a legitimate bookseller somewhere else owns it.

2BuzzBuzzard
Mar 23, 2019, 1:55 pm

This begs the question why would anyone order a book without seeing any photos or reading relevant condition report?

3Flaubie
Mar 23, 2019, 5:01 pm

Thank you! I have seen listings for these sellers but had no idea this was what they were doing!

4kdweber
Mar 23, 2019, 6:44 pm

>2 BuzzBuzzard: Inexperience. As I started collecting finer used books and discovered Abe I tried buying from a boojacker (not knowing what that was or having heard of the term). In my case, they couldn't find the book at the promised price (why I ordered from them) and finally refunded my money three months later. They did describe the book and condition (stolen from a legitimate seller). Lesson learned.

5Crypto-Willobie
Modifié : Mar 23, 2019, 9:22 pm

I'm pretty sure Better World Books are not bookjackers. They ARE a huge warehouse style bookseller, but their books are their own and real, many of them from library de-accessioning. They do ship in the cheapest way/materials possible, so they're not a source of fine/collectible books (except sometimes by accident), but they do provide a wide variety of interesting stuff (and yeah a fair amount of crap too) usually very cheap.

ETA; see https://content-enus.betterworldbooks.com/content/files/LibraryBooklet.pdf

6dlphcoracl
Mar 23, 2019, 10:52 pm

>5 Crypto-Willobie:

Original post has been amended to reflect this. Their listings on Abebooks.com are virtually identical to the other bookjackers listed above - hence my error.

7wcarter
Modifié : Mar 23, 2019, 11:04 pm

A link to this thread has been placed on the FPF wiki at https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Groups:Fine_Press_Forum#Interesting_Blog...

8Crypto-Willobie
Mar 24, 2019, 7:01 am

>6 dlphcoracl:
One of the reasons Better World might sometimes look like the others is that they are a major source of "stock" for the bookjackers. The BWB stock is often so cheap that the jackers are able to relist it elsewhere with jacked up prices, then buy the book from BWB and reship to fill an order.

Some of those I think are the same people under different names -- for instance ergodebooks, Extremely Reliable, Proquo.

Also, I think Discover Books https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=discover+books and maybe Books Express are not bookjackers but are cheap warehousers along the lines of Better World Books. You'll notice that neither of them are on Zubal's list.

9dlphcoracl
Modifié : Mar 30, 2021, 5:18 pm

>8 Crypto-Willobie:

I disagree with regard to Discover Books. See link:

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/discoverbooks.com

However, the larger point is that this is the Fine Press Forum. As a serious book collector who cares about the quality and condition of his/her books, you will not be well served by the companies I have listed above - if you even receive a book. If a bookseller cannot write a sentence or two in their listing accurately describing the book and its condition then you should not be wasting your time and money with these companies.

10Crypto-Willobie
Modifié : Mar 24, 2019, 11:22 am

>9 dlphcoracl:
Well, that they sometimes give poor service doesn't mean they're a bookjacker. I've bought a number of books from them with only one problem. Some of those complaints are about gummy stickers on books, some about cancelled or late orders -- the latter are things that can happen to any bookseller. I buy from them only when they're the cheapest for what I want -- if they were jackers there would be a cheaper copy somewhere I would have found, since i shop on ABE, Biblio, Alibris, Amazon, Powells, eBay, Bookfinder, ADDALL, and elsewhere. And jackers don't bother to have their customer service people give conciliatory answers on complaint threads. I think they're a sometimes shambolic lowest-common-denominator warehouse outfit, but not a jacker (though i can't prooooove that).

11EclecticIndulgence
Juil 23, 2019, 8:51 pm

To add to the list:

1. "VizKStore" (via Amazon)
2. "mediumisthemessagemedia" (via Ebay)

12Crypto-Willobie
Sep 16, 2019, 9:12 am

Bookjacker on eBay...

Ergodebooks, one of the worst bookjackers on ABE and similar platforms, apparently also has a presence on eBay. There they are known as "Zuber" (not to be confused wirh Zubal, a perfectly legitimate seller). I stumbled on this when an unusual item at an inflated price appeared on ABE (from ergode) and eBay (from Zuber) simultaneously. Then I looked at Zuber's surprisingly large (for an eBay seller) amount of Negative feedback and it read just like what you see for a bad Amazon seller.

Caveat emptor!

13Crypto-Willobie
Modifié : Sep 16, 2019, 9:46 am

>12 Crypto-Willobie:

And speaking of ergode, I just found this online. Apparently their scams are not limited to books...

=============================

Total scam running over 25 different companies out of their house. Below is a list of bogus companies they run. please contact TX Attorney General.

