• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

University Bookstores: total scam... or is it Virginia Tech's only?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
My campus bookstores are contracted to Barnes and Nobles. Nuff said!
All vending machines are contracted to Coca Cola Co.
 
As posted in the hot deals forums every fall and spring semester:

www.addall.com - search for the best price on each of your college textbooks....

believe it or not, I had a physics text that was $40 cheaper to buy from England including airmail express shipped.
 
being an English major rocked 🙂 almost all of my major classes only used paperback novels (ranging in price from $2 - $20). the gen-ed classed screwed me, though. fricken' $200 for two Chem 101 books.
 
yup they all do that... i do believe my school (UCI) was rated as one of the most overcharging campus bookstores anywhere in a study by CALPIRG... luckily i don't buy books anymore 🙂
 
I don't know, some universitys bookstore aren't acutally owned by the university, they are privately owned, but gets exclusive backing from the univeristy because they have some sort of behind the scene deal.
Good way to piss off the bookstore is to buy a bunch of new textbooks from some Indian online bookstore for cheap, then sell it right in front of the bookstore.
 
Originally posted by: Xiety
Today I went to the bookstore to buy a Finance book... well, it was $100 USED :| I was pissed but since professors go over the material pretty quick during summer sessions, i decided to eat it and buy it from the bookstore (I normally buy from half.com or amazon.com). Anyways, while I was waiting in line, I saw this kid come into the store with the same book. Obviously he took this course last semester and was getting ready to sell the book back. So I got out of the line, went over to the Buy-back desk and began listening to him and the clerk. Guess what? "We will give you $26 for it." :Q They are selling the same book for $100 but giving him only $26 back? Wow... so I jumped right in and told him I will give him $30 for it. Of course being the college kid that hates the bookstore, he accepted my offer and we both left the bookstore quiet happy 🙂

So the question is, are university bookstores simply trying to be as profitable as possible (i think they should be a non-profit intermediary between students and the publishers) or do they just love ripping off? I can understand the bookstore putting an extra $15 or so to the price of the book but $74 is just ridiculous. There is no way that book costs them 1/4 of $74 to inspect, stock, etc. What do you think?
Click to expand...

Xiety, here's what I always did. I bought my books at the bookstore at the beginning of the semester, only the ones that weren't shrink wrapped. I'd then go home and look up each book on www.addall.com, order the cheapest, and use the bookstore books while I waited. Sometimes I'd have to wait a couple of weeks for them because often the cheapest places were out of stock or amazon.uk or something. But no worries, because you can return books up until the drop date, which is like a month and a half after the semester starts. You can save at least a couple of hundred bucks this way.
 
yep. i fell into the scam freshman year. never again did i buy a book from the bookstores. either internet...or posted fliers around campus....always worked out. 😀
 
Shoot you think that's bad. One of my engineering Profs wrote the book that we used for the class. And he used to laugh and tell us that he had the book published without binding (It was a huge stack of pages that were shrink wrapped and hole punched) so students would have to buy a new copy every year and couldn't buy used copies.
 
happens all the time here. that's why students like putting up ads on boards around campus better than sell it back to the university bookstore.
 
Same scam at university of texas. sad thing is, the uni book store claims to be "non-profit". they still charge ridiculuous prices for "new" used books. at the end of the semester they will buy them back from you. they claim they will by them back for 1/2 of the new value, but they only do this for a small percentage of books. after a certain quota is met they drop the buy back price to 1/4 or less! Almost every book I have taken back they have said, oh we arent buying that back anymore, but if you want we will still take it. WTF like hell you will. The worst part is they rip you off on the front end, then rip you off AGAIN on the backend. You could save so much money by buying and selling from half.com or some other place. sorry thing is lots of people dont bother because its more convinient to buy on campus (and they think selling them back to the store is a good deal).

bastards
 
Xiety: as a fellow student at Virginia Tech (and a former student at UNC-Charlotte and NCSU), I can tell you that this is pretty much the norm. Its an enormous racket, from the student's perspective.

What varies tremendously is how the university in question chooses to use the money. A good question to ask is if the bookstore is actually affiliated with the university (a lot of schools in the northeast actually have Barnes and Noble as their bookstore--the university only gets a "cut" of profits). I've seen a few schools that use bookstore profits for scholarship funds. So while you're getting screwed, at least SOMEONE is benefiting (which doesn't make it right, but it does make it better).

