The book in question, Witchcraft and Black Magic by Montague Summers; Michael Lord was one of those things I think I picked up as a teenager and again never read. I looked at whether or not it was available and what the going price were for it:
$3.00 | Used - Very Good |
$6.50 | Used - Good |
$7.18 | Used - Acceptable |
$7.75 | Used - Very Good |
$8.82 | Used - Good |
$11.00 | Used - Very Good |
$12.00 | Used - Like New |
$13.80 | Used - Very Good |
$15.95 | Used - Very Good |
$30.00 | Used - Very Good |
$33.00 | Used - Acceptable |
$43.00 | Used - Very Good |
$43.00 | Used - Very Good |
$46.78 | Used - Very Good |
$88.00 | Used - Like New |
$90.13 | Used - Like New |
$90.13 | Used - Like New |
Wow! That‘s a pretty impressive spread but I just wanted to get the thing out of here. I gave it a cursory scan, the interior pages were in great shape (white), the binding wasn’t bent back (since the thing wasn’t read) and the cover seemed fine. I didn’t have the dust jacket for the thing so I made sure to put that in the description. I put the book up on Amazon and wrote the following description:
Condition: Used - Like New
Comments: GREAT BUY! NEW! CLEAN, UNREAD COPY! Book in near perfect condition. Pages bright white, tight binding. No dust jacket. Some wear may be evident. (the bolding is mine - no dust jacket and honestly, I’m not going through these things with a fine tooth comb either)
Comments: GREAT BUY! NEW! CLEAN, UNREAD COPY! Book in near perfect condition. Pages bright white, tight binding. No dust jacket. Some wear may be evident. (the bolding is mine - no dust jacket and honestly, I’m not going through these things with a fine tooth comb either)
Now, some people have the book up on Amazon in the same condition for $90.13! Wow, you’d think I hit a goldmine here, right? Well what was the price I offered the book up at?
$100!
$50?
$50?
$25?
Try $4.99
Now, on a $4.99 sale on Amazon how much of that do you think goes to me as a seller? Let’s take a look: here is what Amazon charges the customer:
Subtotal: $4.99
Shipping: $3.99
Total: $8.98
Total Charged to Customer: $8.98
Now, out of that $8.98 minus shipping which (Amazon determines in this case $3.99) depending on what it is you can either lose or gain a little - in this case we’re talking about media mail which is approximately $2.40 so there is about $1.60 remaining but out of that there is packing supplies (envelope/taping/labeling) so say for the sake of argument let’s say 60¢ since it rounds things out nicely.
This leaves $1.
Out of the $4.99, Amazon takes it’s own fees:
Listing ID: ###########
SKU: ##-####-####
Quantity: 1
Order date: 03/02/2010
Buyer's Price: $4.99
Shipping Credit: $3.99
Amazon Commission: -$3.09
Roll that over in your head if you will for a moment, on a $4.99 sale Amazon takes a 61% cut! I’ve seen loan sharks who charge less for the vig! Here’s where things get interesting, Amazon also in the same email says the following:
SKU: ##-####-####
Quantity: 1
Order date: 03/02/2010
Buyer's Price: $4.99
Shipping Credit: $3.99
Amazon Commission: -$3.09
Roll that over in your head if you will for a moment, on a $4.99 sale Amazon takes a 61% cut! I’ve seen loan sharks who charge less for the vig! Here’s where things get interesting, Amazon also in the same email says the following:
Your Earnings: $5.89 (NOT)
Remember out of this $5.89 minus $2.40 for postage and another 60¢ for packaging and the end result?
$2.89!
And we’re not taking into account the time to schlepp down to the post office, stand in line, the gas used to get down there. At this rate, I WILL BE A MILLIONAIRE (in about 1000 years or so). Most times you send something out and you never hear anything again – I’ve done about 200 or so sales on Amazon and people don’t leave feedback or anything unless their pissed or nuts or both. Still I make sure at the very least things go out quickly, I put a note in thanking the person for the purchase and I’m not just throwing something away so there’s that.
A few days pass and I get an email on my personal account:
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Mon, March 8, 2010 6:18:25 PM
I am super pissed!!! I have spent thousands of dollars on occult book and have never purchased one WITHOUT the DUST JACKET...your book was falsely advertised...no dust jacket no deal...refund me NOW...if I dont see my 10 bucks back in my account by tomrw I will file an a to z on you so fast your head will twist the hell off...fix this so i can order another (which is a huge pain in the ass) NOW!!!
Christopher Corey,
Unhappy Customer
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Now, this is interesting to me on a couple of fronts.
First off, I put the fact there was no dust jacket in the item description. Second, looking at the order, the guy spent $8.98 and where he’s figuring I’m just going to give him $10 is interesting as well. After I get the email I call Amazon and speak to them about the email. They tell me not to respond in kind (which I can see the logic of) so I send back the following email all in under an hour by the way if you think for the second I’m tardy about customer service.
