AbeBooks Reviews 

I ordered a GCSE English textbook, and the listing clearly showed the 4th edition. Instead, I was sent a version that was 9 years out of date. When I reached out to return it, AbeBooks said they’d send the correct one.

The replacement? Still the wrong edition—this time the 2nd edition. Not what I paid for. When I pushed for a refund, they told me to contact the *individual seller* who shipped it. Excuse me? I bought this through **AbeBooks**—they should take responsibility.

To this day, I haven’t gotten a refund, and I’m left empty-handed. For a company that seems legit, this experience was shockingly unprofessional.

Don’t waste your time or money. If you need the right book for your exams, go somewhere you can trust.

I was sent the wrong book. Have been advised I have to organise and pay to return the item to be eligible for a refund and only a partial postage reimbursement. Terrible customer service, putting the onus on me to fix their mistake. Taking AbeBooks off my list of businesses to buy off.
UPDATE: Upgraded rating from one star as I've now been advised I will receive a full refund.

The book never arrived and although I have contacted the seller and Abe books I have had no recent response. They did say it had been delivered and would check for me but nothing has happened. I have also asked for a refund but this hasn't been honoured. I will not use them again.

I ordered a signed 1st edition of Identity Unknown by Patricia Cornwell in December 2025. The book was to be supplied by Mostly Signed Books in LA and shipped to me in London.
Despite extensive e-mails to AbeBooks, my book has still not arrived.
I have ordered many books from AbeBooks over the years, but due to the extremely poor service/support on this occasion, I will not be ordering from them again. The support has been truly appaling.
My book last appears to have been heard of as "being out for delivery" in New Zealand !!!! The book was coming from LA and I live in London !!!! WTF !!!!!
Steer well clear of both AbeBooks and MostlySignedBooks - they simply don't care about their customers.

Sent a filled in old crossword book instead of my order, asked for a refund for a week and was totally ignored, deleted my account and will never use again

I was looking for a book, it was an old out of print edition and could not find it anywhere. I found a seller on abebooks and they said they printed the one I was looking. I ordered it and was given 2 month estimated date of delivery. I thought that was strange but whatever, must take a while to print or something. 2 months passed, no delivery. Contacted seller no response, contact abebook they replied with seller is not responding to them and as the sale was through PayPal they can not refund. So be careful of sellers on Abebooks. I wouldn't use the site at all. They should really have a system in place to stop this happening.

I wish I had checked Trust pilot before buying off Abe Books.
Ordered a book “A Shepherds Heart”. It was VERY pricey. It arrived and is tiny, 89 pgs, fir the crazy price!!
BUT thats not the worst. Its FULL OF ERRORS. Names, places and dates/years that are WRONG.
How is that acceptable ?
Avoid them

Still waiting for book. Customer service have not gotten back to me and tracking number not working

I have ordered a book on 16/01 and still haven’t received it as of today, 23/02.
I have tried to reach the customer services couple of weeks ago but no response yet. Neither did I receive any book nor any refund was provided. Very poor service/ communication.

Arrived on time
Well packaged... Book as described
Very satisfied JG

Book delivered not book ordered. No replies to emails. Terrible company. To be avoided

I ordered a book that had a delivery time of 1-3 working days. It arrived in about 8 working days and only after I contacted Abe about the matter. The tracking reference number given with the item did not work either.
I have had lengthy email correspondence with Abe and been promised a postage refund (within 48 hours) - that was eight days ago.
I remain still waiting but will order nothing from Abe ever again.
Very poor customer service. Very sad.

I bought a 2nd hand book described as "in very good condition"....and ... "This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far". It was an ex library book, lent multiple times. The pages were dirty, as was the cover. There were pencil and ink notes on some pages, sections highlighted, and even a few phrases crossed out. There were some old post it notes stuck inside the book. I returned it, and will not buy from this company again.

Ordered a book last year that was never delivered. Asked for refund and now being asked to return book. No proper line of communication, no proper responses. Amazon apparently tried delivery (while avoiding the camera on the buzzer) and now being told that Yodel have confirmed it was delivered. No complaints process available to buyers either.