The best way, as someone suggested, is to do a direct trade (much like you did). Knowing someone a year older than you in your major is very beneficial. Also, if someone starts up a "book" forum, it can be very profitable. What many people do is find the price the bookstore buys it back for and the price a "used" copy costs and splits the difference. Not quite the "deal" you got, but then again, everyone is happy.

Of course, all of this is only really relevant to out-of-major books.... you'll seriously regret selling your in-major books, especially if you go to grad school.
 
digital camera + printer or a photocopier is a student's best friend at saving money

I have to live up with this scam too in Canada here until I decided enough is enough. Some lame FVCK publisher change the book AFTER ONE SEMESTER rendering a $110 book useless.

Fine, from now on, i simply borrow the CD that is in the text book, crack the godamn PDF file which has the entire textbook on it and print them out. If the CD is not there, i'll buy the used book, photocopy/scan/take pictures of every page and return the book
 
call me a scumbag if you will but....I got the ultimate scam on the bookstore at my school as pay back for all the years they f-ed me.

Had a guy on the inside so at the beginning of the semester I got all my books for the price of 1...

At the end of the semester someone i knew worked the used book buy back....he would buy my books back, grab other peoples books and buy them back again....give me all my books back and my reciept to collect hte cash....I'd come back the next day with more books than I ever had originally and sell them again and return the next day and sell them again and return that afternoon and sell them again...etc etc etc..we split the profit 60/40, he paid for summer school and I paid for my drinking habit.

booya!
 
The way publishers keep professors using new editions is simply an old payola scheme...they provide conferences to promote their new books and buy lunch, or for bigger professors/heads of departments, fly them somewhere for a conference or pay them to review their books.
 
Yah, never buy a used book from the book store. Set aside a few hours during the prime buy back times and just watch for people bringing in the books you're wanting to buy and get it from them instead.
 
it is NOT a scam, it is calling 'running a business'

haven't you learn anything from your Finance class? 🙂


btw: my bookstore is the same too, so guess what I do? I sell my used book INSIDE the bookstore.
 
Definitely a money-making scam. However, it isn't just the bookstores... It is the suppliers and the publishers, too. The bookstore connects to their suppliers to determine the buy-back price. It sounds like they had reached their first teir quota with that book, and were paying second teir prices for it. The price for buyback and for the sale of used books are completely unrelated (though they should be).

Buying books off the net can save you all kinds of money. I used addall.com to find the best prices on books. The key was finding used copies of everything, even if the bookstore only had new copies. That is where you saved your money. I also bought and sold books from/to friends, which helped.

Ryan
 
Originally posted by: andylawcc
it is NOT a scam, it is calling 'running a business'

haven't you learn anything from your Finance class? 🙂


btw: my bookstore is the same too, so guess what I do? I sell my used book INSIDE the bookstore.
Click to expand...


My old bookstore @ drexel was expensive as hell, and they "loved changin geditions" so it was around $800 for books🙁 for 2 terms

At the communit college I go to now, it isn't that bad and they give you like 50% back on most hardbacks.


SInce i am taking summer courses, I jsut borrowed someone's book for calc III which is over, and am using the library's copy for lin. algebra :evil:

too bad they will not let me boroow the book ouside, so i have to study and do homework in the lib...at the campus that is 1 hr away..and my car is uaually broken🙁
 
quick question, does a school like VT have non-tech majors? If so, what does the techinical designation stand for?
 
My daughter bought a book at PSU last year for $125.00 and realized she got the wrong edition. She went to return it after the weekend, and there was no one there to take it back, and they told her to bring it back on Wednesday when the manager was there. She went in on Wednesday and was told my the mananger that she missed the deadline for the full refund. They offered to buy it back for $40.00

But this is the same school that REQUIRES all first year students to live on campus and REQUIRES they purchase a food plan. The cheapest food plan was $1,200. ... $800.00 of which were admin fees. So, she had $400.00 food credit out of the manditory $1,200. food plan.

It is all al scam.

🙂
 
Originally posted by: KarenMarie
My daughter bought a book at PSU last year for $125.00 and realized she got the wrong edition. She went to return it after the weekend, and there was no one there to take it back, and they told her to bring it back on Wednesday when the manager was there. She went in on Wednesday and was told my the mananger that she missed the deadline for the full refund. They offered to buy it back for $40.00

But this is the same school that REQUIRES all first year students to live on campus and REQUIRES they purchase a food plan. The cheapest food plan was $1,200. ... $800.00 of which were admin fees. So, she had $400.00 food credit out of the manditory $1,200. food plan.

It is all al scam.

🙂
Click to expand...

That's when you get smart and change colleges.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top