AmiVentures, Inc
25547 Canyon Crossing Drive
Richmond, TX 77406
(281) 738-1101

Alternate Business Names
• Fast Media
• Extremely Reliable
• Carkart.com
• Ergode.com
• Dealtz.com
• Virventures.com
• SportsDealbox.com
• Petocart.com
• Toytooth.com
• Shopshiphappy.com
• Zabiva.com
• Slickmedicalequipment.com
• Lightsdaddy.com
• Selectfurniturestore.com
• Ergodebooks.com
• Ergodebooks
• AMITCJ
• Ergode
• Zabiva
• Ami Ventures
• Ergode2016
• AmiVentures 54

======================
And see here:
http://rupeshsanghavi.blogspot.com/2018/06/rupesh-sanghavi-and-25-ways-to-commit...
and here
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/ergode.com

14ChampagneSVP
Mar 30, 2021, 4:53 pm

If only I had stumbled on this thread earlier! Had an unpleasant experience with Ergode last month and finally just got a refund. Now I know better!

15U_238
Mar 31, 2021, 7:21 am

The Abe's seller Compass Rose Books out of California, USA seems to be quite unscrupulous:
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30882019971

They've listed a book set here as a Limited Edition, limitation not stated. Upon enquiry, I got an almost incomprehensible response:

"Folio editions do not state limitation—so technically this is a misnomer.

However, Folio is not strictly a trade publisher, since the series is designed as a subscription service, with a limited clientele.

How many copied do they print? It’s not that many, perhaps more than fine press, but not nearly as many as typically done by standard trade publishers.

1000? 3000?

How many sets of the Powell Music of Time were done? 500?"

Clearly they know exactly what they're trying to do here, and it stinks.

16astropi
Mar 31, 2021, 10:25 am

That's very useful information! By the way, the article states
https://www.zubalbooks.com/article-bookjacking.jsp

Here's how it works. A legitimate seller is selling a book on Half.com. Perhaps he's offering the ONLY copy on Half.com and coincidentally, there are no copies available on Amazon. The bookjacker, by way of his advanced software, is able to quickly detect the presence of this title on Half.com, it's ABSENCE on Amazon.com, and then upload his own offer for this title at Amazon.com at an inflated price. What then follows is that most of the other bookjackers quickly follow suit and you have a marketplace that looks like this:

At 10 a.m. on Monday morning:
Book A becomes available on Half.com by a legitimate seller for $25
Book A is currently not available on Amazon.com
Shortly thereafter bookjacker software detects the book on Half.com and quickly posts it to Amazon.com. So a few hours later the Marketplace on Amazon looks like:

Bookjacker1, $89.95
Bookjacker2, $89.99
Bookjacker3, $91.11
Bookjacker4, $95.50
etc.


I'm sure this is not only for books, but for numerous numerous things, including video games, music, DVDs, etc.
Amazon is honestly quite a pile o' shite when it comes to regulation - since there isn't any. Caveat emptor.

17jveezer
Mar 31, 2021, 12:04 pm

>15 U_238: I've had two transactions with Compass Rose and both have been just fine. They answered my questions and I was completely satisfied with the transactions. One was for a high value private press book and one was for a medium value scarce trade title.

I don't know if there is intent to deceive there or not. Truthfully, all manufactured things are limited editions, although it is disingenuous to state that when a limitation is not explicitly stated. Maybe a better word they should have used was "scarce". There are several FS titles I've been "looking" for for 20 years that have never shown up on the shelves of some of my favorite used book stores that have shelves and shelves of FS books. I buy from a lot of small trade presses and I would be surprised if their print runs, especially of hardcovers, were more than a couple thousand for some of their titles. They could certainly be more "limited" than the 3750 limitation of some of the FS Letterpress Shakespeare titles.

I'm extremely careful with who I do transactions with on the internet, so I appreciate unscrupulous sellers being called out here. I don't use Amazon or Amazon-owned companies or Amazon marketplace partners unless I am desperate. I'm over eBay and they way auctions work (online). If I buy from someone new online, say Dream Books in San Francisco, and the book comes from Bait & Switch Books in Mokane MO, I don't ever use them again even if I'm OK with the book unless they specifically state their way of doing business on their website.

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Compass Rose in any other way than being a satisfied customer of at least two transactions.)

18BuzzBuzzard
Mar 31, 2021, 2:15 pm

>16 astropi: Amazon Marketplace is regulated. I am not sure if there is any other marketplace in the US today that is doing more than Amazon in terms of safety and compliance.

19astropi
Mar 31, 2021, 3:29 pm

>18 BuzzBuzzard: nope


https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-has-ceded-control-of-its-site-the-result-tho...

A Wall Street Journal investigation found 4,152 items for sale on Amazon.com Inc.’s site that have been declared unsafe by federal agencies, are deceptively labeled or are banned by federal regulators—items that big-box retailers’ policies would bar from their shelves. Among those items, at least 2,000 listings for toys and medications lacked warnings about health risks to children.

