Best Used Books — Attraction in Longwood

Shady sales ladies. I saw a record player on the floor marked for sale for $50, when I took it up to the register to purchase it she said it hasn't been checked by their "record player guy".

She said she would take my number down & call me after he checked it out. Never got a call. Weeks later when I came back it was behind the counter with a new price tag on it. $175.

I'm sure it was because she realized the value of it and it realized she could sell it for more, not because it needed to be checked for maintenance.

Avoid these crooks.

Every time I went in there to buy vinyl records, she would check a website for average record sale prices of the items I was buying & adjust prices when items were already priced. I gave up going here because of these business practices. Just not worth spending time finding gems only to pay more than what I would pay elsewhere.

Edit in response to the owners "false claims": This was 3 years ago...you absolutely did take it off the floor when I tried to buy it, and the record player was put in the area by your overpriced "collectibles", marked up $125 from what you originally had it priced at. Why would I make this up? I have nothing to gain. I don't even shop at your store anymore. I just want people to know what to expect from your business.

Quit trying to save face by making stuff up & acting like your store isn't bogus. The attitude that their response has in it is the type of terrible service and a lack of honesty and accountability their employees and their owner both have.

Look at their excuses & plausible deniablity to all their negative reviews. It's mostly them pointing the blame back at their customers in a snarky sarcastic manner, assuring them that they must be mistaken or confused, which is the level of customer service & integrity you can expect to be greeted with when you shop here. Rude and baffling to me how they can continue to stay in business despite this. I'm done venting my frustration, I'll just take my business elsewhere, where I won't be overcharged, swindled, and treated like I'm incompetent.

Shop there at your own risk of grief & frustration of their shady business practices and...

If you are looking to trade books, take a look at Brightlight instead. Their policies are much more ethical and fair. Best Used Books says that your books are their property the minute they hit the counter, before they even make you an offer. They will refuse to give the books back if you dislike the offer. How is that legal? It's a transaction. Both parties can agree OR disagree to a transaction. The fact that they tell you this upfront doesn't make it any better in my opinion.

On the other hand, Brightlight WILL let you say no to an offer. I asked an employee at Brightlight and they said yes absolutely, and agreed that Best Used Books' policy is terrible!

Today I heard Best Used Books refusing to give someone's books back when that person didn't like the offer they made. That's so wrong! In a business transaction, the seller decides the price, and the buyer decides yes or no. They're the buyer in this instance, but they've decided that they will decide the price, AND they will decide yes. The seller gets no input. They can't really consent ahead of time, because they don't know what they're getting in return! That's very very bad business!

If you mention this to them, they will say "we're not going to sit here and count up all of your books and figure out your offer and just let you take all of your books back" as though they're affronted at having to do their jobs that they are paid for! I listened to this exact conversation with the poor guy who didn't agree with their offer today. How about you just do your job without complaining about it like the rest of us do at our jobs? That would be a lot more professional and ethical! I bet you'd feel better about yourselves, too!

All in all, will I keep shopping here? Probably. Only because my husband loves the store and I do find some good books there. But I'm going to give Brightlight the majority of my business because...

Let me preface this with my sister and I have been loyal customers for the last few years. We don't come often but this is always the first place we go to when looking for books. We came today to look for a particular book and also trade some books in towards said item. After searching for it with mild help from the employees we gave up and went to reclaim our trade. This is when it all hit the fan.

I believe it was the owners daughter who literally told us when they have the books they are there's now. Um what? So after a mini back and forth confrontation she said several things that irked me. First she was extremely rude off the bat about it, literally saying phrases such as "We wasted our time to process those trades" and "that's too bad" with zero empathy.

Then as an added bonus they use the excuse of "Well we won't be able to find your books". Uhhh...all of your recent trade ins are neatly stacked together, are you serious? My sister then points out the books and they treat her like a untrusty criminal, both people behaving like " We can't prove those were yours. We need the person who did your trades here".

Shortening up the rest of the story we just barely got her books back but the owners daughter kept exclaiming "This is the last time we will do this!" Etc etc. Extremely rude, I can't believe this happened. They recognize us from everytime we go in and then they treat us like this? No thank you. You can go ahead and shred my store credit card because we are never coming...