-------------- Begin message ---------------------
Mon, March 8, 2010 6:52:02 PM
Christopher,
Send the book back, once I receive and confirm there has been no damage to it and it is in the same condition it was mailed out to you in your money will be refunded less shipping, handling and restocking.
Thank you.
-------------- End message ------------------------
You’ll note two things here - 1. I didn’t respond to Chris’ histionics and 2. I offered a refund. This is the response I got back from Chris (on and what was doubly pleasant is instead of it being via Amazon’s communication system it showed up in my personal email account - thanks Amazon!):
------------- Begin message ---------------------Im not repackaging this book, going to the post office, mailing it, waiting for to receive, then awaiting refund upon your Decision, one who has already misrepresented the condition of one of their products, to decide if who feel like issuing a refund, and all for a 5 dollar book...no way! I'll take another route
Tue, March 9, 2010 12:45:53 AM
Christopher Corey,
Customer
-------------- End message ------------------------
-------------- Begin message ---------------------I don’t know what happened in the interim, maybe Chris contacted Amazon. Maybe he finally took the time out to actually read through the item description. Who knows? What I do know is the legs were cut out from the argument about there not being a dust jacket on the book.
Tue, March 9, 2010 9:20:13 AM
Christopher,
I had already spoken to Amazon after I received your first email.
I just want to be clear:
Does this cover everything?
- You will not return the product you received
- You expect to be refunded $10
- Your complaint is there was misrepresentation in regard to the item in question (no dust jacket) even though the description stated the following: Comments: GREAT BUY! NEW! CLEAN, UNREAD COPY! Book in near perfect condition. Pages bright white, tight binding. No dust jacket. Some wear may be evident.
MM
-------------- End message ------------------------
As my friend the bookseller put it in closing out his email to me: By the way, occult book buyers are ALWAYS poor customers.
Something I was also told by a friend of a friend who does a lot of bookselling is this is a rather common occurrence among some buyers on Amazon – it’s a way to try and get something for nothing. And what I found telling now was the change in tact as evidenced by the next email I got from Chris:
-------------- Begin message ---------------------
Wed, March 10, 2010 11:12:22 AM
I apologize, I did not see that the dust cover was listed as missing BUT the rest of the listing is misleading....highly misleading...First of all its NOT a great buy. This an extremely common book, readily available at a very low price from many outlets. Its not an unread copy either, I know when a book is uread and it takes no book dealer to know this...this book has been read a number of times...but you can get away with saying that about a book you are selling because if it comes back, you can always say that the buyer read it and returned it in a NOW fully read condition...and its not in near perfect condition. Thats another lie...a huge lie, enough for me to make a claim on...it has a stained and color aged text block...spotting in a number of places...stains on spine...shelf wear...stain on title page (from age) and stains the pages proceeding this page (from age)...2 clear stains and smudges on both front and read cover...and its not cocked but does not close completely, probably from having something, like clippings, once stored inside the book between rear end page and back cover...and another lie: the book pages are NOT bright white but yellowed from age....clearly these thing were present before I got it so you can not contribute the flaws to my workings...and yes you said some signs of wear are evident BUT you also said near perfect condition which contridictory and also misleading because a near perfect condition should be considered "like-new" but you have gone around that with your own terminology...you would assume that it contains the dust jacket if listed in this condition, again contridictory...damn, now that I look there is a dent in the text block as well...but I will argue no further with you nor even make a claim...I'll just give you a bad review and never order from you again...karma will take its toll on you...
-c-I sent off a book that was 36 years old, that sat on a shelf and which I made a grand sum of $3 on. Karma will get me? Well, I would have to imagine it will be good karma because after the experience of dealing with Chris for such a princely sum, I know I’ve paid highly for being as patient as an individual can be in the face of such irrational behavior (my guess here is that Chris is below the age of 25 or if he’s over it – he hasn’t matured yet).
-------------- End message ------------------------
And even at the end while Chris is trying to justify his bad behavior in picking apart a book he says is easily obtainable (and I’m not even going to dignify his stupidity because I know I gave an accurate description of the book) you’ll note the price for the book was as high as $96.00. In closing he states, “...he’ll give me a bad review and never order from me again.”
Now let me ask you a question:
If you were me, would you ever want to deal with this individual again?
Like I heard someone say once: “Is that a threat or a promise?”
And Chris’ final parting shot - his jewel of a feedback. Kind of funny how he tries to paint himself as rational when he was anything but:
This person misrepresents the condition of their books...at least the one I purchased...I buy a book through amazon almost every single day and never had such a disservice when I complained...I don't think it was an intentional act, I just think they so little experience with book sales to Accurately describe the true condition of a book...watch out, what you order may not be what you get...
