Avoid, avoid, avoid! (Booksdirect.co.uk)

Member Name: crazypixie

Product:	Booksdirect.co.uk
Date:	15/06/09 (158 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap books

Disadvantages: They're con artists

I first joined Books Direct when I spotted an advert online saying I could get 6 books for just a penny each on their introductory offer. Always happy to bag a bargain, I went straight to the site to check it out.

The site is quite plain and I find it rather unprofessional looking, but that's just my opinion. I think there's a bit too much going on on the home page, which can make it quite difficult to find the links you're after and what you're looking for.

Books Direct have several different 'clubs' which you can join, including a children's book club, fantasy and science fiction club, railway club, etc., but whichever one you join, you're really just joining Books Direct as a whole. Within each club there are a selection of books to choose from. To take advantage of the introductory offer you just add your books to your shopping cart, enter your details, select the club you want to join, and that's it, you're a Books Direct member.

You have to pay a delivery charge of £2.99, but even so, the introductory offer is very good. You don't have to pay up front for the books, they send you out an invoice with the books, which you can then choose to pay by post or online, or you can choose to send the books back. You have 14 days in which you can cancel your membership, but if you decide to keep the books then you enter into an agreement to buy 4 books at full-price from the site within the first year of membership.

They have an Editor's choice selection, where they pick 2 books each month to send you. You can go online and reject the Editor's choice, or send back the form that they will send you with the option to reject it, but if you do not reject the choice then they will just automatically send you the books, which are generally overpriced rubbish in my opinion, and I've yet to see an Editor's Choice that I would actually want to read.

My first order arrived a full 2 weeks after I joined the site, which I think is far too slow, and I have no idea why they need to take so long to process orders. Every subsequent order I've placed has also taken a long time to arrive, some even going past 3 weeks after ordering. It's not a great service.

When looking through the site for books to buy, I find it rather lacking in choice. There is rarely a book on there that I would be happy paying full price for, and I find myself generally just looking through all the books they have for 99p and selecting some of those just for the sake of purchasing something. Of course this doesn't help with the obligation to buy 4 books at full price. I've so far only managed to buy 2 'full-price' books, looking generally for things that may interest me and cost under about £6, as I don't want to pay any more than that for something that really doesn't interest me.

My major problems started a few months after I'd joined Books Direct, when I received a final demand letter for the sum of £12.99, for a wildlife DVD which I'd never heard of, that they said was part of a set that I'd signed up to receive monthly at a cost of £12.99 a month. After explaining to them about 5 times that I had never signed up to this, never received it, and had in fact never even heard of it, they finally agreed to cancel the charges on my account. All sorted.

The next problem came last at the end of last month (May), when I received April's Editor's choice, which I had rejected, just as I had all of the others. I know I had definitely rejected it as I check my account online at least once a week to make sure everything's in order, and ALL my Editor's Choices had been showing as rejected. However, when I went online to check again after I received them, the status of April's had been removed and was simply blank. I emailed them explaining this and asking them to rectify the situation, as they charge £3 for any returns and I begrudge paying this for something which should have never been sent to me in the first place. The email I received back basically just said that as I had failed to reject the Editor's choice in time the items had been sent to me, and I now owe them nearly £24.

After a few more emails back and forth, in which I stated that I am not paying to return something that they should not have sent me, and I want my account closing, they started simply stating over and over again that I 'must fulfil my membership agreement and then my account will be closed'. Well, if they fulfilled their duty of care towards their customers, ie- not trying to con them out of money by sending them (or claiming to have sent them, in the case of the wildlife DVD) items they have never ordered or had rejected, then I might feel obliged to fulfil my membership agreement. Until then I've left it in the hands of Trading Standards.

I absolutely hate when supposedly reputable companies try to con people out of their hard-earned cash, and I will not give in to con-men such as these. They're a disgrace and they should be closed down. I'd advise everyone to steer well clear.

Summary: Steer clear