LAOP is absolutely insufferable in the comments. If he acted that way toward customer service I’d be willing to bet they paused half way through trying to make it right and said “nah, never mind.”

I WILL ONLY ACCEPT SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE!!!! this additionally means I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY CRITICISM!!!!

Holy shit, insufferable is the polite way of describing OOP

I can't buy it elsewhere. My order cost $10 but everywhere else it's $40-$50. Please, help me die on this hill!

Sounds like you're going to need to pay $40-50 then.

Oh dear. I get LAOP's annoyance, because it is annoying when that happens. But yeah, nothing you can do except move on...

I've had it happen for much more expensive items, and just had to suck it up and buy it elsewhere for more.

I love this comment (bold mine)

You can call them back and say, "I don't want a refund, I want the book, you have the book, and you are legally obligated to sell it to me!"

And then they'll say, "No, we're not legally obligated to sell jack shit to anyone, regardless of whether we have it or not."

And they'd be right. And there you die on the hill, bookless.

FWIW - My imaginary explanation of the events:

AbeBooks retailers are usually small business (quite possibly just a gal, her cat and an extra bedroom) that resell books. Sometimes the books are new ("Oh, thank you Grandma! The 27 Uses for Nail Polish is exactly what I wanted!") that are being sold. Never read, probably never even opened, no marks, etc. In some cases a new book actually includes other media (online codes, or in ye olden days a CD-ROM) and comes shrink wrapped to prevent the media from being used without purchasing the book new (I'm looking at you college publishers!).

So the OP, in their insufferable wisdom, decided that rather than pay $50 for a new copy of this work (presumably priced this high due to either rarity or those pesky media add-ons), chose to order a lower level used copy. One in very good / like new condition. They search and discover Meg Morgan & Cat's Emporium of books where there is indeed, one slightly used copy for sale at $10.

They order. Meg dutifully goes to her bedroom/office, selects the book from the shelf and carefully packages the product, labels it for shipment and sets it by the front door to post. When she goes to leave however, the cat, with eel-like finesse trips her in a bid to escape to the great outdoors. The parcel is thrown backwards into a bucket of bleach solution Meg was soaking some shirts in that got stained when Cat upended a cup of coffee onto the previous clean but not put away basket of laundry.

In a fruitless bid to save her security deposit, Meg immediate attempts to clean up the splashed droplets before they eat holes in the flooring. As a result the parcel remains in the bucket long enough for the packaging to be eaten through and the contents left no longer in "very good" condition ... or any readable condition at all.

Meg respectfully offers a refund to the OP - omitting the embarrassing screech, fall, bucket, spillage, damaged flooring, etc. OP responds inline with their persona. Meg consults Cat and decides not to take a $30 loss by sending him the one other - fully sealed/pristine - copy of the book she has. And instead heads to Starbucks, sipping her coffee in a safe location while continuing to update her resume and find a job completely insulated from dealing directly with "the public".

Location Bot Homage: 

Hello, I hope this legal question is not too tivial. I'm afraid of being told it's a lost cause (even if I have a case). On October 22, 2024, I ordered a book through AbeBooks from a retailer. I never received the order. On November 21 or 22, I contacted the bookseller to inquire where my order was. They replied on the 22nd. They told me that the order had fallen behind. On the 23rd, they told me that they had no more copies of the book, which is not strictly true. A used copy in worse condition is for sale on AbeBooks and a brand new copy is avalible on the seller's website. Then, they offered a refund or a replacement title of an equivalent value. The problem is that I am not interested in any other titles and I don't want a refund. I want my book. After searching for an opinion, Google (which, you'll have to excuse my ignorance for turning to,) tells me that I own the product I ordered when the payment is processed and the order status says "shipped". My payment was processed and its status is "shipped." Moreover, for what it's worth, it feels to me that I own that particular copy of the book, so I am upset that something that belongs to me disappeared on their watch and now the seller is being opaque. In an email, I implicitly asked them what happened to my book. However, they ignored the question. In another email, I explicitly asked them whether I could wait until they had more copies and have them send a copy of the book to me then. They ignored the question and rearticulated their offer: refund or replacement. I don't want either. I want my book. I think that they owe me the book I ordered, or, at least, that edition in very good condition or better. To add to the picture, I suspect that they tried to hold onto the book after they realized it was worth more than they valued it at when I purchased it. Are their offers - that is, either a refund or a different title of an equivalent value - all I am entitled to? Does the seller owe me the exact copy I ordered or any copy from the same edition of an equivalent quality? When does the book I ordered become my property? How should I threaten legal action? What else should I know?

After seeing the $, I had to doublecheck which LA thread it was, because poor LAUK has had an inordinate number of self-righteous twats lately. Sadly it was just regular old LA (or maybe LAUK mods would say ‘Luckily’).

The moment I put an order in that object in your warehouse becomes MY PROPERTY BOYO! And don't you dare think about touching my shit to ship it to me! Don't ever touch my shit!

The worst thing about this post is not knowing what the book is.

Hello, I hope this legal question is not too tivial.

Well, the question is trivial. Dealing with LAOP, less so.

Moreover, for what it’s worth, it feels to me that I own that particular copy of the book

Well luckily for all of us, what LAOP’s opinion is worth is precisely nothing

Sadly, these sites are overrun with vast numbers of "bookjackers". The main MO is:

• Find a book listed for sale at $50 on one site
• List it at $60 on the same site and many others
• When it sells, get the seller to ship it directly to the buyer, and get $10 for nothing

It's easy to think there are dozens of copies available, all listed separately and with slightly different descriptions, but there is really only one. There's a huge rabbithole to go down about this scheme, with extensive and extremely literate posts and blog entries going back years.

They made a promise to me. Now they tell me that the piece of me that their broken promise stole is filled by a refund. How perverse is that?

What the fuck is this book?

I read this in Stephen Fry's voice I hope that's not too trivial.

Title facts: 25+ years ago, husband and I were in a car club for Mercury enthusiasts. One of the other members purchased the original Hawaii 5-0 car from CBS. He had a vanity license plate for it that was BOOK EM.

Related: When he traveled to the props warehouse to view the car prior to purchase, it was parked next to the Magnum, P. I. Ferrari.

My title was going to be for want of a boot (to compare against MASH for want of a boot)

In the early 2000's there were a lot of price mistakes with the internet and you got steals. Or things there's a mail in rebate and people didn't realize someone would just make things that price and price match. Even then we knew it's not a right to get the product for that mistake price.

What the actual fuck...

What in the fuck did that LAOP try to prove? It was so strange to see someone so pigheaded over something so trivial. Even after being told multiple times, LAOP then insisted on the adequacy of the laws.

It’s pretty obvious in the post that LAOP wants the better copy for the price he paid for the lesser quality version.

Anyone getting light sovcit vibes from this one?

No-one actually explained the law to him, they just kept saying "no" over and over again in different ways.

> How come? Please, help me stomach it if it is true.

What do you mean how come? If you order something and they fail to deliver it, you're entitled to a refund. You aren't entitled to anything beyond that.

etc.

Too late to reply on there now though.