Book described as 'Good Condition' arrived actually in pieces and very very badly worn - this wasn't damage in transit. It was also a different edition to the one listed. I returned the book according to their instructions and they have been impossible to get a refund out of. When you chase, they just keep asking the same stalling questions, round and round. The only possible conclusion is that they are actually deliberately dishonest.

Charges postage for each book then sends with combined postage.

Very slow (~3 weeks) to process refund and only once I prompted by entering tracking info on their site.

Excellent. I ordered my book 18th January, it arrived 22nd January. They used Amazon for delivery. It didn’t turn up until nearly 9pm but not the end of the world.

Quality rarebooks at affordable prices,well packaged.

Do NOT use this company!

I made the mistake of trying to order several pre loved books because they offered free delivery and the best prices. At first sight they seemed an ok company so i really wasnt at all concerned when I could not seem to get the site to accept my debit card, and I (stupidly as it turns out) entered the details of a couple of my cards, plus my husband credit card before giving up. I was a bit distracted, not paying a lot of attention really. But i was irritated more than anything as i did want the books, and emailed the company for support saying there was an issue with it not accepting the entered details.
I received no reply and pretty much forgot about it to be honest. I hadn't paid for anything so why worry?

However, a few weeks later my husband was called on his mobile, supposedly from his credit card company (Virgin), with a nicely spoken guy saying that someone was trying to use his card, with a large payment of many hundreds of pounds, awaiting a confirmation code. The guy was very calm and convincing, saying that this was a scam and mentioned the book company... he actually described how the scammed had the card details and what they were trying to do, but of course he said he could put it right as he was from the bank, but it was important to do it right away. He then asked for the code so that he could cancel the payment - he said this code on my husband mobile was there so that he could cancel the payment.... it sounds ridiculous - we are educated, financially astute people, or so we thought, but we were in the car, driving to catch a plane, and my husband was a bit panicked at the idea that hundreds of pounds were about to leave his account, and we were leaning the country in a few hours... but he did hold on thank goodness, calmed down a bit, and came to his senses. He refused to do what this lovely man was telling him to do (oh this guy was so calm and convincing!), and saying he would end the call and call the bank directly himself, which he did. This was despite this guy telling him not to lots of times. My husband checked his phone messages, and refused the payment being requested, then called Virgin to say he thought there was a security breach. Virgin were excellent. His card was stopped, cancelled, and a new one ordered. Phew! Crisis averted!

But this wasn't the end - we had two further problems with both of the debit cards I had given to Abebooks, all several weeks after this first call, and all turned out to be scammers trying to use the cards to get cash in exactly the same way, just a different person, both times pretending to be from my bank. I'd stopped both cards ages before by then so wasn't worried. But one did slip through, via Amazon - a £20 love-to-shop voucher was purchased via my debit card that was on the Amazon system before id cancelled it - I hadn't bought the voucher obviously.

All banks were fabulous it has to be said, and Natwest refunded my £20.
Nationwide were really brilliant with their advice too, actually warning me to be particularly careful of using the one-stop-shop payment on Amazon (too late!) - I have since taken their advice and now there is a 2-stage verification method before any order can be processed.

I nearly always use PayPal but couldn't on the occasion of buying those original books - they didn't offer me the use of PayPal at the time. But since then I really don't hand over my card numbers via websites im unsure of and PayPal is my no 1 preferred option unless i absolutely know the company.

So, in summary, i have NO DOUBT this scamming came from the attempted purchase of these books via this website, and my temporary stupidity in handing over several bank card details to them when I failed to get one accepted.

No harm done, but I learned a lot!

Please take care out there when buying on the Web - it is very easy to let your guard down like i did, with a late night casual and low cost purchase, tv on, and a glass of wine in my hand! Your card details and security cvc may well fall into the wrong hands of you are not vigilant!! It's safe enough if we all watch out!