20BuzzBuzzard
Mar 31, 2021, 4:31 pm

>19 astropi: Listen, no need to argue further. You are expressing a strong opinion here and as a proof provide a nearly two years old investigation. This is like saying Microsoft is a pile o' shite because people hack into Windows networks all the time. Simply not fair.

21jveezer
Modifié : Mar 31, 2021, 5:49 pm

Ce message a été supprimé par son auteur

22BuzzBuzzard
Mar 31, 2021, 5:49 pm

>21 jveezer: In my previous comment I said that astropi's statement on Amazon is unfair. Nothing about Microsoft being an example of fairness. Peace.

23jroger1
Modifié : Mar 31, 2021, 7:03 pm

“Like everything else about Amazon, its product count is massive — even if you don’t count the enormous contributions of the 185,000+ sellers on the Marketplace. Amazon sells more than 12 million products, not including books, media, wine and services. When Amazon Marketplace sellers are factored in, the total product count balloons to more than 353 million.“ https://retailtouchpoints.com/resources/how-many-products-does-amazon-carry

It looks to me that they are doing remarkably well if only 4,152 (.001%) items are defective.

I’ve been dealing with Amazon for more than 20 years, first with books and now with lots of things. On the rare occasion that I’ve been unhappy with an item, I’ve found their return process to be fast, painless, and friendly.

24jveezer
Mar 31, 2021, 6:42 pm

>22 BuzzBuzzard: Yeah. I forgot myself and sent that without sitting on it like I normally do. Hence the delete.

25astropi
Modifié : Avr 1, 2021, 5:13 am

>20 BuzzBuzzard: An opinion would be my own personal thoughts, and I've just shown you evidence that amazon is to a large extent unregulated or poorly regulated, since you can purchase unsafe, mislabeled, as well as banned items. In contrast, eBay is extremely well regulated. Try to list any item in their banned list, and they'll immediately take down the auction and you might get banned yourself. Furthermore, you state I am not sure if there is any other marketplace in the US today that is doing more than Amazon in terms of safety and compliance which I believe is just wrong based upon the evidence found by investigations.

>23 jroger1: First, the items are not "defective" they are "unsafe" including items that are banned! That is a far cry from merely being "defective". Secondly, the WSJ did not look at all their sellers/items so again, it is incorrect to say that only 0.001% of the items are unsafe. Now, I'm not saying most items on amazon are unsafe, but the point is that amazon's marketplace is poorly regulated.

I just pointed to one investigation in >19 astropi:, but there are numerous such articles about amazon.

https://themarkup.org/banned-bounty/2020/06/18/how-we-investigated-banned-items-...
Lengthy but good article.
Conclusion
Amazon is failing to stop banned items from being sold by third parties on its site—and even selling some banned items itself direct to U.S. customers.


And sure, nothing is perfect. However, amazon's revenue was $386 billion in 2020... they have NO excuse for not having a far better regulated third-person marketplace. I'm sure amazon could make the marketplace much better and even help eliminated bookjacking by implementing such rules as forcing sellers to post actual pictures of their items (again, eBay does this) and while nothing will ever be perfect, it can be much better.

By the way, just to be clear, I don't mean any disrespect towards BuzzBuzzard, jroger1, or anyone. I actually think this is an interesting discussion, and I do think I'm correct, but show me empirical evidence and I'm open to having my mind changed :)

26-Ophidian-
Modifié : Avr 1, 2021, 6:28 pm

What is your bad experience with "mediumisthemessagemedia" aka "flicks-n-biblios" on Ebay? I've looked at their store before and almost everything has a (seemingly genuine) picture. They also have a 100% feedback score with 5380 reviews.

I can second that "Better World Books" are not bookjackers but they are on my "never buy from again" list due to their careless packaging.

27Crypto-Willobie
Modifié : Avr 1, 2021, 6:35 pm

>26 -Ophidian-:
I agree about Better World's careless (or rather inadequate) packaging, and I would never buy a Fine book from them. However, for inexpensive reading copies (especially academic library items) they are often a bonanza.

28Bernarrd
Modifié : Déc 22, 2022, 9:26 pm

>27 Crypto-Willobie: I have had several unhappy transactions with Better World Books, but I have always gotten a refund if I complained. I think a good part of their problem is that they are not true book people, just someone trying to raise money by selling books. I have gotten the wrong book (someone else got the book I ordered), I got defective books, and I bought what I thought was a two volume set, only to find I only got one volume. I later found the second volume on their site and bought it. I guess considering the weight of the two volumes, I got a bargain. But I would prefer not to buy books that way. They are fine for a cheap reading copy, but I do not think I would buy a collectible book from them.